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President Bush's decisive re-election last week has produced a startling, arguably laughable phenomenon among the "Blue Folk" (far lefties, left-center, and even staunch centrists who sang the "anyone-but-Bush" tune gleefully and preached the virtues of the Dean throne, and then the Kerry throne) or disaffected citizens of the "Blue States" (those states going for Kerry, whatever the margin): an exodus. In most cases, to Canada.

The Expatriation Movement is nothing new. Americans have been known in the past to... well... become citizens of other nations for various reasons. American Jews, for example, heeding nationalistic cries after the fledgling United Nations created a mandate for the Israeli State, joined many of their colleagues in the global Jewish Diaspora, flocking to the historic homeland in various waves of immigration throughout the republic's turbulent history. Liberia was carved violently out of coastal west Africa as a "homeland" for freed American slaves to settle... albeit at the expense of the native tribes who, for over 130 years of the republic's history, struggled against the coastal Americo-Liberian ruling class. Americans such as myself grew up hearing about how America is a "nation of immigrants" - images of huddled families on New York's (or New Jersey's?) Ellis Island applying for entrance to the "land of opportunity" under the benevolent shadow of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from our first ally, the French Republic. But, for one reason or another, Americans have left America to settle Elsewhere (wherever that may be). A more well-known example is Lee Harvey Oswald, who held Soviet citizenship for several years allegedly due to his pro-Marxist tendencies (unless you're a conspiracy theorist, in which case you most likely assert that he was under the jurisdiction of the CIA or some other rogue government agency as part of his "grand role" as a scapegoat in the assassination of JFK). And let's not forget the Confederados, southerners and their descendants who fled the post-Civil War anarchy of the conquered and humbled Confederate States of America and accepted the invitation of Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II to settle in and around the South American nation's coastal regions and Amazonas frontier to take up cotton farming. Another more level-headed example is David Sedaris, who packed his bags for France, as you can read in Me Talk Pretty One Day.

But now, will there be a new, historical record for emigration from the United States? Will the disenfranchised Blues flee north to Canada? Or will they stay and fight against America's recent right-leaning tendencies, hoping for a rebirth of legitimate left-of-center alternatives that are just as appealing (or more appealing) than the right? Will other nations (Canada, in particular) open arms wide to accept a flight of espresso-drinking intellectual elites and culture war-weary gay couples seeking the oh-so-tempting flavor of left-center policies? Will the center and right-of-center (slight) majority that now apparently prevails in the 50 states cling to the ankles of expatriates as they near the Canadian border, begging them to remain? Or will a general "good riddance" be uttered from Anchorage to Miami, and Bangor to Honolulu? Such questions leave us pondering the very purposes and importance of citizenship, patriotism, and idealism... and apparently the Reds and Blues (if such a distinction exists between persons or states) may see things differently.

The supposed migration of Blues from mourning Blue states or triumphant Red states leaves one thinking that, to these would-be expatriates, citizenship must be as discardable and dynamic as a favored brand of detergent. Is it so? Granted, citizenship, and how it is discarded or acquired, varies greatly from country to country. I'm willing to bet that most people reading this are American citizens for the same reason I am: they were born in America. And why was I born in America? Well, in my case, my parents were also born in America. And my grandparents. Even my great-grandparents. After that, it gets a little fuzzy... but I can at least claim to be a fourth or fifth-generation American citizen. And like many Americans born and raised in the latter half of the twentieth century, interstate movements were a part of growing up. "Childhood" began in Arkansas, continued in Florida, and ended in Illinois. "Adulthood" began in Illinois and Iowa, and has now settled (for the moment) in Washington. This mixture of growth environments has led to an unholy blend of an occasional Southern twang, a memory of manatees, and Midwestern pride all manifested in the same Anglo-Saxon body, planted in a sea of coffee-drinking hippies in the shadow of the Space Needle. But all of these are distinctly "American" for the simple reason that they are all characteristics forged within the borders of the United States. Surely that does not make me solely an American. There are other Americans around me who were not born here, or who did not have ancestors living here. In such times of global immigration, my past apparently does not anchor me to the 50 states.

Thus, perhaps I should be a Blue moving north. As a homosexual, my options for living and settling down with a partner (not that I'm saying Z and I are ready for that) are increasingly constrained, especially if we want to enjoy some of the fruits of a legal recognition of our relationship. Right now, we're limited to marriage in Massachusetts or civil unions in Vermont. I, unfortunately, am not applying to graduate school in either state, so such benefits remain distant on the horizon, at best. The growing number of Red states and Blue states barring such forms of legal recognition has grown (even including next-door Oregon). Though I'd love to have legal recognition of any same-sex partnership I seek to undertake (God, I'm making it sound like baking a cake...), is it absolutely necessary? Maybe instead I could just buck it up with lawyer fees, put Z explicitly in my will and appoint him my guardian (should my brain someday poop out), and then seek joint ownership of a house where we can populate each floor with cats, giving them odd names like Borneo, Puffy, Fang, and Mathilda. It's certainly an option (though the kitty names should be negotiated, I feel). It's considerably less effort than the time and effort invested in applying for Canadian citizenship. But, in some cases, the rewards for the latter effort are much more appealing.

Canada seems the most attractive choice for disheartened Blues.

Geographically, it is the closest English-speaking nation. Cultural values, though more left-leaning than the U.S., are similar. Government structure is slightly different than what Americans learned about in social studies... but a democracy is obviously a democracy. Folks such as myself, who look longingly at the parliamentary form of government with every filibuster, pork-laden bill, or bipartisan spat that afflicts Congress, the House of Commons and (hopefully someday directly-elected) Senate that make up the Canadian Parliament are quite appealing. The comparatively smooth interprovincial relations could also make the regular conflicts (often court-settled) between incompatible state laws in the U.S. look positively archaic. For homosexuals, of the thirteen primary political subdivisions that make up Canada (ten provinces, three territories... I'll tell you their capitols and principal cities later), seven (accounting for around 85% of the total Canadian population) have court decisions or provincial laws permitting legal gay marriage (Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, and now Saskatchewan thanks to a recent court decision). Some half-joking and entirely-serious groups are gearing up to lure gays and Bush-hating Blues north to the future. There's even a "program" to set up willing Americans with a quick marriage to a single Canadian, presumably to speed up the citizenship process and ensure one more left-leaner moves north to vote for the Liberal or New Democratic Party. Some Blues are vowing to stay, for whatever reason. The real number of those wanting to leave due to the fifty-year decline of the political left varies based on who you ask. Some say it's a fad, other's cite it as a growing trend. One thing's for sure, though: for now, this Blue is staying put.

Why? Well, why not? At this point in my feeble life, staying put seems more prudent (uh-oh, there it is... James' ten-dollar word). Right now, my goals are simple: transform myself into Dr. James and coax Z into becoming (metaphorically, of course, since I love his Y chromosome and all that goes with it) the next Mrs. [James' last name]. Those can be done (albeit the latter with no legal recognition) right now in Washington. Perhaps Dr. and Mrs. James would like to move north in the future, but that's jumping the gun a little, isn't it? My world is relatively stable and supportive - my life is secure. I am content here - though the right-leaners are also (slowly) getting a grip on my current home here in Washington state, I do not feel any more threatened or any less safe. I can still hold Z's hand in the gay-friendly areas of Seattle. Though Republicans now have a sharper hold in the Federal Congress, the FMA seems to have dwindled in the face of various state constitutional amendments.

Plus, should an emigration from the U.S. be in store in the future, it need not be to Canada. Granted, my language skills are limited to... well... English... so that pretty much eliminates over half the globe there. But Canada, while the most geographically appealing choice, is not the sole choice. Stable, flourishing democracies in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, and South Africa beckon as obvious destinations. Some fleeing Blues are using their ancestry to speed up the process. Ireland, for example, has a propensity to "fast track" the "repatriation" of Irish (or Irish descendants) who fled during abysmal economic and sociocultural conditions in the past two centuries of the island's turbulent history. Now, as the shining star and economic pride of the EU15, Ireland is the coolest place to settle in Europe. For me, peering back beyond my great-grandparents generally gets into some guessing, legends, and sheer hand-waving. Recessive alleles for red hair on my mother's side, for example, leave us guessing "Ireland". There are unconfirmed rumors of Scotland as well. One branch on my mother's side we've traced back to Normandy in and around 1060, moving to lower England in 1066 with William the Conqueror's forces, ripping land from the Anglo-Saxons following the Battle of Hastings. So, (big surprise) England is in my past. There are decent records also implicating Wales for my existence, and slightly-less reputable records implicating the presence of a few Choctaw and Cherokee tribal alleles in my genotype (though, to look at my phenotype, they must be buried too deep in my junk-laden genome to make their voices heard). My intra-American predecessors, by all accounts, lived briefly in Virginia, Maryland, and central Illinois, spending longer (and more recent) bouts in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri. Post-Civil War carpetbaggers? You never know. So, at best, ancestry can get me a few guffaws at the Irish consulate and a gentle, distant hand-wave from Queen Elizabeth II or a slip down Princess Diana's memorial fountain in Hyde Park.

My blood has no real ties, then. So what about politics and culture? Australia holds the appeal of history and biology - unique settlement of a fascinating island-continent. Marsupials, Aborigines, the works. Sure, I'd have to learn to drive "British style", but the same would hold true for New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland. On the downside, if I'm a fleeing Blue seeking left-of-centerness, I'd have to take note that the center-right Liberal Party under John Howard was just elected overwhelmingly to a fourth stint in government. The Australian left-of-center Labor Party is as dejected as the Democrats here. New Zealand has even more allure as a "different, wonderful" geographic and cultural locale. Reconciliation with the Maori and salvage of their culture is at a much more honorable stage than that of the Australian government's programs (or lack thereof) with the Aborigines. Government and policy are not reported easily in America, but information is still easily accessible for the curious mind. Government is currently left-of-center, and sociocultural trends may be more favorable to expatriate American Blues than Australia in the current global climate. But, geographically it's a substantial move for non-Hawaiian Americans (the same goes for Australia). Jon Stewart's new textbook spoof, America (the Book): a Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, refers to New Zealand as "Australia's Canada." Thus, by that light, we coin the analogy "New Zealand is to Australia as Canada is to the United States." With both Australia and the U.S. recently electing right-of-center governments, expatriate American blues may have to compete with disenfranchised Australian Labor-voters, abandoning posh Sydney highrise apartments for the center-left atmosphere of Auckland.

So now what are we left with? For fleeing American homosexuals, South Africa’s constitution explicitly spells out the rights and protections under law for gays, and the nation itself, while it is facing some growing pains in the post-apartheid reconciliation era, is one of Africa’s most stable, prosperous democracies, and a beacon of relative tolerance in the darkness of the continent’s increasingly polarized homophobic policies. English is one of South Africa’s dozen or so official languages, but a move there may be preferable to Dutch speakers, who can easily adapt to learn Afrikaans; also, the handful of fleeing Blues who happened to be fluent in Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, or one of the other ten or so native Bantu languages will find a high rise in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, or Durban most appealing.

So what must I do? What are any Blues to do? Fight or flight? Stay or go? On the one hand, if the United States really is too far right-of-center for you, perhaps you should depart. But, recall that voters can indeed be fickle. In four years, the Democrats could have a revolution of their own akin to the 1994 Republican Revolution. Then again, in four years, the Democrats could be squeezed so far out of power that not even Barack Obama can save them. The key here, to me, is to wait and see. Personally, I have not yet reached my threshold to flee. There may not be “fight” left in me, but there is enough tolerance left, for now, to keep my Canadian adventures limited to north-of-the-border vacations.

Posted by James at November 6, 2004 03:18 PM