The sad part is that Trumps base will see this and writhe with glee. They've been spoon fed American Exceptionalism so long, they can't understand that there were reasons for our success that aren't "we're great" or "foreigners are dumb". Since they consider Europeans second rate and everyone else trash, they'll take this as a win while utterly oblivious to the way it accelerates Americas decline.
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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As a US researcher (social sciences) who left, I warned my EU colleagues not to go to our big conferences. They were floored. Many thought it wasn't that bad, but the selling point that worked is, "do you want to risk being on the wrong side of an unaccountable border agent who hates how you look?" A gulag, literally a fucking gulag in a foreign country, could await. Its not worth the risk.
However, context. What I dont appreciate about these articles is that they assume a broad ban on the US because of morals, ethics, national pride, or solidarity. Nope. It's risk. Hubris and prestige of a career trump all other things. That simple. These same researchers still go to Hungary and Turkey. Its really discouraging to me as a critical theorist.
Likewise, I’ve heard from scientists that conferences here in the US that used to be full of researchers from around the world have become mostly US-only as people abroad don’t want to travel here.
Europe experienced a "brain drain" for quite a few years to the US. I suspect that a lot of talented US citizens will be looking at the rest of the world to set up home, careers and families.
Canada would be happy to receive many of these skilled refugees. There are programmes now for medical workers, and if global companies prefer American timezones for worker surveillance, then have I got news for them !
There was a time when tech talent would uproot their lives for the US because it offered collaboration, publishing, company-building and a big conference circuit. Now they run a gauntlet at the border, where even a green card or citizenship does not guarantee they will not be hassled.
Thus it can be seen how when industries aren't mitigated in their self defeating behavior by unions, the associated job market and domestic industry can be driven to collapse and there will be zero ability to slow the process down once it begins spiralling.
Unions, even if you are a super smart techbro who understands EVERYTHING about the world better than other people because you understand computers... you still need Unions or else the company you are working for will inveitably blow itself up and leave nothing but a crater behind.
I wish union work was more common place. It seems where I live unions are mostly for blue collar work and less common than I would hope to see.
Conversely, the company I’m working for has been around for 45 years, isn’t unionized, promotes from inside, and provides reasonable wages and great benefits.
They know that if they mess that up, we’ll all leave and go work somewhere else.
Of course, the company isn’t American, which likely makes a difference.
Oh believe me I have also seen precarious tall stacks of rocks that manage to stay standing for much longer than you would expect. Usually it is because they are surrounded by a forest of other much more solid formations of rocks or the ground is solid and well suited to support a base stone.
Sometimes though I see someone waving to me smugly from atop a precarious stack of rocks amidst a sea of other precarious stacks of rocks and I chuckle to myself and wave back condescendingly... and then feel guilty about the ugliness of pre-emptive disaster tourism.
At this point, there are a good percentage of citizens that would leave if they could! This is no shock.