So this isn’t even a fully developed thought and it’s a little unfair, but help me out here…when something happens that American liberals don’t like, they threaten to move to any number of places (Canada, Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, etc.) They rarely do move, though. The charitable way of looking at this is that perhaps they don’t realize how difficult it is to emigrate across international borders, or even that while there are a number of countries that are on the whole more closely aligned with what these liberals want in a national government, they would still prefer to live in the good ole U.S. of A. The uncharitable way of looking at this is that liberals are quitters (rather than stay and fight for what they believe in, they threaten to leave, which is quitting, and then they don’t even leave, which is like quitting at quitting.)
American conservatives rarely react to something they dislike with threats of moving to another country (except for the few dumb ones yesterday who fail to realize that moving anywhere other than the US probably means trading a system of financing health care delivery that is fundamentally consistent with conservative values for a single-payer socialized system.) So anyway, they don’t threaten to leave the country, and I suppose the charitable way of looking at this is that their belief in American exceptionalism is so strong (and they are so not-quitty individualists) that leaving isn’t even an option. The uncharitable way of looking at this? I’d posit that it’s because they realize that countries where things American conservatives claim to want are actually in place (small or ineffectual government that does little more than fund an army, a system of taxation that is nominally “fairer” but which disproportionately benefits the already wealthy, nonexistent regulations or consumer protections, strict fealty to ancient and/or religious texts as a system of government, widespread availability of guns) are actually terrible places to live, and that no one in their right mind would ever consider moving there.
