Is It Unpatriotic to Leave the U.S.? Here’s My Story… You Decide

The Factors That Inspired My Return to South Africa.

In 1984, fresh out of high school, I boarded a plane for Cape Town. Twenty-four years later, I returned to the U.S., eventually spending 15 years working as a financial journalist.

Last week, I returned to my home in Cape Town. This time, I have no plans to return to the U.S.

Here’s why… and why tens of thousands of Americans are considering the same thing.

Let’s start with some historical perspective.

The U.S. has been through at least seven major transitions in its brief history. Each has produced winners and losers, created stresses and strains—and in many cases, led people to look for alternatives to life in the U.S.

The American Revolution was the first, when we threw off the British yoke. 1828 saw the Jacksonian Revolution, which extended the voting franchise to most white men over the age of 21. Then came the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Restoration. The Great Depression and New Deal was the next big upheaval, followed by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Our most recent transition—the great transition of our lifetimes—started with the financial crisis of 2008.

The bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble and the collapse of the U.S. credit system revealed that middle-class Americans had been living on financial fumes since the 1970s. Wage-earning households had only been able to achieve the illusion of decent living standards by borrowing. When that was no longer an option, millions found themselves in dire straits.

But just as important as the crisis itself was the political context within which it occurred.

After the sunny days of Ronald Reagan, U.S. politics gradually descended into a bitter contest between parties unwilling to cooperate on anything. The rise of cable media, the internet, and social media amplified those divisions, turning political discussion into a blood sport.

So instead of focusing on the cause of declining prosperity and looking for solutions, the U.S. seemed to fragment into a low-level civil war. A recent poll by The Wall Street Journal found that 50% of respondents didn’t feel they had a good chance of improving their standard of living, while 86% agreed that Americans are greatly divided on values.

It was that America that I lived in for the 15 years just gone by. And I admit, it got under my skin.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love my homeland. I don’t think America is about to fall apart. I’m confident that younger generations will figure out how to get things back on track. But for me and my family right now, at our current stage of life, the priority is relative peace and quiet.

Enter my South African passport, stage left. Sure, it’s not at the top of most people’s lists of desirable second citizenships. But it gave me options. It meant that a Plan B in glorious Cape Town was perfectly feasible. I can’t tell you what a load that was off my mind.

I’m not the only American thinking along those lines.

Henley & Partners, a London-based citizenship consultancy, said inquiries from Americans jumped 89% in 2021 and doubled again in 2022. Apex Capital Partners, which offers similar services, said it has seen a 200% rise in applications from U.S. citizens since 2020. And American participation in Portugal’s fabled Golden Visa program, which offers residency in Portugal in exchange for investment, started going parabolic:

Now, most Americans looking for a Plan B abroad probably aren’t as concerned about the political climate as I am. That’s just me.

But I know plenty of them are worried about the U.S. economy… about quality and affordable education and healthcare… and about protecting what they have from the likelihood of major changes to U.S. taxation, Social Security, and Medicare.

Those concerns surely account for the big spike in American interest in overseas residence and citizenship in recent years.

Are people like us quitters? Are we anti-American? Not at all.

A newborn baby doesn’t know it’s a citizen of a specific country. It’s just a human being on big planet Earth. As we get older, we tend to focus on our immediate surroundings, and take it as a given that our situation is fixed.

But that’s not at all the case. Every one of us, as human beings, has the right to choose the best life that we can for ourselves given our circumstances. That doesn’t mean that we look down on those who choose differently. It’s just an exercise of innate personal freedom.

So, if you have an itch to live abroad, go right ahead and scratch it. I’ll be here to help you make it happen… Just as it’s happened for me.