I Moved To Europe To Escape U.S. Politics. Four Years Later, I’ve Come To A Terrifying Realization.

It was June of 2020 when I realized I no longer wanted to live in the United States.

Riding out the pandemic in a guest bedroom at my parents’ house, I’d spent the summer watching in horror as half the country protested the violent murder of George Floyd and the other half mystifyingly seemed to celebrate it. Donald Trump was up for reelection, a race it seemed he might win despite already having been impeached. Rampant disinformation and denial swirled around COVID-19, which by then had already killed well over half a million people globally.

The pivotal moment came when, on a rare trip out of the house as the family’s designated grocery shopper, I drove past a dozen children gathered on a neighborhood corner. All appeared to be under the age of 12 or so. They waved signs in the air bringing attention to Floyd’s murder and called out to cars driving past. A bored adult fiddled with their phone on a lawn chair perched a few yards away. None of their parents, it seemed, had cared to join them.

I honked as I drove by and pumped my fist out the window. Then, as soon as I was out of sight, I pulled over and sobbed in the car.

Three months later, I was boarding a one-way flight to Spain with my dog and all the belongings I could stuff into two large suitcases. I’d decided I was done — done watching people I’d considered close friends passionately defend harmful racist and misogynistic views, done living under a government that I felt held no value for my life as a woman, done fighting for what I considered basic human rights only to watch them be stripped away, one by one.

If this is the type of country the majority of the population wants to live in, I thought, let them have it. But I’m opting out.

Yet soon after I left, I began to feel a sticky sense of guilt that I’d left behind countless women who shared my despair but had no way out. I was fortunate enough to have access to an EU passport (my father is Italian) and the financial means to leave. I was painfully aware, as I remain to this day, of the monumental privilege I possess. Even from 4,000 miles away, I found myself unable to detach.

When Donald Trump lost the November 2020 election, it should have brought some sense of reprieve. It didn’t. As a sexual assault survivor, I grappled with the idea that nearly half the country — my peers — had rallied behind a man who is alleged to have raped dozens of women and a child as young as 13.

I have substantially more autonomy as a woman in Spain than I did in the so-called land of the free. I visit the pharmacy once per month to purchase my preferred birth control over the counter; the entire process takes less than two minutes, and I pay about $4 for a 28-day supply. Gynecological care, including STI testing and cancer screening, are free and easily accessible. If I ever choose to have a child, my partner and I will both be entitled to 16 weeks of paid parental leave. Thanks to common-sense abortion rights, I’ll never have to worry about being denied care for life-threatening pregnancy complications.

My heart broke for all American women after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Having struggled to get a basic birth control prescription prior to moving abroad, I’m familiar with the hoops women were forced to jump through even before the decision was overturned. As a 19-year-old victim of a violent rape that put me in the hospital, Planned Parenthood was my sole avenue for follow-up medical care. I shudder to think what will happen to the next generation of women as they face these challenges.

In the wake of the outcry surrounding Roe v. Wade’s reversal, the idea of Trump winning another term in 2024 seemed unfathomable. Surely, I thought, America would rally around its women in their time of need. Tuning in to various global media outlets, it felt like the whole world was on the same page; a survey in Denmark, for example, showed just 7% of respondents would vote for Trump if eligible, and his support was only slightly higher at 17% in Spain and 22% in Australia. Even polling in Italy, currently the epicenter of a troubling far-right extremist movement in Western Europe, capped support for Trump at just 24%.

I didn’t expect to be wrong. I certainly didn’t expect to see so many American women blindly pledging allegiance to an administration that openly intends to suppress their rights.

“I’ll teach my daughter how to track her period. About protected sex. I’ll teach her about God and his miracles,” one female friend from my hometown wrote on social media the morning after the 2024 election.

“Tracking my period and learning God’s miracles didn’t help me as a terrified 19-year-old slipping in and out of consciousness in an emergency room,” I messaged her privately. She didn’t respond.

The more time I spend traveling the world, the more I realize the United States exists within a bubble — one that has been steadily infiltrated by misinformation from Russia intended to push more voters toward Trump. Americans are rarely challenged to face perspectives originating from outside their field of view. Nationalism is heralded as a virtue, while globalism is a four-letter word. To someone with this kind of limited worldview, propaganda may be impossible to discern from the truth.

A woman who subscribes to Christian ideology and has healthy children from uncomplicated pregnancies may have a hard time empathizing with women facing more complex circumstances. If it doesn’t affect her; why should she care? This, by and large, is the American sentiment.

With every year that passes, visits to my original home feel more like a trip to a foreign country. I spend the entirety of my time on U.S. soil riddled with fear that I’ll get into a car accident or rupture an ovarian cyst and rack up hospital bills so extreme they’ll drain my life savings. My heart skips a beat whenever I notice a holster strapped to a stranger’s hip at the grocery store. Friends jokingly ask me to bring them back to Spain in my suitcase, but their voices are laced with real anguish.

Each time I glance at my American passport, I’m reminded that as long as it remains in my possession, I’ll forever have to pay taxes to a government that would rather let me die than allow me to end a life-threatening pregnancy. While Trump made brief remarks during his campaign about ending double taxation for foreign residents, economic experts warn it’s unlikely the promise will materialize. Given the long list of broken campaign promises from his 2016 term, I won’t hold my breath. Renouncing my citizenship is a thought that’s crossed my mind more than once. However, it comes at the cost of no longer being able to visit my family without a visa.

The impact of the 2024 election will reach far beyond U.S. borders, digging its grubby fingernails deep into the life I’ve built halfway across the world. Many fear Trump’s win will embolden the far-right extremists amassing support across Europe. Italy’s ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy party, which took power in 2022 after winning 26% of the vote, has already chipped away at reproductive rights by giving anti-abortion activists the legal right to enter clinics and making it illegal to access surrogacy services either within Italy or abroad. Snowballing nationalism could even spell the end of the European Union, setting the entire continent back decades and leading to a catastrophic economic collapse.

Experts further predict that as Trump’s economic policies drive up consumer prices and interest rates in the States, they’ll also wreak havoc on the European economy. Ending America’s fight against the climate crisis is a dark omen for the entire world, which feels all too tangible now in Spain as the whole country reels from the loss of more than 200 lives in historic flooding linked to global warming.

Friends from Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon ask why my country has turned its back on them as they face invasions and genocide led by dictators expected to be handed even more autonomy by the Trump administration. I wish I had an answer.

Four years after leaving the U.S., I find myself right back where I began: reeling from the impact of an American sociopolitical crisis. But this time is different. I’m no longer under the impression that I can outrun the 77-million-person mob that voted in favor of racism, misogyny, violence and corruption. All I can do is join the rest of the world in bracing for what comes next.

Lisa Bernardi is a freelance writer specializing in personal finance and international relocation. Lisa’s multifaceted professional life frequently takes her across the globe; she has lived in four countries, speaks three languages, and holds two international degrees. She is currently based in Barcelona.

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