It’s a new day. Pick yourself back up. There’s a lot to do. What’s next? 🇺🇸
Marina Epelman 
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @pratik Forming coalition governments with shitty smaller parties is not unheard of in a parliamentary system.
AFAIK Luxon hasn’t engaged in an insurrection and expressed a desire to jail his political opposition for self-serving reasons, though, and that’s a key difference.
I can “wait out” a government I disagree with. Waiting out a dictator — and/or his installed Supreme Court picks — is far trickier.
Democracy itself is in the ballot this year, and I’m afraid it might lose.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @manton I spent several weeks there a number of years back.
It’s an incredibly beautiful country. Certainly worth a trip, even if it’s just for a vacation.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @manton While circumstances didn’t allow for it and I never made the jump, I actually did (casually) look into immigration requirements during the Obama years when the political climate wasn’t really a factor for me.
I gather they’ve raised requirements a bit since then, but my impression at the time was that they really wanted tech workers and their visa requirements reflected that.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @pratik Oh yeah, I’m under no illusion that xenophobia-driven politics is a uniquely American thing. And, even here, it certainly pre-dates Trump.
I’d feel a bit more sanguine about that if we weren’t so susceptible to a full-government takeover by an emboldened far right that has expressed outright hostility toward the democratic process.
My vote in 2024 will be driven by my desire to vote again in 2028, if that makes sense.
And, by that measure… I’m worried.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @pratik I can think of many things that could get somebody’s goat about the current political climate, particularly as somebody who isn’t white, but it’s not clear to me how I (or Manton) have “laid waste” to this country.
At any rate, I’m not actually planning to move to NZ any time soon. That was gallows humor borne from a sense of helplessness and despair.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @pratik I’d appreciate it if you didn’t claim that I was “laying waste” to my country simply because of the color of my skin.
I haven’t got a clue where that came from (you know very little about me other than that I am very concerned about Trump regaining power), and was trying to move past it delicately by not calling it out explicitly, but if you want to do the whole collective-blame-based-on-ethnicity thing you will find a more receptive audience for that elsewhere.
Lee Schneider @pratik Need a shirt like that. Also a pair of pants and a hat if they made one.
💬 John Philpin @pratik they ain’t gonna last long with what they are doing. The whole country has lost its way … #JustAnOpinion .. that is not only mine.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @pratik You were talking about two specific individuals (“one white person advising another white person”) seeking refuge “after laying waste” to this country.
https://micro.blog/pratik/40480107
If you misspoke, so be it. We’ve all done it. But it’s not as if your words were ambiguous. As written, the meaning couldn’t have been more plain.
If you didn’t intend to imply collective blame based on ethnicity then that didn’t come across in what you wrote.
I’m still trying to assume good intent…
Jeff C. 🇺🇦 @pratik Okay. Thanks for explaining.
Yeah, I’m definitely not a billionaire, nor part of the tech bro VC crowd you’re thinking of. I can understand why that garnered your notice as I’ve heard about that talk.
I visited there for several weeks in 2009 and completely fell in love with the place. I (somewhat casually) looked into immigrating there even then, when politics wasn’t a factor at all. I still get emails about it.
If I left the US — for any reason — it’d be on my short list.
