By Mike Stoltz
I’m not really a partisan guy. I practice conviction in myself and look for it in others, but not to the extent that it causes a myopic worldview. I don’t think that’s an intelligent or healthy way to live. I think any rational person recognizes there are merits and shortcomings in almost all big decisions we make. I have a big decision to make, and I want to be thoughtful about it. It’s been so difficult because it involves the “unimaginable.”
I have had an uneasy feeling the past year or so and I’ve been thinking about this “unimaginable.” I wondered what the Ukrainians were thinking before Russia invaded.
Even though seemingly unimaginable, there was a looming threat and advance knowledge of the invasion. We saw Ukrainians sipping craft cocktails in upscale bars; schoolteachers and children scurrying to their routines; contractors and engineers leaving their homes in the mornings to start their jobs. I wondered what they thought when the unimaginable happened to them. Fast forward a few weeks. The morgues were so full, people were digging trenches in the streets to bury bodies.
I couldn’t have imagined that in a 48-hour period, my country and essentially the world would be in lockdown from a rogue virus with a strange name. Less unimaginable, but pretty surprising, was that a guy who was an aggrieved, confirmed trust fund baby with a string of failed businesses and the last person I’d want my sons to look to as a role model was elected leader of the free world.
After COVID-19 and four embarrassing and unproductive, drama-filled years on the world stage, it seemed like the country just needed a break, maybe find some light at the end of the tunnel. In the meantime, as we are learning now via bipartisan hearings, not a small number of the allies of the domestic terrorists who invaded our Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, appear to be members of Congress or Trump administration appointees —unimaginable!
These folks have been installing their own attorneys general and electoral vote counters in swing states. So, the next time, they will be sure to succeed where they failed before. If the domestic terrorists take over the legislative branch of government in November (and they are poised to do just that), then, for me, that is the beginning of the end. Remember, the legislative branch makes laws.
So, over the past 10 months, I interviewed expats in three different countries, inquired with foreign consulates, and explored real estate, looking for my “wait until the U.S. is sane again” city.
I chose based on:
- the political stability of their institutions
- access to healthcare
- financial security of my assets.
Plus, I wanted the quality of life to meet or exceed my current status.
I started this process with trepidation because even to me, leaving my country for fear of it descending into chaos, violence and a pseudo-autocracy was almost unimaginable. But fast forward 10 months, with every passing week, I feel more strongly than ever.
I just sold a house in Sunrise Park I built, loved and thought I’d die in, but I have no regrets. If I were to write a bumper sticker to my motivation, I’d say something like this: In history, there have been many autocracies, but never have there been so many guns in the hands of so many aggrieved.
Think about it. Millions of voters do not believe Joe Biden is the duly elected president. No matter what the outcome of the midterms or the next presidential election, I feel there is going to be a rough period in this country that I did not sign up for.
I ask myself if I want to listen to the sounds of gunshots and chaos in the streets and bloodshed on the news. My friends and family nod in agreement, yet eventually retreat to saying things like “Whataya gonna do?” and «Are you free for tennis Saturday?”
Could the unimaginable happen here? I hope I’m as wrong as I’ve ever been, but I don’t have to take the chance. Do you?
Mike Stoltz is a serial entrepreneur and mentor in Long Beach State’s entrepreneur program. He was a Palm Springs resident and restaurant owner and a licensed real estate broker. He is now living in Mexico. Email him at vmstoltz@gmail.com. *This excerpt was published with authorization. To keep reading please search for the link to Desert Sun: https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/contributors/valley-voice/2022/07/26/uneasy-over-americas-future-left-palm-springs-and-moved-abroad/10134276002/
