[int_19h]

The problem is that this kind of thing can follow you around if you never push back.

I left Russia 20 years ago for very similar reasons. I didn't think I'd be facing the same choice in US, yet here we are.

There's a difference, though. In Russia, liberals are something like 10% of the population - the groupthink is really authoritarian overall, so there was no realistic hope of fighting back in any meaningful, non-symbolic sense. But I don't think that's the case for US. The majority of people here don't want to live in an authoritarian dictatorship. Their problem is that they don't (yet?) understand that the traditional arsenal of legitimate political tools available to citizens of established democracies - things like voting or peaceful protests - becomes ineffective once authoritarians become sufficiently entrenched, and so you have to move on to other means of resistance.

[wing-_-nuts]

If 'legitimate political tools' are no longer viable, then I'm heading to the nearest border with a bitcoin wallet memorized. From my read of history, once a democracy falls it's often down for the count, replaced by an endless string of strong men. Russia isn't going democratic when putin dies, for example