Safe havens
As the reality of the US election result sinks in, I am thinking about the state of the world around us and what options remain out there.
The U.S. election result was a shock to me. It should not have been. And yet, in the last month leading up to the election, I really believed Kamala had momentum. So many celebs had been on the campaign trail, there was much talk that women would vote first and foremost for reproductive rights. In the end, it was the economy stupid. And not the economic indicators which academics pour over, and journalists to a large degree focus on, but what people see and feel on the supermarket shelves. This I had experienced myself last month in America, and even then, even then — I had still hoped that a different outcome might be possible. On an emotional level, it is a bitter pill to swallow. The mathematics mean that many women voted for the possibility that their own rights to determine what to do with their bodies might be taken away from them. It means that some fellow mothers of teenagers girls did not think about “what if it is my daughter in a red state?” when they voted. On a more painful level, I think, is the realisation that for so many men all over this planet (by no means limited to the U.S.), the idea of a female leader remains an unpleasant one. I was told recently by someone whose opinion I genuinely value and whose intellect I respect, that a woman cannot win because we women are inherently “too emotional”. Yes, many, many men really do still believe this. So I suppose, looking back, we should have known that a woman, a woman of color, a woman who represented the White House of a deeply unpopular sitting president, couldn’t do it. And yet, we all hoped.
This fall I have spent a bit of time in the Balkans, for personal reasons, thinking about a potential real estate investment. As I spoke with locals involved in that market, a few things became really apparent. People with a little extra capital, all over the world, are searching for safe havens. Now, the definition of a safe haven is a very personal one. For some, it is here in the EU, with guarantees of state-subsidised universal healthcare, provisions of early childcare, and pensions which allow elderly to live out their days with basic needs more or less covered. For others, it is the concept of finding that island, far away from wars and pollution, not needing anything from that state, other than a safe place to park one’s remaining assets and generally be left alone. The vast majority of Americans will not change anything about their daily lives once Trump becomes president again, just like they didn’t leave when he was elected for the first time. But what is clear is we are entering into a new era, not just in the U.S., of more instability and a lot more unknowns. What will really happen to healthcare (frankly, already broken in a country where if you get sick without money or insurance you are already fucked) if a vaccine-denier is put in charge? What will happen in the future to our planet if the U.S. really pulls out of the Paris Climate accords? How will the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine come to an end, or will they? I read this morning that China has met Trump’s election with a combination of curiosity and trepidation. Will he really start a trade war? Do American consumers even know what that means? I saw a video of Putin from a summit in Russia, positively beaming that his boy won. The crypto boys won. The Musk fan boys won. In general, it is not a good month to be a woman, if there was ever a good month to be a woman.
We have made so much progress, so many women are entirely financially independent, have the feeling that all doors really are open, and then something like this happens and you are reminded: it wasn’t that long ago when we really didn’t have any of the same rights as men. A dear friend invited me to a play this week (The Manhattan Project, Akademietheater), and it was well done but long and all-male, about the past, and I had a hard time watching it. I wanted to see some women on that stage, not a man wearing a dress. The set looked like a clock and was set in the past and it did feel like someone turning everything backwards. I want to be able to tell my daughters different messages than those I pleaded with my mother about decades ago. I want to tell them the world has changed, but it has not.
I don’t dare make any predictions, but the entire situation doesn’t look good. Russia is now in a position to basically demand a peace that meets all of its desires, and Ukraine won’t have a whole lot of negotiating room if the U.S. doesn’t have its back anymore, and if I was sitting in Kyiv, I wouldn’t know what to expect from the Trump administration. Musk on the call to Putin is just the hammer on the nail in the coffin. He went from sending Starlinks to help Ukrainian troops to wanting to be in the room when his autocrat bro takes half a country and ensures NATO never moves a step closer. Russia appears to be doing just fine. Ukraine is still under deadly attack every night and it is if this is the new norm and no-one is going to do anything about it.
In Georgia, it looks like Russia succeeded in stealing an election; in Moldova, it seems pro-EU voices prevailed, thanks to votes from abroad. I still cannot fully process the news this week of Jews literally being attacked on the streets of a major European city (Amsterdam), the same week we have the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and of Kristallnacht (1938). We as humanity keep zig-zagging to the point that I don’t know anymore what you call progress or regression.
Oh, and Germany’s ruling coalition fell apart. They will call elections, but maybe in a few months. What’s the rush, right?
One thing is clear: there are many many more unknowns now, and I think more and more people will be thinking in a very selfish way, just like how many Americans voted. They will be thinking about themselves and their loved ones and asking what is best for us, rather than what is best for society. When things are built around what is best for society, and then fall apart, slowly, over time (thinking abut healthcare and education at the moment in Austria now, for example), I think people move towards thinking they have to take more into their own hands. So this shift to the right, across the globe, towards populists who frame their world views into us vs. them, it isn’t all that surprising. On an emotional level, you understand why it is happening.
I suppose each of us has to ask that question: what is most important to me? Is it individual concerns for my circle of family and friends, or is it about the kind of society and planet I want to live on? In the U.S., white Democrat-voting middle and upper middle class voters underestimated economic pain, especially of minorities, and expected them to show up for Kamala, but instead many gave their votes to Trump, arguing life under his first term was more affordable than it is now. The wealthy continue to do more than fine. The crypto bros all made a ton on money on Wednesday, and I read something this week about private jet emissions being up several fold. This is the world we live in now, and it is genuinely a challenge to even think what advice to give the next generation because I for one really have no idea which direction this is all even going in.
I do think powerful voices here in Europe recognise the need for the continent to map out its own future, irregardless of who is in charge in Washington. An op-ed (in German) by the leader of Austria’s liberal party speaks to that. But will anything actually change, knowing how slow progress usually is within the bureaucracy of the EU? I really don’t know.
The next few months will be a time of soul searching for many, to come to terms with the new reality and to map out an individual strategy for how one moves forward. Just like many Ukrainians have had to ask themselves: where do I see my future, and what can I do now to move towards that future? A fellow volunteer asked the question on Twitter, what will we do in Europe in 2025 when more Ukrainians arrive and no one is ready for them? To which I replied, with deep and painful cynicism, that simply more Ukrainians will find themselves living in Russia. Those who wanted to and could, left. Those who chose not to or could not, will stay.
The maps of Europe have been redrawn over and over for centuries, and there is no reason to believe this will not continue to happen. Each person will have their own definition of what represents a safe haven, and it would not surprise me if more people start thinking about this, as our world becomes a more unstable and unpredictable place. I am of course, naturally, referring to those who have the luxury to ask themselves such questions. The vast majority of people do not have this option. The families living in Gaza or near Ukraine’s front lines have no such privilege.
I am thinking about what, if anything, we can do for the holidays. I haven’t sent out grocery cards in weeks due to lack of funding (which is totally understandable). At some point, we will need to raise our hands and say, we did what we could when we could. Perhaps I will gather up enough energy to do something for the kids for the holidays, in memory of the late Christopher James who was the original sponsor of our Christmas gifts and activities for Ukrainian kids here in Austria. It is on my to do list.
In the meantime, if you would like to and can still help, we do make sure, still, that €50 supermarket gift cards reach those in need. I still receive texts from those in need every day, unfortunately. Thank you in advance, and yes, every little helps.
I agree with much that was written in this last post. I moved to the US in the late 1990's from Canada, after years of traveling back and forth for business. I thought at first I had a grasp of the scope of the dichotomies, especially with respect to illegal immigration as my first years in the US were in Houston were one could see how both the "left" and "right" exploited the situation in that "illegals" are a source of cheap labor and for others support for "illegals" vicariously fulfilled some sort of belief that the country was progressing. In other words, it appeared that both sides were gaming the system without being held directly responsible.
Instead those who were held responsible were those who paid the bills namely tax payers and those who health insurance premiums were sky high to subsidize the cost of those who crashed hospital "ER"'s as there is a law that says that no one can be denied health care if they go to a hospital ER. When my wife had her first daughter, a pregnant Mexican woman showed up by herself to the ER. She was alone. But, by the end of the day, when I went to see our daughter in the nursery, the viewing room was full of the woman's relatives. Indeed, we moved away from Houston because the situation was so broken as we were told that because our child was white, she could not go to kindergarten, as it was the belief that to offset the advantages of her being white that minorities only could send their children to kindergarten as a way to give them a head start.
I understood some of the rationale for the kindergarten for truly poverty is structuralized in the US via the way taxes are collected and redirected. In Alberta, Canada where I am from, taxes are collected by federal government and redistributed essentially on a per capita basis which over a few generations had ensured that most Canadians have the opportunity for a decent education and access to affordable health care. I believe in the utility of such a system, it's far from perfect but it is good starting point. I don't mean to ramble on rather to give the some background for what I have been witnessing these past 20 years or so years.
The first time I came to really understand the depth of hatred and resentment within some parts of the US is during the Gulf War v2. It was like the situation with all the "if you not with us, you are against us" mentality had combed up how the latent hate that one read between the lines in the history books that discussed racism. IMHO racism in the US never went away it just morphed into the form of tribalism that Thucydides described in his book on the Peloponnesian war. It morphed, and morphed and solidified which is completely understandable in retrospect when one appreciates that the US has only two political parties with each becoming more shrill in their denunciation of the other. IMHO, each side is guilty of mendicity to a large extent. But, until of late, being a white male I was missed the blatant sexism that goes beyond the objectification of woman that most of the western countries are guilty of....
And, to that end, I don't truly understand what I just witnessed, but a large contributing factor to Harris's lost is because of sexism. I had heard before the election that many minorities were uncomfortable with the idea of a woman President. In retrospect, I must concede that the sexism that I am talking about is the kind that is insidious and pervasive and the cause of why many women become bitter as they get older. My mother hated men before she died. My sister often said things about men that caused me to reflect at times even though I often failed to understand what she meant. She often said that "men are never satisfied" and she wasn't talking about sex (more like men like to have their toys).
What I am talking about is not just the constant ying/yang that has been going on between the binary sexes since whenever, I am talking about some sort of collective anger/fear men have toward women as a consequence of the world evolving away from the traditional roles that men and women played.
I could go on about the crazy stuff I heard that some people want done to subjugate women. For example, I heard some states want women to take a pregnancy test when they travel out of a state. I read of a woman who was arrested after she had a miss carriage because they were suspicious of what was the real cause of the miscarriage since apparently she had five children already.
I'm not a sensitive new age guy (SNAG). I am a man, think like a man, like being a man, etc, but rather I am saying that until now I had no idea how far some individuals would go to impose their world view onto the rest of us because of their so call pretend religious belief. The core of faith is choice as the main argument for why God does not reveal itself is that how honest is a person in their actions if they act out of fear. It's interesting how many thousands of dollars people will spend to prevent a woman from having an abortion, and how little those same people will spend to make sure that the baby is properly cared and fed.
Last, I too am frustrated with the lack of progress on addressing the root cause of the rising cost of health care, education and rampant use of hidden taxes to subsidize social programs that have solved nothing. I think the Democrats failed to understand the depth of fear and frustration especially with the younger generation that preserving the status quo was the long term solution for the ever rising cost of living. True, many of the said issues are complicated but virtue signaling is not substance. Biden spending billions of dollars in loan forgiveness for some students does not solve the problem of the extreme cost of post secondary education. Putting a cap on insulin is a good thing, but how many people died before it was done, and it did nothing to lower the over all cost health insurance for most Americans, not address Byzantium rules that govern Medicare. The ACA is a scam for most young people for forcing people to buy insurance with high deductibles is just a way of generating revenue that on paper helps to offset of providing care to lower income people. In reality it just allows the insurance companies to charge more.
Th ironic thing is most Trump supporters I have met, and I have met many never talk about anything but their hatred of the Democrats. I used to hate Parliamentary systems but it does seem to me now that they allow for a population to accept the idea that there may be a range of views on a particular issue and thus to move forward some compromise is needed. Often compromise allows for experimenting with different approaches that may serendipitously open doors to new solutions. This isn't happening in the US. Argumentatively, individual states were once thought to be laboratories for exploring new ideas like marijuana reform laws, but they too suffer from the same bi polar reality distortion condition that a two party state creates.
Perhaps the US will solve some of their internal issues, but my hope is that the rest of the world realizes that the US for many counties is akin to what the Nord Stream pipeline was to Germany.
Thx for your words, Tanja.