The author travels with her dog in 2023
It was June 2020 and I realized that I no longer wanted to live in the United States.
Riding through the pandemic in one of my parents’ rooms, I watched George Floyd’s violent murders all summer, and the other half mysteriously celebrated it. Donald Trump is about to be re-election and despite being impeached each, he seems likely to win a game. Rampant false information and denials revolved around the 19th, and by then, more than one million people had been killed worldwide.
The key moment was during a rare trip to a family designated grocery shopper, I drove past a dozen kids and gathered in a nearby corner. Everyone seems to be under 12 years old. They waved signs in the air, drawing attention to Floyd’s murder and calling on cars driving by. A bored adult fiddling with his cell phone sitting in a lawn chair a few yards away. It seems that their parents are unwilling to join them.
I tweeted as I drove by and pulled my fist out of the window. Then, once I couldn’t see it, I stopped and started crying in the car.
Three months later, I boarded a one-way flight to Spain with my dog, and I was able to stuff everything into two large suitcases. I’ve decided to do it – watching as I think close friends enthusiastically defend the toxic racism and female aversion view of living under a government, I feel like my life has no value, fighting for what I think is basic human rights, just depriving them one by one, one by one, one by one, one by one.
I think if this is the type of country that most people want to live in, let them have it. But I chose.
However, shortly after I left, I began to feel introverted, and I left countless women who shared my despair but had no way out. I was lucky enough to get an EU passport (my father is Italian) and the financial means to leave. Until today, I have been painfully aware of the great privileges I have. Even from 4,000 miles away, I found myself unable to separate.
When Donald Trump loses his November 2020 election, he should give some sense of probation. No. As a survivor of sexual assault, I worked hard, that is, nearly half of the country (my peers) gathered behind a man who allegedly raped dozens of women and a child under the age of 13.
In Spain, I have greater autonomy than in the so-called land of freedom. I visited the pharmacy once a month to buy my preferred birth control over the counter; in less than two minutes of the process, I paid about $4 for the 28-day supply. Gynecological care, including sexually transmitted infection testing and cancer screening, is free and easy to obtain. If I choose to have a baby, both my partner and I will be entitled to 16 weeks of paid parental leave. Thanks to common sense right to abortion, I never have to worry about being denied care for life-threatening pregnancy complications.
Roev. After Wade overthrew my heart, my heart was sad for all American women. Trying to get a basic birth control prescription before moving abroad, I’m familiar with basketball women being forced to skip, even before overturning the decision. As a victim of violent rape at 19 years old, my family planning was the only way for me to do follow-up medical care. I trembled and thought about what would happen to the next generation of women facing these challenges.
The idea of Trump winning another term in 2024 seems incredible after outcry over Roe v. Wade’s reversal. I think America will gather around its women when it is needed. Adjusted various global media and felt the whole world was on the same page. For example, a survey in Denmark showed that only 7% of respondents would vote for Trump if eligible, while Spain had support at only 17% and 22% in Australia. Even the polls conducted in Italy are currently at the center of an unsettling extremist movement in Western Europe, with support for Trump at just 24%.
I didn’t expect it to be wrong. Of course I didn’t expect to see so many American women blindly promised allegiance to the government, which intends to publicly suppress its rights.
“I will teach my daughter how to track her period. About protected sexual behavior. I will teach her about God and His miracles,” a female friend from my hometown wrote on social media in the morning after the 2024 election.
“Stalking my time and learning about God’s miracles didn’t help me because a scared 19-year-old slipped into consciousness in the emergency room,” I sent her a message in private. She did not respond.
The more I spend time traveling the world, the more I realize that the United States exists in a bubble – steadily penetrating Russia due to misunderstandings from Russia, intending to push more voters toward Trump. Americans are rarely challenged to face perspectives that originate from their perspectives. Nationalism is considered a virtue, while globalism is a four-letter word. For those with this limited worldview, propaganda may not be distinguished from facts.
A woman who adheres to a Christian ideology and has healthy children may have difficulty feeling sympathetic to women facing more complex situations. If it doesn’t affect her, why should she care? Overall, this is American sentiment.
Every year it passes, and visiting my original home is more like traveling abroad. I spent my entire time on American soil, worried that I would be in a car accident or ruptured ovarian cyst and gas on the hospital bills, so extreme wasted my life savings. My heart beats whenever I find a leather hood tied to the buttocks of a stranger in the grocery store. Friends joked that I would take them back to my suitcase, but their voices were filled with pain.
Photo courtesy of Lisa Bernardi
The author’s passport and her dog’s passport
Every time I look at the U.S. passport, I remember that as long as it still exists, I will always have to pay taxes to the government, rather letting me die than letting me end my life-threatening pregnancy. When Trump briefed on the double taxation for foreign residents during his campaign, economic experts warned that promises are unlikely to come true. I won’t hold my breath considering a long list of broken campaign promises from his 2016 term. Give up my citizenship more than once. However, it was at the cost of no longer being able to visit my family without a visa.
The impact of the 2024 election will go far beyond our borders, digging out dirty nails deep in the life I have built in half the world. Many fear that Trump’s victory will allow far-right extremists to gain support throughout Europe. Italy’s Italian ultra-conservative fraternity, which came to power in 2022 after winning 26% of the vote, has deprived reproductive rights by giving anti-abortion activists legal rights to enter clinics and making access to surrogacy services in Italy or abroad illegal. Snowball nationalism could even shed light on the end of the EU, causing decades across the continent and leading to catastrophic economic collapse.
Experts further predict that as Trump’s economic policies raise consumer prices and interest rates in states, they will also cause serious damage to the European economy. The end of the U.S. fight against the climate crisis is a dark sign for the entire world, and now in Spain, this is a slump in over 200 lives in the historic floods associated with global warming, the entire nation is in trouble.
Friends from Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon asked why my country is facing invasions and genocides led by the Trump administration’s expected more autonomous dictators. I wish I had an answer.
Four years after leaving the United States, I found myself back where I started: getting rid of the impact of the American socio-political crisis. But this time it’s different. I no longer give the impression that I can go beyond 77 million people’s mobs who voted for racism, misogyny, violence and corruption. All I can do is join the rest of the world to prepare for what’s next.
Lisa Bernardi is a freelance writer specializing in personal finance and international relocation. Lisa’s multifaceted career life often brings her globally; she lives in four countries, speaks three languages, and has two international degrees. She is currently in Barcelona.
This article originally appeared on Huffpost in December 2024.
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