I really, really hope that this time they mean it. I really hope that celebrities who claim they will leave the United States if Trump wins actually pull the trigger (Oops! Bad choice of words) and leave the United States.
God! I'd love to be on the dock or at the airport to see them off, wouldn't you? It would be like the side-splitting comedy "Team America: World Police" written and directed by Trey Parker, where all the radical left actors like Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, and Sean Penn, form the Film Actors Guild (FAG) that supports "peace" through the use of weapons of mass destruction courtesy of Kim Jon Il. In the end, they all get their comeuppance in a very satisfying way.
In 2016, we experienced the same thing. At least 20 A-list celebrities promised they would leave if Trump won. Well, Trump won and they're all still here.
"Many said they'd move to Canada (Lena Dunham, Snoop Dogg), some suggested Europe (Spain for Amy Schumer, Italy for Omari Hardwick) or Africa (Samuel L. Jackson), and one even said Jupiter would be the ideal destination (Cher)," reported The Hollywood Reporter at the time.
“My act will change because I will need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain or somewhere. It’s beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It’s just too crazy," said Amy Schumer in 2016. She's still here, annoying everyone.
In 2016, Samuel L. Jackson sounded serious: “If that mother****er becomes president, I’m moving my black a** to South Africa.”
His a** is still here.
So the track record for left-wing would-be expatriates in 2016 was pretty awful. Who's going to fly away this time? Or not?
Barbara Streisand recently told late-night host Stephen Colbert, “I will move. I can’t live in this country if he became president.”
Cher told The Guardian, “If he gets in, who knows? This time I will leave [the country].” The problem is both of them also said they'd leave in 2016 if Trump won. They're still here.
Do they know the internet is forever?
Most of this is blather, of course, But it's worse this time because the hysteria has touched more people. Bushra Seddique, an immigrant from Afghanistan, talked to irrational people who fear political violence, gay people being persecuted, or some other hysterical, anti-Trump nonsense.
Many of the people I spoke with told me they fear political violence. Cynthia, also from South Carolina, said: “My perspective is that he did encourage people to take over the Capitol. If Trump were to lose, I would be concerned about far more widespread violence.” She and her husband are considering moving to the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada, starting with six-month visas. They will stay in the Pacific Northwest of the United States around election time and make their final move from there. Tony Proscio, a 70-year-old from New York, told me that a second Trump presidency is one of several reasons that he and his husband may soon move to London, where they have visited many times and have a good number of friends. “When you’re two men married to each other, it’s not hard to imagine how that could go badly for you,” Tony told me by phone during a recent trip to London to meet with realtors. He said he was very worried about whether Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision that legalized same-sex marriage, can survive a future Supreme Court, if Trump makes yet more appointments.
Margaret, 83, a Floridian who is retired from medicine, said that if Trump wins, she will be leaving the country as soon as she can. Like Pamela, she is considering Spain. “I don’t trust him. I don’t think that he knows what he’s doing,” Margaret told me.
Their fears are unfounded and illogical. Their views reflect profound ignorance of America, its people, and the system of government that sustains it. I can't blame them, though. The "hair-on-fire" rhetoric coming from the Democrats has not only terrified the weak-minded, but a case can be made that rhetoric led directly to the attempts on Trump's life.
In 1964, when the Warren Commission on Kennedy's assassination was completing its work, some members objected to the light touch some commissioners placed on the city of Dallas and the wild rhetoric coming from "Dallas News" publisher Ted Dealey. He called JFK every name in the book and hinted that he wanted to be a dictator and would destroy the country.
Lee Oswald, an avid news reader, could very well have gotten the message that the world would be better off with John Kennedy dead. At the very least, he thought killing Kennedy would make him welcome in Cuba or Russia.
The point is simple: spewing hateful, hysterical rhetoric against Trump has terrified some people enough that they are dead serious about leaving the country.
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