I visited the US in 2018, in the middle of the last Trump regime, and it came across as a fairly normal country. No way would I visit it now.
Apart from my social media being problematic, there's the minor technical detail of being an Australian Democrat. The lack of critical thinking skills on display in the US would have me detained at the border as a traitor or spy, or both, as they tried to work out how deep the Manchurian rabbit hole the Democrats have developed with Australia goes (assuming Australia is a real country and not some made up land with paid actors pretending to be Australian staffing it) and that's before they find the podcast episode where I spent 90 mins confidently predicting a Kamala Harris win. I'd end up at Guantanamo for that one for sure.
Mind you it might be the final nail in the coffin for the AUKUS clusterfuck. I could end up a national hero if I didn't get shanked while detained in a gulag as a political prisoner 🤷♀️
I work for a US company, and I'd happily travel back to head office with them funding it and the protection of a pretty serious safety and security team, and our legal department if bad things happen.
Travelling for a holiday with the wife and kids in tow, and on my own dime. No chance.
I have a mate that i would have liked to visit to see the sites of where he's been living the last 15+ years especially now that the kids are moving on with their lives and i dont have to fork out for a ticket for them! But my partner has type 1 diabetes. We can't afford for us to be locked in a room for 12+ hours in case she has a high or low blood sugar episode and we are left up to the whims of the presiding officer in charge and whether he had a good/bad day or not. This is how we get deaths in custody back home.
Might sound a bit of an overreaction but . . . . .
As an aside, my mate steadfastly refuses to put any of his thoughts of the country in the last 10yrs down in digital form where they can be read. He has two daughters that were born there and doesnt want to have even the sniff of being booted for dissent.
As a Resident Alien in this land that likes to call itself Free, I've become much more circumspect about what I type in any potentially-accessible venue. I definitely avoid letting amusing pictures resembling the vice-president exist on my phone and when I do text someone expressing an impermissible opinion I send a few pics of landscapes and the like afterwards in the hope of throwing border security off the scent.
As a practical piece of advice for anyone who is considering crossing the ocean despite our host's entirely sensible warning, US immigration operates in most Canadian international airports - if you transit via Canada you actually clear US immigration in Canada. The people they send to run the immigration operation in Canada seem on average to be relatively sensible and not particularly paranoid - they appear to think that if Canada let you in then you're probably harmless enough. I entered via Calgary recently and it was a very relaxed business. Conversely, definitely avoid entering the US at any of the airports in the more lawless states, like Florida and Texas - the immigration people there sometimes like to just deport people for a laugh, because they can.
One of my mates lives in Chicago and keeps asking me to visit, but I keep telling her no way whilst the fucking maga twats are within shouting distance of the presidency.
We have a daughter and granddaughter in LA right now. Thankfully it looks like they're coming back to Australia very soon, but life in general and a drug addled narcissistic lunatic father mean it's very difficult, and then add on Trump, so ms insomniac was over there recently for two months, and might have to go again, so she's very vigilant about what's on her phone. I'd be expecting to be turned away if I went.
I guess if your thing is deporting 'undocumented immigrants' (or anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time), then giving concurrent free reign to the worst instincts of low-level border security guards is a no-brainer. I was going to visit the US again a little later this year but now thinking Spain and Portugal instead.
Ever since 9/11 travelling through the luminal spaces of airports have made me uneasy. I have not travelled to vietnam but I haev travelled to China and I would travel back to China in a heart beat, I can not imagine travelling to the USA. Even when I travelled to the USA the last time I was subjected to more 'enhaced security' searches at airports than I ever was is China. Iceland wins for my best experience of airport security. Walks from aircraft to airoport walking through to bus stop, sees a person in uniform who gestures 'the bus is that way' no passport check, no bag checking. I am beginning to suspect the only difference between places we declare dictatorships and western democracies is a three/four year festival to choose between two different pro-business parties.
I visited the US in 2018, in the middle of the last Trump regime, and it came across as a fairly normal country. No way would I visit it now.
Apart from my social media being problematic, there's the minor technical detail of being an Australian Democrat. The lack of critical thinking skills on display in the US would have me detained at the border as a traitor or spy, or both, as they tried to work out how deep the Manchurian rabbit hole the Democrats have developed with Australia goes (assuming Australia is a real country and not some made up land with paid actors pretending to be Australian staffing it) and that's before they find the podcast episode where I spent 90 mins confidently predicting a Kamala Harris win. I'd end up at Guantanamo for that one for sure.
Mind you it might be the final nail in the coffin for the AUKUS clusterfuck. I could end up a national hero if I didn't get shanked while detained in a gulag as a political prisoner 🤷♀️
I work for a US company, and I'd happily travel back to head office with them funding it and the protection of a pretty serious safety and security team, and our legal department if bad things happen.
Travelling for a holiday with the wife and kids in tow, and on my own dime. No chance.
I have a mate that i would have liked to visit to see the sites of where he's been living the last 15+ years especially now that the kids are moving on with their lives and i dont have to fork out for a ticket for them! But my partner has type 1 diabetes. We can't afford for us to be locked in a room for 12+ hours in case she has a high or low blood sugar episode and we are left up to the whims of the presiding officer in charge and whether he had a good/bad day or not. This is how we get deaths in custody back home.
Might sound a bit of an overreaction but . . . . .
As an aside, my mate steadfastly refuses to put any of his thoughts of the country in the last 10yrs down in digital form where they can be read. He has two daughters that were born there and doesnt want to have even the sniff of being booted for dissent.
Having just come back from China, I totally agree.
What is orcish for “You shall not pass”?
As a Resident Alien in this land that likes to call itself Free, I've become much more circumspect about what I type in any potentially-accessible venue. I definitely avoid letting amusing pictures resembling the vice-president exist on my phone and when I do text someone expressing an impermissible opinion I send a few pics of landscapes and the like afterwards in the hope of throwing border security off the scent.
As a practical piece of advice for anyone who is considering crossing the ocean despite our host's entirely sensible warning, US immigration operates in most Canadian international airports - if you transit via Canada you actually clear US immigration in Canada. The people they send to run the immigration operation in Canada seem on average to be relatively sensible and not particularly paranoid - they appear to think that if Canada let you in then you're probably harmless enough. I entered via Calgary recently and it was a very relaxed business. Conversely, definitely avoid entering the US at any of the airports in the more lawless states, like Florida and Texas - the immigration people there sometimes like to just deport people for a laugh, because they can.
One of my mates lives in Chicago and keeps asking me to visit, but I keep telling her no way whilst the fucking maga twats are within shouting distance of the presidency.
We have a daughter and granddaughter in LA right now. Thankfully it looks like they're coming back to Australia very soon, but life in general and a drug addled narcissistic lunatic father mean it's very difficult, and then add on Trump, so ms insomniac was over there recently for two months, and might have to go again, so she's very vigilant about what's on her phone. I'd be expecting to be turned away if I went.
I guess if your thing is deporting 'undocumented immigrants' (or anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time), then giving concurrent free reign to the worst instincts of low-level border security guards is a no-brainer. I was going to visit the US again a little later this year but now thinking Spain and Portugal instead.
Ever since 9/11 travelling through the luminal spaces of airports have made me uneasy. I have not travelled to vietnam but I haev travelled to China and I would travel back to China in a heart beat, I can not imagine travelling to the USA. Even when I travelled to the USA the last time I was subjected to more 'enhaced security' searches at airports than I ever was is China. Iceland wins for my best experience of airport security. Walks from aircraft to airoport walking through to bus stop, sees a person in uniform who gestures 'the bus is that way' no passport check, no bag checking. I am beginning to suspect the only difference between places we declare dictatorships and western democracies is a three/four year festival to choose between two different pro-business parties.