Is it in the interests of the US to play nice? Is that even morally correct? Regardless, this is a sign that it's no longer doing so.
Wait.
You just need to look at the countries that require a tourist(!) visa of Americans, the vast majority are irrelevant. I can't wait to go to Eritrea, too bad I need a visa :(
Tourism is not a big deal either, I think freedom to work/live is a much better metric, but obviously the USA is not great in that regard. The USA is the strongest passport because it is the only passport that allows permanent residency and/or visa free travel in the US, aside from Canada and a few billionaire tax haven islands or other stragglers.
>maybe even culturally
Yes, in my country young women have an American accent from watching TikTok.
Very much perspective depdendent. I could name 50 countries I'd be much more interested in spending time in, and you could not pay me enough to live there. From my perspective, it's not a bad passport, but there are plenty better.
It just doesn’t feel very safe down here anymore. Watching ICE roll through in full equipment on armored vehicles during Mardi Gras this year was a serious wake up call. That’s not the kind of show of force you do for shits and giggles. That’s textbook “send them a message.”
I know you probably know all of this, yet your response is vastly oversimplifying the issue. You would’ve just quit your job, packed up your family and belongings, sold your house if you own one, uprooted your kid(s) if you’re a parent, said goodbye to any friends/family here, and left weeks into the administration for a country you aren’t a citizen of? Just like that?
If it was just moving to another state, even though that is also not without its challenges, I could see an argument for that. That’s probably more akin to what it’s like moving around Western Europe/the EU. But permanently leaving the US is no small matter.
But I've shifted from "it sounds nice to have an expat retirement in one of these places 10-15 years from now" to "I should start looking into what this would look like as the chance I'd want or need to do this sooner is no longer 0%". And that's a huge indictment on the state of affairs here in my mind.
If by failure you mean fascist and authoritarian, America could still reach you.
Yeah but the effort just went up 10x
Besides I don’t think they are moving to resist the fascism. It’s to seek an alternative and carry on living.
Either enemies are going to make moves in our absence, or we are going to pray upon former allies (next orange man takes his trade wars kinetic).
So I'd rather still be in the exponentially larger (population & land) isolated continental power surrounded mostly by water and smaller states.
Imagine complaining about America and then fleeing to an ethnostate.
I certainly don’t begrudge them that—I’m grateful my people have their ethnostate. My ancestors have been in Bangladesh for 25,000 years—I shouldn’t (and in fact don't). need a visa to go back.
It’s not about ethnicity though, it’s familial lineage. If your grandfather was Bangladeshi and moved to Ireland and was a citizen, then his descendants moved to the US, they would be entitled to Irish citizenship.
How many Bangladeshis had Irish citizenship in 1950? Almost none. Ireland was 87% Irish as recently as 2006, probably more if you exclude residents with UK citizenship. Virtually anyone who doesn’t have Irish citizenship but whose grandparents did have Irish citizenship is ethnically Irish. For most European countries, there is no difference between “ethnicity” and “familial lineage” until recently.
> Middle School Affinity Groups: BIPOC, Black Girl Magic, Neurodiversity and Disabled Alliance, Rainbow Affinity, Young Men of Color Affinity
You haven't explained anything, you just keep repeating a vague premise and saying if someone doesn't agree they 'must not understand'.
I would be shocked if it’s even above 10%.
There’s a reason people are willing to spend so much on golden visas with the pathway to citizenship.
"Individual investors must make a minimum contribution of €600,000 to the national development fund set up by the government and prove 36 months of residency. Alternatively, there is an expedited route which requires a contribution of €750,000 and evidence of 12 months residency" [1]
Although, just like certain asset classes correlate strongly, certain countries are geopolitically, economically, militarily tied at the hip and will both rise and fall together.
I wouldnt consider anywhere western a good hedge against America going down coz it has a really good chance of getting dragged down with it.
Even if we view the current situation as temporary and it goes away in 4 years, the knowledge that a large chunk of the population is just looking for an excuse to harass immigrants and destroy their life regardless of citizenship status, pulls America down to the level of many other places, which maybe have similar issues but do much better on other things.
The vast majority of people in the US still see their future in the US. Dual citizenship, much less actually living abroad, is still an extremely niche topic and basically only a thing amongst upper middle class and above professionals and tech workers.
And as chaotic and concerning as many political events may be, the idea that the US will become “a failed state” is pretty divorced from the actual reality of what that term means. If the US becomes a failed state, trust me, the rest of the world will be too.
Becoming a failed state overnight? Probably not, I agree. Midterm elections are approaching and the federal government has already shown its willingness to deploy the military to big cities for intimidation purposes. Also don't forget: our current President also tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. I feel like we get stuck in this "nothing ever happens" loop while our liberties slowly get stripped away and even after a thing happens, we delude ourselves by saying it won't actually get that bad. Frogs in a pot.
I really don’t foresee a scenario where America turns into Somalia or Haiti in the near future.
In this case, "going bankrupt" is the dissolution of the United States. We definitely won't be able to predict when it happens, and it may be unlikely, but IMO the likelihood of it happening ticks up the more I see how the federal government is attempting to crush dissent.
Not to mention completely apolitical things like the debt crisis, which will be unmanageable after a certain point. Our biggest line item in the budget is now paying interest on the debt. And we just passed the OBBB which increased deficit spending by $3.4T over ten years.
Would people today tolerate tyranny to avoid it?
The closest analog to an archetypical failed state in American history is probably the Bleeding Kansas situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas
Even then, today’s divisions in America are more urban-rural than geographically separated.
Any country can swiftly become a failed a state when ruled by someone idiotic enough. The question for the USA is whether or not it can survive the current pressures it faces. There a social, political, economic, and geopolitical pressures on the country at the same time. Thinking that the USA could become a failed state isn’t far fetched at all.
“Collapse happens slowly at first, and then all at once”
That isn't even remotely true, and if you think it is, I think you're in an extreme information bubble. The vast, vast majority of people are just going about their daily lives and in are in no way whatsoever thinking of half of the population as fascist or communist.
Fall of democracy to dictatorship is a different problem than a failed state, and both that and balkanization are more likely than a failed state scenario (though balkanization could result in one or more failed states among the successors.)
I mean, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.
Just an anecdote, also with bias, but almost every American I've met outside of the US (from all walks of life, from uber rich to almost homeless) seems to agree with the idea that the US is approaching a "no turning back" point, and cites that as being the reason they moved away.
> If the US becomes a failed state, trust me, the rest of the world will be too.
I'm fairly sure every citizen of a huge empire felt like that too, through the ages. Rome citizens surely felt the same, until it turned out that no single entity is powerful enough that the entire world would be "failed" just because one nation failed.
Most Americans abroad tend to be there because of work, or because their partners are from the country. The number of people able to move abroad because of recent political issues is extremely small, because that sort of life flexibility is not available to the vast, vast majority of people.
I mean, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.
Where would they go? Immigrating to another first world country is pretty expensive and difficult. Just picking up and moving somewhere abroad is really not an option for 99% of people.
But if we had a time machine, I'm sure we could find people saying "If Rome becomes a failed state, trust me, the rest of the world will be too." unironically.
And I don't know how you define "fall", but the standards of living and things like technological knowledge, culture etc basically cratered for several centuries; it sure does sound like a fall to me. "Failed state" is a modern term that doesn't quite have a direct analogy, but even so what was going on in most Roman provinces (and ultimately even Rome itself) could be reasonably described as such - stable governance would also take centuries to reassert itself.
The administrative consensus created by FDR is breaking down, and it is not yet clear what will replace it. (Trump is unlikely to be the main architect of the new administrative consensus.) To people who cannot help but view everything through the lens of the old consensus, it looks like the entire US society is breaking down, but the US is very good at invention and reinvention, so once the outlines of a new administrative consensus forms, state capacity will return very quickly.
I'm repeating George Friedman here.
it's definitely not big numbers but it is starting to get in the common black zeitgeist i guess. to some extent.
lots of little channels like this popping up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HplzpcXoE
i semi-expect one big channel to come out of in the next 4-5 years, and you might start to see some kind of real traction at that point.
M.A.D should be practiced in policy more often, without having leverage - there's no reason to represent you.
Still, the US certainly isn't doing itself any favours on rep lately
US Passport Power Falls to Historic Low - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45595746 - Oct 2025 (169 comments)
https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyDestination.php?p1=us...
It's less weird if you know that the three Pacific island countries were formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands which was administered by the US for decades following the Second World War and today have Compacts of Free Association with the US.
That is just false. EU passports can travel to USA Visa free and that’s 27 countries right there.
edit: Oh unless you count ESTA as a type of visa. You have to fill out a 5min always-approved form online.
Freedom to work/live and consular access in places where people want to be is way more important.
The way it was for tens of thousands of years before the last couple centuries.
latexr•3mo ago
> The Henley Passport Index is the original, authoritative ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index
According to the article, the US passport was at the top of the list a decade ago, last year it was in seventh place, and now it’s in twelfth.
Novosell•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago