A note on language: “America” technically refers to two continents. I know this. For the purposes of this essay, I am using it specifically to describe the United States and the systems, beliefs, and cultural exports derived from it: American exceptionalism, American imperialism, and the particular brew of both that shapes how Americans, including those now leaving, move through the world.
A couple of months ago, the Wall Street Journal amplified a term that began floating around the internet post 2024 US presidential election: Donald Dashing. The description of Americans leaving the United States in response to the current administration’s politics and policies, framed as a surge, framed as unprecedented, framed as a moment when “ordinary” Americans are finally doing what was once only available to the well-heeled and adventurous.
I read it with the particular incredulous exasperation of someone who has been documenting voluntary migration for six years and living it for nearly ten years has when someone who has just “discovered” this outflow excitedly wants to tell you (absolutely nothing new) about it.
I have thoughts.
The Data Problem
The United States does not systematically track its emigrants. This is not a new development or a Trump administration policy; it has, unfortunately, always been true. Measuring those numbers simply does not fit the manifest destiny narrative that has been expertly exported around the world. The figures the Wall Street Journal assembled were cobbled together from Federal Voting Assistance Program registrations, receiving country arrival records, and various proxies, none of which tell you how many Americans are actually living abroad, let alone who they are, why they left, or whether they intend to stay.
