It's easy for me to get lost in conversations about the US. It's impossible to explain the US to a northern European because we make absolutely no sense to folks here, but since I was brought up during our slow and sneaky transition into late-stage capitalism, the US is something that I understand -- even though we make absolutely no sense.
Generally, the number one things that Nordics ask me are fundamental questions: why, and how? Why is it so upsidedown over there? How could you come from such a place? It's exhausting to try and answer these questions. I can't represent all of the complexities and intersectionalites, so I can't see it from every angle. But over the past several years, I've visited six continents and have been able to look towards the US from several different vantage points and recognize that, while I've generally assumed that our biggest problem is patriarchy or some iteration of that, our core crusher is probably more likely to be late-stage capitalism. Not just capitalism, where I can enjoy a variety of competitive pricing models and available products in every color and style, but rather the hypocrisies and absurdities of late-stage capitalism.
Late-stage, where we'd be pressed to find one single decision in Washington that hasn't been made without filling somebody's pocket. In recent decades, it likely hasn't been so glaringly obvious until the current administration took office but every time an insane proposal is put on the table, I've learned to trace the potential monetary gain, were that bill to pass. This isn't a new problem, but it seems to be a relatively new emergency. It takes time for economic policy to thread its tendrils through a society, and what failed Reaganomics has done is, well, failed. Or succeeded, depending on your persuasion. It eventually made the rich richer and kept the poor as poor as humanly possible, which we don't always recognize because there are folks out there who still vote for the smoldering ashes of whatever the American Dream looks like now. If you aren't in a state of mind where you can lift your head above your own small world, of course you'd vote against your best interest and often even the best interest of others. You'd vote for people who look like, seem like the person you were told you could be if you just worked hard enough.
This, of course, is generally not true because it takes far more than hard work to overcome systemic biases, policies, and levels of privilege. But it took a lot of wrestling before I could throw in that "of course," because I'm bred for capitalism and brainwashed to think that my worth is equivalent to my deliverables. Capitalism says that you don't automatically deserve benefits because you aren't special, but I've come to find that more socially-geared policies say that you do automatically deserve benefits because you aren't special.
It's antithetical to what we were taught, but the US is unstable at best with its resulting very sick, very overworked, very underpaid general population. So for me, my only chance at survival in academia is to leave the US. Folks over here say that they feel sorry for the US and that I am more than welcome in Norway, while folks that haven't ever left the US (much less their own communities) still assume that we're able to compete globally, and compete at a gold standard.
Here's the rub: we do not stand a chance. Not empirically, not in reality, and not when we're fundamentally looking downward but have somehow convinced ourselves that we're looking up. It's a puzzle of perspective and truth, and those two words have somehow easily become enemies of one another.
To be clear, I'm not here to compare our situation to the refugee crisis. I am not a refugee. I do not qualify for asylum, regardless of how impossible it is for many folks to fundamentally live in the US. We do not have structurally firm foundations. We are not good stewards of wealth. The US is a third-world country with first-world resources which directly points to a misuse of power, unsustainable greed, outright lying, and a population that has proven itself too apathetic or too exhausted to believe it can get any better than this.
I love my home, and love requires accountability. However, home usually starts to feel like I'm on the wrong meds because chaos lives in the US. It's a part of the air, so we don't recognize its ubiquity unless we've been gone for a long time. So for now, being an ambassador of the US is my societal job as a US citizen living abroad. Representing us, conversing about us, voting from abroad, and continuing to participate are mandatory activities for me.
I'm not sure I've ever really been in love, but I've certainly loved. And love is messy, patient, kind, difficult, painful. It always protects -- how are we protecting vulnerable populations in our communities? How are we protecting ourselves from bad governance, hurtful policies, and violence? It always trusts -- how are we being good stewards of our resources, our wealth, and our privilege? It always perseveres -- how are we showing up for civic duties? Are we brave enough to talk? Are we patient enough to listen? Are we going to the source or would we rather just hide in our own biases?
It's naive to think that accountability exists in Washington without having some other ulterior motive, but as it stands in the absence of an appropriate tax structure, it seems that we've been largely forced to self-govern from city halls and state offices rather than rely on DC. So, that is where we start.
I am critical of self-sustaining communities that rally together to pay for a child's medical bills because in basic functioning societies around the globe, children do not have prohibitively expensive medical bills. However, even though the problem is much bigger than us, our interpersonal relationships are where we can start to improve.
My advocacy style has always been one-on-one. I've brought that to Norway with me, even though Norway will take much better care of me and my friends than the US ever would, regardless of how hard I've worked or how cleverly I've played my cards. We waste so much energy trying to survive in the US that we never get around to breaking our own bad habits.
So, I am trying to break mine by critically questioning the things that make no sense and talking with folks who are farther along than I am. Conversations are a great way to learn. I suggest we all do the same.
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