Europe

Ich spreche nicht für alle, aber ein "dummer einsprachiger Amerikaner" der nach Europa abhaut verliert (meiner Meinung nach) zumindest das erste Attribut und mit dem zweiten kann ich ganz gut leben.

I don't speak for everyone, but a "dumb monolingual American" that to Europe runs off loses (in my opinion) at least the first attribute and with the second I can quite well live.

The awkward word order of the translation is intentional to more closely mirror the German word order. I promise you, I can also good English speak ;-)

Not sure how serious you are, but just in case...

https://www.englishjobs.se/job-role/it-software-engineering

https://jobs.thelocal.com/search/#results%2F67f4c4740357fbed229a30e9%3Fkw=&loc=sweden&page_num=1

Everyone likes the Netherlands, the Netherlands is fuckin awesome. Good choice!

I'm a senior software engineer interested in moving to the Netherlands. Can you tell me more?

Wow that's interesting. Why did you choose Germany? Was it difficult to find a position?

The trick is to tell them what they want to hear, otherwise you won't get the required permits and paperwork.

Unfortunately, the German bureaucratic clusterfuck does tend to hamstring good intention with stupid regulations carried out to the pedantic letter. It's a bit of a lottery at times whether you'll find yourself dealing with a human or with a relentless rule fetishist, and the more complex a process is, the more people it involves and the greater the chance someone will obstruct.

I'd hope things have improved and I hope they'll improve further. Shame that it's too late for you.

Public transport

Europe is further from the US.

I would not see it so strictly.

Academics for the most part contribute "thought". They are much better at doing so living in freedom outside the US than rotting in a prison cell inside the US, or in one of the crowny countries doing the dirty work for the US.

They are missing in doing the ground work of course. On the other hand they stop contributing to the system with their work, their taxes, their presence giving legitimacy... So it makes the system unstable faster and result in it falling apart, leaving space for something new, faster.

In authoritarian regimes it is very rare that they reform themselves. Usually they collapse, mostly in an ugly way. In the case of the US i don't think that there is currently any hope to be set into reform from inside the system. For every crazed Republican in power we see a Democrat in power who wants to maintain the system, maintain the systemic issues that lead to Trump not once but twice and last but not least is enjoying many of the oppressive and racist policies that were implemented by Trump during his first term. Looking at mass deportations, "the wall", violent crackdowns on peaceful protestors, or looking a bit longer running the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay, continuing the illegal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq...

So in the case of the US there isn't just the extreme-right, there is also the complicit "center" that opposes changing the system and is in part happy with the further pushes to the extreme-right. This complicit block won't change their attitude and they wont stop keeping progressives in check for the regime until they are personally suffering. It is the Bidens and Harrises the Schumers and Fettermans that prevented a proper response and structural change after Trumps first term and now embrace cooperation with Trump and enjoying that he does some dirty work for them, like continuing the genocide in Palestine.

By staying in the US academics, some of whom have been beaten up by Cops during peaceful protests under the Democrats administration, the academics would give the very same people legitimacy as an "opposition" to the Republican administration that were complicit in bringing this administration into power and are complicit in keeping it in power.

The Immigration dilemma. When a country starts going wrong the people most fit to fix the country are usually the ones who left and go to another country, precipitating the downfall of the country of origin. Making more and more people want to emigrate and leaving the country in worse and worse shape to fix itself.

You don't give up your right to vote by moving abroad. Your vote in state and local politics is lost. How much of a real impact that has depends on where you live.

This assumes voting continues to function more or less as it has in the past.

Fair point but if the US insists on being run like a business, then I'm going to treat it like one.

If I go to a restaurant with shitty food and shitty service, I'm paying my tab, leaving, and never coming back.

I'm not going to waste my time going home and writing yelp reviews so that the manager can offer me a free appetizer the next time I come in.

Place sucks.

I fear that Europe, as is tradition, will fail to capitalise on this moment due to internal division, with China reaping most of the benefits as a result.

I doubt that people who dislike US authoritarianism are gonna move to China, a literal dictatorship straight out of 1984.

It's also basically impossible to learn Mandarin for the average European or North American. Especially if they're already in their 30s or 40s.

For real. To me it seems everyone is sleeping on that, but some deep EU reform seems one of the most important things to me (maybe even the most important thing?). We will never be able to get stuff done if hungary can just block everything even remotely good