Empires don't last long, and the United States hasn't had a wise leader in generations.

I'm fairly certain that the story of the US empure is drawing to a close, which is why my wife and I fled in late 2016. Now we're European (which happened since I last commented to you!)

While Trump was the actual kick in the pants that got us going, to be honest it was Obama that convinced me at least that the country wasn't going to be saved.

Here's a well-educated and intelligent man who said when nominated, "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal", but soon pivoted to being the best friend fossil fuels ever had.

Here's a Constitutional law professor who is willing to claim that a secret cabinet meeting before assassinating a US citizen is "due process", and wanting to set up a Constitution-free zone within the United States to move Guantanamo Bay prisoners to.

I realized that no positive change was every going to happen. I was not alone in fearing early on that Obama would be assassinated because I mistakenly saw him as a reformer, but after a while, I realized I was an idiot: no one with any actual interest in the massive reform that America and the world desperately needed would be allowed anywhere near the Presidency.

So I gave up on America. (My wife, an American, had given up ten years before.) About the only hope I would see for the country to change would be wide-spread political assassinations, but that would be horrifying, and the bad guys are pretty good at violence themselves.