Most of the world is not visiting the US right now which means projects and planning that was made in anticipation for summer has probably been halted or heavily reduced.
Like you will go to an election, and your choices will be
Republican candidate: "I support deporting your family, I will not only not support cleaner energy but will actively work to increase coal usage, and I think your trans cousin should be forced to transition back even if it makes them commit suicide."
Democratic candidate: "I think all of that stuff the Republican candidate said is crazy and wrong. If elected, I will strive to make all your guns illegal, so that eventually Republican-supporting institutions like the police and military, and Republican states, are the only ones with guns."
“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
Not sure what that has to do with what I said though.
But again, that doesn't really have much to do with what I said?
However minimal Republican support of gun rights may be, they don't have increasing gun control as a major part of their platform like the Democrats do.
The opposite is true of Republicans: their party platform is literally "whatever Trump wants", and Trump has actually articulated circumventing the second amendment entirely by "taking guns first".
Moreover, his current administration's stance is that lawfully carrying citizens protected by the 2nd amendment who are obeying the law are at risk for summary execution if his agents feel threatened enough. This makes the 2nd amendment inoperable (no need for a second amendment at all if they can just say they were scared and kill you for having a gun).
If you're going to characterize Democrats as (a lesser) evil, at least be honest about why.
Yes they will allow me to have a deer rifle with a 5-10rd capacity.
So you were not talking about your guns, you were talking about all guns. You can amend your position if that's really what it is, but that's not what you said.
The relevant point is that the line for gun ownership pushed by the Democrats (at least where I am) is way far away from the line for gun ownership pushed by Republicans.
And when stating that line, it strikes me as an odd position to take when I'm also simultaneously being told that Republicans are going to go even farther hard right / authoritarian/ take-over / w/e, while also keeping the fairly pro-Republican police armed to the teeth (again, with modern rifles).
Trump supporting red flag laws or not seems kinda like a distraction. Trump supporters saying they can shoot protestors is exactly what I'm pointing out - if that is what we're scared the future will hold, why push for giving up modern rifles?
If the election was held tomorrow it’s likely many people that voted for Trump wouldn’t go, and many people who didn’t care enough to show up would.
If Republicans turn 2 places they win by 130:100 plus a big city they lose by 100:130 into three they expect to win by 120:110 then if on the day Democrats turn out as usual but about 10% of the Republicans stay home across the board they lose all three 108:110.
My concern in the 2026 cycle is that there just won't be fair elections, and so this doesn't end up mattering.
Doubtful. The faithful will always be idiots. But around them are vast seas of folks who change their minds and even switch parties. Between foreign policy, vaccines (weirdly, not being nutter enough) and Noem turning ICE into a pageant show, a lot of Trump voters feel betrayed. It’s why the House flipping is almost a given.
"I'd rather be dead than friends with a liberal", and such tropes.
If you had 1000 coins and put them into two piles one of 440 and one of 560 it would be "about half"
But if your argument is that only 154 million people support this government and that's fine because if it was 174 million there'd be a problem, then sure.
Compare with Kier Starmer, who as of this writing has not sent armed goons into his own cities, wrecked all of his international trade and tourism, alienated his allies, or once again invaded the Middle East. His approval rating is about 20%!
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-calls-uks-chagos-...
And a few months ago America was endorsing the plan
Worth nothing that this was a Tory inititive -- Truss and Sunak did pretty much all the work, it was their idea.
The president would do basically nothing for four years, which would cause some things to move slowly. But it would be a very stable environment. No random tariffs via executive order, no random wars or invasions, no governing via tweet.
Ham sandwich would maybe be one of our better presidents. Top 50%, probably.
To the degree some non-voters say they don’t care, that’s still deeply complicated, enough that even taking someone’s word for it is a bad idea. Non-voters in the U.S. are not uniformly distributed, and thus there is evidence suggesting that not caring is already a function of class, race, education, gender, and age, among other things.
If you actually care about voting and about the truth, it does yourself a disservice to jump to a assumed conclusion that all non-voters are saying something unambiguous, that they’re all saying the same thing, that they all have informed choice, that they understand all the tradeoffs and implications, and that they really are fine with any outcome regardless of what they say.
This wasn’t a bad candidate vs worse candidate situation, it was someone who supports breaking apart the trust and foundation of the country solely for personal gain versus someone who at least believed in providing a veneer of civility.
big states that always vote one way like CA where a non vote is the same as a blue vote
states where voting is such a tedious process that opting out is a reasonable choice, even if it doesnt place a big burden otherwise
states with voter id laws, often large chunks of the eligible population do not have an id
disabled people, people with hardship, etc., felons
It’s really weird logic to lump massive chunks of the general population these things apply to in with the same people that explicitly support this. It also ignores the fact that these elections often come down to a few thousand or fewer votes in a handful of battleground states. Not voting in those places, I would tend to agree more with the gist of your point, but it is no where near a big chunk of the population.
The only thing you know about them is that they did not vote. Even using your assumption of their beliefs ("both sides are the same"), that position is generally affiliated with disapproval, not approval.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr...
"But the party just ran a bad candidate!"
"Egg prices were too high!!"
"Kamala would've been just as bad for Gaza as Trump!"
No, sorry, voters don't get a pass because they're apathetic or love being the "enlightened centrist" that lets fascism takeover.
In other news, a mouse and an elephant are both mammals.
If only there was some obvious way to tell the difference between them.
My swing-state vote was stupendously easy to get. (a) don't commit a genocide (b) give voters something big and material like free healthcare (c) don't cover up COVID and Long COVID
They didn't even try.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaz...
So they voted for the side committing genocide and who sees free healthcare as an atrocity in itself to everything the US stands for? What did the Dems do to "cover up" COVID? You know versus "It's nothing worse than the flu, it'll be over in two weeks" while privately being aware that neither of those things were true?
I mean, they didn't do that (and I think the DNC, DWS and their ilk have a lot to answer for the current state of affairs), but your "swing state, stupendously easy to get" decided instead to vote for the side that openly doubled down on those things, not really a ringing endorsement for expectations of voters there.
That's before we even get to the general issue of an electoral populace so ignorant of the political landscape that the number one search on Election Day on Google was "Did Biden drop out?"
Look around you, COVID is still everywhere and the scientific literature is pretty dismal. The Democrats lagged about 6 months behind the republicans, now most people believe what was far-right in 2020. It's true fewer people are dying, but most people do just think it's a cold. The democrats shut down reporting, didn't fight for worker protections, and basically were most invested in the economy over health. They also were never clear about the airborne method of transmission and so people ended up believing masks didn't work because they would wear a surgical mask and still got sick. They didn't "follow the science".
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/VC/VC00/20220302/114453/HHRG...
Sorry. I don't intend to downplay genocide and I don't want to come across that way.
What I'm trying to critique is (so far as I can read it from your post) your inability to see that two things can be the same in one respect - but apparently not notice that one is much bigger than the other.
If it helps, I'm not American and don't have any option to 'win' as far as US politics goes. I think you are right that Kamala Harris was facilitating genocide. But I also think you are wrong to not take into account that Donald Trump is a whole order of magnitude worse.
The administration could not do any of this without the support of Congress, which has not wavered. That support is unwavering because those elected officials are not getting negative feedback from their voters and donors, so they have every expectation that staying this course will work out just great for them.
This administration's actions only continue with the approval of their party who put them and keep them in power.
Half of America loves what's happening and the other half doesn't believe the first half loves it.
Short of voting, protesting and getting into arguments with MAGA people I don't know what else I can effectively do.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state...
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state...
Beyond that, my state is not the problem.
>effectively
these are mutually exclusive
That it was my/our fault such views propagate because we're not "willing to understand their perspectives".
The thing is, their perspectives are a lie. And in many cases, they know they're a lie, they just don't. fucking. care.
So they can go online and whine about being dismissed or criticized, or pat each other on the back for "knowing the truth". There's a subset who, I'm sure, see such things as actual literal truth, and that's a different issue altogether, but not sure it's my responsibility to solve, or that failure to engage on my part makes the current situation "my fault".
> It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.
Like huh? It is okay for them to be objectively dishonest, and have zero shred of empathy, curiosity for my position, but refusing to engage on a good faith basis is a failing of mine?
> Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position.
This is literally Idiocracy in the making.
If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.
The Canadian people I met as we travelled were all amazing. I was humbled that they took time to talk. And were less interested in identity than issues. One older gentleman, who saw us pull into the McDonalds with Washington plates approached us in the foyer and wanted to tell me that despite what others might say, I was welcome there. It was on one hand kinda weird and at the same time really touching.
There might be a bit more hockey ribbing for the next few weeks, but I know there's a ton of respect for Canada's team.
At the end of the day, the idea of "My problem is with the government, and not the people" is as old as time.
In my 20+ years of regularly travelling to the States, I've almost always had great interactions with the people I've met in all parts of the US I've visited, and I've been all over. "Warm and welcoming" is a very good description.
I hope to be able to visit again in the future.
But I'm a pretty optimistic person anyway.
If not, please send help or accept our political refugees because we will have become permanently screwed if this behavior continues past our current orange phase.
I beg to differ, seeing that the US had free and fair elections - media bias aside.
With its proximity to Canada, and relative cheapness, likely pulls in quite a few tourists from up North.
One additional South Dakota attraction (although lessening interest as of late) is how much hunting/fishing is available, and how much the community is interested in the ‘visiting’ hunter.
https://sdvisit.com/sites/default/files/2026-01/2025-Economi...
But when it comes to elections, first, somehow “we” get 2 bad choices every time. This last time, I personally feel they were 2 incredibly terrible choices. Then the fumbling from the other side basically assured orange man’s victory. It was a disaster of an election (but sadly appropriate as it seems like every thing we do is a disaster now.)
We also have a low voter turnout. So the result isn’t really complete and probably has some bias.
We also have an electoral college which means the winner can have less than 50% of the popular vote and win.
I could probably go on but I feel the point has been made that election outcomes are not the proxy you think
https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker
> I could probably go on but I feel the point has been made that election outcomes are not the proxy you think
The purpose of a system is what it does. There are not many grassroots efforts to change the many negatives you listed. Tacit approval - whether through nor voting or not fixing what is broken - does not lessen culpability. The outcome is still accurate representation on the aggregate.
If 4 housemates always have a dirty kitchen, it's a reflection on all of them. It may fall short of their ideals, or they can blame Bob for not doing dishes, not fixing a problem whose root they know is an indictment, not an excuse.
It's not hard to imagine people like these extending their good will to foreigners, even "hostile" ones.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-countr...
In contrast, "The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%)."
If you've never experienced a real winter or done neat things like winter sports then visiting Canada in the winter is a great travel experience.
1. A lot of people can't afford vacations right now
2. For people in the US, socially and culturally, there's not much of a "drive" or desire to visit Canada. I've worked for Canadian companies, etc. I've never once in my entire life heard somebody talk about visiting Canada. It's always someplace warm and tropical or it's Europe or Asia.
If you mean North East US, that whole area is a different thing. You guys (US NE + Eastern Canada) are practically neighbors compared to Miami, Houston, or Los Angeles folks :) Also probably more used to the cold!
If you go south you get sun and beaches. The coastal regions of Canada will be comparable to the coastal regions of New England and the Pacific Northwest, so there's no need to go all the way there if that's the sort of beach you're looking for.
Likewise your outdoors, your cities and restaurants and museums are all going to be about the same as the options available in the US, just further away. It's not really "exotic".
We don't really have the same emigrant relationship with Canada; my grandfather's family spent a couple generations in Canada, but my mother only found out about it after he died. He considered his family to be Irish and to have come from Ireland; that they came to the US via a couple of generations spent in New Brunswick was never a part of the family lore.
So there's no real "visiting the home of my ancestors" sort of feeling you'd otherwise see.
But, I think there some unique things worth seeing for an American: The old parts of Montreal/Quebec city, and the Alberta Rockies, especially the corridor between Banff and Jasper.
Like, if you want to see a rain forest or a thousand year old Buddhist temple or a pyramid, there's not really a substitute in the continental US.
But if you've two options, where you can go to the pretty good option domestically or drive past it and continue on to the much better option in another country ... most people will be happy with the closer option, even if there's some small number of people who want the best or have seen all the closer options before and want something different or just whimsically like the idea of going to the further-away one none of their friends have been to.
Minor nitpick, but there are temperate rain forests in the continental United States. What we don’t have are tropical rain forests.
I don't know about "exotic", but for anyone living in the northeast of the US, the easiest way to visit Europe (sort of) is to drive up to Montreal/Quebec.
Having been to Europe, no comparison.
Nothing prepares you for walking along a city street then “oh fuck, a castle…” and learning that it is now, the city’s government building. Cool… (Stuttgart, you’re awesome)
Not surprised they want to keep safely within their "East-USA" territory and go nowhere. No one wants to be disappeared in Ecuador.
Living on the west coast, Vancouver's the easiest to get to -- I love Vancouver (and Victoria), and I've been both places several times, and I've gone to Whistler a handful of times as well, but, again, it's a lot like where I grew up in Seattle.
I really do want to visit Montreal sometime, but I also want to visit Chicago and Memphis and a lot of other "domestic" locations that I somehow never find the time for.
Also, when you grow up in a country you have a lot of local knowledge from culture, friends, television, education, so we just know a lot more about domestic places we haven't (yet) visited. Plus, a substantial number of people don't have passports. We used to be able to visit Canada easily without one, now we cannot.
* Montreal - it's a big-ish city, without piss in the subways. Also the restaurant scene is good, and the old town is worth seeing.
* Quebec City - again, the old town is worth seeing. There's not much else in the US/Canada like it.
* Alberta Rockies - The corridor between Banff and Jasper is beautiful. Also, Waterton is decent. It's right across the border from Glacier NP in Montana, but less crowded. And for skiers, the Alberta Rockies also probably had the best snow in North America this past year.
As a film lover, I've been to the Toronto film festival many times, it's an unmatched experience--so many things to see, and watch films with a very engaged festival crowd just makes them better. (In the same way, even if you don't love Star Wars, going on opening weekend, with the most enthusiastic fans, makes the experience better.) And given that nearly half of Toronto's population was born outside of Canada, it makes even New York feel a little parochial.
Especially in Vancouver, most people should be pretty aware that anyone with Washington/Oregon plates (which I'm guessing is what you have) probably hates Trump more than they do.
I've never understood why somebody behind me on the road would care at all about what my political views were anyway. I guess I get it during an election, maybe (in a grammar school "inventor contest" which happened to be during the 1980 US presidential election, I invented a bumper sticker sleeve that attaches to your car, so you could swap out political bumper stickers after your candidate lost. I didn't win the contest.) But in the end I don't really understand putting any sort of social signaling of any kind on my cars, though it seems hard to avoid even by just the kind of car you drive.
Closer to topic, I've always thoroughly enjoyed my trips to Canada, and can't imagine why people think "it's just like the US, so why bother" as seems to have been expressed ny some in this thread. I somewhat recently drove up to Roberval, Quebec from my home in New England, and it was absolutely nothing like the US. I find the rural Quebecois very odd, refreshingly direct, and enjoyable to hang out with.
Perhaps in the white vs black experience lens that most of my US friends seem to see every world conflict through to relate to their own history (wild conversations about Middle Eastern politics there being racial), it's like wearing something racially inflammatory to the wrong neighbourhood. If one's blowing $$,$$$ on bespoke fly in tourism you can probably get away with it with a polite topic change as tourism keeps food on the table, but park a Trump sticker on a residential street I'd be surprised if even in the nicest neighbourhood there isn't some damage to it. Likely from a teenager goofing off with friends in the current environment.
To the second individually most Americans are nice in my experience, if you are seen as a person and not anonymous in the crowd. I've had a family member get a rifle leveled at them for stepping over a property line in the US where clearly they weren't seen as a fellow human... what can I say to that or the normalization of it.
Also:
Give money to organizations that are doing the work on your behalf. Lawsuits are still important.
Call or write your reps *frequently*. They use software to automatically tabulate voter positions. (And they look at it--they want to keep their jobs!)
If the system decides to screw you over, that your average Cali resident disapproves doesn't stop you being in a holding cell for weeks.
I try not to let them influence my behavior too much, but at the end of the day, getting thrown in immigration jail on false accusations (yes happened to me despite presenting US passport) or detained for 12+ hours (also happened several times) puts constraints on vacation plans.
We just had to wait 3 hours in line to get into Costa Rica.
The conditions of TSA and the immigration system are...not independent of politics (or even independent of the top tier of most divisive partisan political issues in the current American context.)
edit: The truth hurts apparently.
Edit, didn't realise it was this bad:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260223/dq260...
It's probably not bottomed out yet, some of those trips were booked months in advance and not cancellable without taking a financial hit.
We don’t care because we are the only people who live there mostly year round and only leave during spring break and the summer when domestic tourism is high.
Probably not our friends anymore.
But to judge?
Okay
Just a observation from my personal life, my friends who aren't broke, are still going to Florida, etc.
Some even go as far as booking a trip to Europe for a music concert instead of going to the US.
The line between "it's expensive" and "the current situation in the US sucks" is blurred.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11075088/canadian-snowbird-couple...
Florida was always a budget option for us. It's always been a quick, easy (you can drive), low risk break to get away from the cold. I just don't feel like dealing with CBP and random MAGAs right now to be honest. Wife is low-key stressed about the idea. I mean at best it's a hassle... so why bother?
Granted, as someone who lives ~40 km from the border, I'm broke and can't afford to travel, but I'm also avoiding the U.S. and have been further than 100 km from home on a number of occasions in the past year.
If you spend money in Canada, then you are taking stuff from Canadians. If you spend your money in the US, then you are taking stuff from Americans.
You might wonder what happens at the limit - why don't Canadians just spend all their money in the US and take all America's stuff (just a thought experiment)? Because currencies adjust. Canadians would need US Dollars to buy stuff in the US, and as more and more Canadians try to do that, the exchange rate would change to devalue the Canadian Dollar against the US Dollar, effectively making things more and more expensive for Canadians until they are forced to get their stuff elsewhere.
When you spend Canadian dollars at a business owned by a Canadian, you're sending that owner and the Canadian government your money, in exchange for their goods or services, normally at a surplus of value for them. You are 'helping' them; you are 'investing' in the Canadian economy. You are justifying the existence of their business and the jobs of the people who work there.
Especially insofar as you're making this choice versus American options, you are putting money into the hands of Canadians rather than Americans. This is the underlying concept behind boycotts and voting with your dollars or feet.
Well, I guess, they might have been auctioned off to some billionaire at that point so… the tickets will probably be pricier but the facilities should be shiny and new.
December 2025, statscan calculated that cross-border auto traffic was down 30% (mostly same-day trips).
Air travel is only down 11%, and air travel to other countries is up 13%.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11679293/us-canada-travel-rates-d...
They didn't break down how much of that was tourism vs work.
I live in Switzerland, and literally everybody I talk to in our circles - bankers, doctors etc. despises US right now. The idea of going there as a tourist is immediately laughed at or met with puzzled look. Professional reasons or conferences are not even brought up, its automatic no and employers usually don't even try suggesting those.
We ourselves with kids wanted to do the trip either this or next summer, but hell will freeze sooner. Some meager +-10k from us, I know just a drop in the ocean but there could have been many such drops. Other, less hostile economies deserve these way more.
So there's not much mystery to it.
Now instead they pay for the plane tickets to bring my nephew up to Canada.
There are many reasons people might have, none are good. There is for instance also a risk factor of being harassed and detained by ICE. Cruelty and incompetence are a feature of authoritarian governance, not a coincidence. So anyone going there takes a kind of risk. As has been shown, even Europeans aren't safe from the whimsical paramilitary.
EDIT: I don't think that tourism is a big factor, but as I said elsewhere, it could well be the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
That said, I do think some people are doing things for the wrong reasons and there is some manipulation of the masses at play here. One example is I expect most people don't really understand the tariff situation between Canada and the US and that most goods are still exempt from taxes and the agreements hold. I think some people want to punish the US for tariffs that don't exist.
As a Canadian we should push back strongly against attacks on our sovereignty. We should also be somewhat concerned about the direction our neighbor is going in general. But it's also a reality that the US is very very close to us both geographically, culturally, and economically. That's not going to change. It's not an "enemy country" despite their very questionable choice of leaders. I think the correct long term direction is open borders and open trade, somewhat like the EU, and we shouldn't lose sight of that because a bad leader is in place today.
It's very weird to me to see all the focus on US policies in the Canadian discourse while not enough focus on Canada. That feels like political distraction.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the Gestapo. What a lovely time to be a foreigner travelling in the US...
Gestapo is ... bullshit and FUD.
Yes, we see the news about ICE.
https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/border-crossing-data-annual-rel...
In 2025 there were about 18M personal vehicles and about 300K pedestrians crossed from Canada into the US. So yes, it's down (like 10%) but it's still a lot of people. Out of those the number of people that run into problems with the "Gestapo" is approximately, within rounding error, zero. You're a lot more likely to die in a car crash or get robbed or something.
Why does everything today have to be about hyperbole? You don't want to visit the US (like me) ... well don't. You don't like Trump ... fine. You disagree with the immigration policies, enforcement whatnot... fine. But enough with this bullshit fear mongering.
(Asking for a friend.)
I work with a a decent number of Americans who either moved here or are here temporarily, and I can't say there has been any tension. I think most Canadians who are staunchly anti-US are also aware that plenty of Americans aren't happy with their government. I can't say I've seen any vitriol towards the average American person.
You don't need the bumper sticker, or to apologize. As long as you aren't wearing MAGA gear or being bombastic about Trump, people won't really think much of it. I assume anyone visiting Canada isn't a Trump supporter anyways, as most polling shows they've decided they don't like Canada.
Meanwhile it's perfectly acceptable, if not a point of pride, for Canadians to go to Cuba, which is not only run by an actual, kleptocratic dictatorship that imprisons dissidents for decades at a time, but is also the number #1 destination in the Americas for sex tourists, including child sex tourists, with the industry even tacitly sanctioned by the dictatorship ("jineterismo").
Neither has the US. Trump specifically disavowed that every time he was asked (by the CBC). Meanwhile Cuba sent thousands of mercenaries to kill Ukrainians on behalf of Russia.
> punish Canada economically
Frankly, even as someone who opposes tariffs as uneconomic, given Ottawa's long-standing "constructive engagement" with the regime in Havana, even after they hosted Soviet nuclear weapons pointed at the US, even while they put AIDS patients in concentration camps, and even while they ran the island as a giant, open-air prison refusing to allow anyone to leave, it's really speaks to America's forbearance that it hasn't attempted to punish Canada economically, until now.
> A reporter asked if he was "considering military force to annex and acquire Canada."
> "No," replied Trump. "Economic force."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/donald-trump-canada-51st-st...
"The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the world will be bigger, better and stronger than ever."
"If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them."
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-canada-annex/
We're into "reject the evidence of your eyes and ears" territory here.
> by force
part, which is the part Trump repeatedly disavowed (as your own post demonstrates).
I recently went back for a funeral, and I had to spend a moment reminding myself that it would be fine for me.
For people who don't have my passport, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling them "it will be fine", though I would still tell a European "the odds of a problem are relatively low." But I couldn't in all honesty say "there's nothing to worry about."
Unfortunely my home country has too many fanboys of older times, aka Chega, so I hope you still manage a good time there.
But seeing my engineer freak out about flying in a plane, despite passing Diff Eq and knowing the probability of a crash... Feelings/emotions do matter.
This is why populist demagogues win elections... ugh...
Your passport does not matter, the colour of your skin does:
"US citizens jailed in LA Ice raids speak out: ‘They came ready to attack’":
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/05/us-citizens-...
"A U.S. citizen says ICE forced open the door to his Minnesota home and removed him in his underwear after a warrantless search"
* https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-u-s-citizen-says-ice-f...
A security guard picked up his bag from the carousel, handed it to him, and very emphatically said "Welcome home, sir!".
I think something was lost in the telling. I could see a kiosk worker saying this or similar.
I'm well aware the color your skin matters a lot, but your passport also matters, especially at the border.
You're better off with white skin and a US passport than with white skin and a British passport, but you're also better off with brown skin and a US passport than brown skin and a British passport and that's still better than brown skin and a third-world passport.
And yeah, even if you're a white man with a US passport, you still might end up shot by ICE if you're in Minneapolis (doesn't mean you're less likely to be targeted).
Tell me you're not an American without telling me you're not an American.
I hate to say it, but to many (racist) Americans, brown skin < anything else ... and ICE has a disproportionate number of those people, because they deliberately hire them.
2. Reread what I wrote, it's not contradicted by what you said.
I meant to say "doesn't mean you're not less likely to be targeted".
The way things are currently operating, the border is probably the place you have to worry the least as it's staffed by CBP folks which have probably had training: it's the rest of the country with ICE randos running around that seem to be the worrisome areas. Just ask the South Koreans:
* https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/sep/12/s...
> You're better off with white skin and a US passport than with white skin and a British passport, but you're also better off with brown skin and a US passport than brown skin and a British passport […]
Are we talking at the border or the rest of the country? At the border with CBP a US passport would probably be best. With the rest of the country, with ICE, white skin and a British (or any) passports would probably be 'best'.
But also, look carefully at the comparisons I offered. I didn't include all the combinations, because I only was including comparisons that were obviously true without any room for ambiguity or nitpicking.
As you noted, a black citizen might be treated better at the border and worse during a traffic stop compared to a white foreigner.
I WISH governments would be for the people and not for the powerful who can buy "justice" .. for themselves.
These recent job losses are probably not attributable to tourism since that’s unchanged year over year.
I’m not saying tourism is not a factor or denying anecdotes about people not visiting the US, but I don’t think it’s the explanation for the February 2026 job losses.
This is accurate. This thread is people emoting. I get it, might as well let it out. Tourism being major part of the US GDP feels like countries whose GDP depends on tourism, projecting. I get that too, if that is the paradigm you live in every day, that is the lens you view things through.
Tourism is probably affecting local economies at the margins, and there is a real loss there for those communities. The US GDP as a whole? Not even a rounding error.
Emoting and wishful thinking is exactly right, and I say that as a Canadian who is participating in this boycott. I'm not doing it to hurt the US economy, because I know it won't matter one bit even if we all stay away. It'll hurt some border destinations, but will hardly register in most places. Facts are facts.
The US economy is driven in part by coal which employs 40,000 people. Rounding errors have impacts and are part of policy discussion all the time. It only gets shut down with 'rounding error' when it's referring to average people issues without clout.
Calling things rounding errors is the US equivalent speech as russian style apathy propaganda.
Having established that, you know the firm upper bound on economic (not cultural or political or podcast-topic-generating) impact that international tourism boycott will have on the US. Same for putting tariffs on US goods. If you ignore this, you'll be surprised by how little this matters in the end, economically. Conversely, if you keep yourself firmly grounded in reality you can still in fact be against these policies on different grounds - on the fact that over time their cumulative economic and non-economic effect will hurt, on the fact that a lot of the reasons for these policies are fanciful nationalist bullshit (no, manufacturing jobs aren't and won't be coming back). But don't expect us staying away from your country, or putting a tariff on your shitty cars or cucumbers or whatever, to make a difference. Why is that controversial?
To say this a tiny unimportant segment that isn't worth talking about is ridiculous. Again especially considering the consideration the Republicans give tiny industries like coal which employs 40,000.
It's worth talking about a segment that employs 1.5 million in a discussion about 92k job loses.
I suggest not dying on this hill, it isn’t worth the emotional turmoil.
If you believe the administration, it's been because BLS "has the wrong numbers" or that they need "interpretation" or "adjustment"...
... or it's because they've been garbage for a while now and trending in this direction because, shocking, I realize, maybe Trump isn't the economic mastermind he likes to cosplay as inside his head.
One thing worth noting is that the tax structure of American cities can be more based on sales taxes than property taxes, and so if tourism is down, and sales is down, this will begin to impact city budgets, which can have rippling effects elsewhere. For example municipal cutbacks to landscaping budgets could impact private contractors etc.
I live in a border state with Canada and this is having a huge impact for my community and those around us. I can't imaging it not impacting at least 40,000 Americans.
Sure, if there's potential for using this situation for political gain it'll maybe make a political impact, but there will not be an economic one, not above the SNR of what else is going on.
It's 12% of the international market. That is the segment. Any business is going to pay attention when they lose 12% of a market segment. Travel is 2.5% of GDP, above agriculture (0.9%), mining (1.3%), and utilities (1.5%) so a very outsize industry. Straight 10% of that (international travel) makes the rounding error market segment 20% of the size of our entire ag industry.
That is your 'rounding error' a segment that brings in 20% of the entire United States ag industry.
Tourism is also 15 million jobs so a 'rounding error' to such a large industry isn't necessarily a 'rounding error' to our population. 10% of that would be 1.5 million jobs. The entire US agriculture industry employs 812,600.
Again, the party that makes ridiculous claims for political impact is the one so concerned over 40,000 coal industry jobs but unconcerned about the fate of 1.5 million US workers because it's a small 'rounding error'.
https://www.squaremouth.com/travel-advice/us-tourism-statist... https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricul... https://www.trade.gov/feature-article/december-2024-internat...
Edit: My bad if you felt attacked. Everything just gets hand waived away as too big to do anything about nodays. I don't buy it. I'm a software developer. I was mentored on the montra 'how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time'. It's the only way to create complex software solutions, and it's the only way to address our complex world. We shouldn't waive things away as rounding errors when they are part of a complex system. Especially when you consider the US Federal system. If you lose all the border states (most tourism comes from Mexico/Canada) you can easily lose control of the Federal government.
I wonder how many Americans of means are vacationing abroad instead of domestically just to get some respite...
I would love to emigrate to Europe. One of the nights in Amsterdam, I couldn't sleep and spent the night frantically researching how to legally emigrate.
If all of the undocumented people in the US spent this much time trying to emigrate legally, the US wouldn't need ICE and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
The irony is rich here. Country X is bad for enforcing its immigration laws. So let's run off to country Y and dutifully follow its immigration laws.
It is definitely easier to immigrate illegally for a large portion of the world population, and probably most illegal immigrants. Rational actor then would immigrate illegally.
I think this also very much depends on the country. Only a total idiot would try to "legally" immigrate to Argentina as their constitution essentially grants citizenship just for surviving for two years, and meanwhile there is essentially no immigration enforcement and fairly onerous visa process to do it "legally." On the other hand, you'd have to be an idiot to illegally immigrate to China in anything but the most dire circumstances, as they have an Orwellian surveillance apparatus and getting a legal business visa is fairly straightforward particularly in some special economic zones. On the Argentina<->China scale I would rate America as further towards the Argentina side, albeit with no path to regularization of status for most illegal immigrants.
Having a dogmatic adherance to the law leads to irrational actions. But also having a dogmatic disdain for the law also leads to irrational actions. Everything has to be considered in context. In the context of the USA you mostly have to be an idiot to try and immigrate legally if you are low skilled poor person from a 3rd world country with no connections. In the context of an educated American going to Europe, the rational choice is probably to immigrate legally.
From this lenses I don't really see any logical inconsistency in the fact the same person might pick illegal on one path and legal for another. Although yes if they are leaving the US because they hate immigration controls and dogmatically following immigration controls overseas in someplace like Argentina where it doesn't even make sense to do so, then they are definitely hypocrites.
Many of the "undocumented people" (what an Orwellian phrase) that have been rounded up by ICE are picked up during court hearings or immigration interviews. An easy way for agents to meet their quota without doing any actual investigative work. Say what you will about them but there's no denying those people were by definition "trying to emigrate legally." This has been widely reported.
I appreciate the way you phrased that, "what the legal system says" rather than "the laws," since it's important to keep in mind a lot of what we're talking about is mercurial executive branch policy rather than statutory law. (which is why US immigration has been such a shitshow for such a long time)
On the other hand, you're apparently ignorant of what's actually happening, and it's making you write stupid things. The Trump administration's policy changes when he took office immediately made a lot of people, not my choice of words, "illegal" immigrants instead of "legal" immigrants. Maybe you support that, that's your business, but to claim those people were not "trying to emigrate legally" because the new administration changed the rules is simply dishonest.
Yeah. Also "Illegal aliens" used often by US government officials is even more Orwellian.
1. Should we deport illegal immigrants? While there are some debate here (sanctuary cities, immigration reform etc), it's not the primary cause of the current ICE repulsion.
2. How deportations are done currently. Mass round ups, targeting everyone, including those with no criminal record, the violence involved. This is what most people are against.
Ultimately, it would have been quicker, easier, and cheaper (and in the end, just as legal as my immigration) to come here on a tourist visa or the VWP, marry her in spite of the prohibition thereon, and ask for forgiveness and apply to be able to stay anyway.
When it's those three things versus "legal immigration", and other factors, I rather empathize with many of those people.
And as for your comment, it's more and more apparent that Trump intends for ICE to be his cudgel for all manner of opposition, not just immigration issues (witness the attempts to extort Minnesota into handing over state voter rolls, "We will move ICE enforcement out of the state if you do") so no, we'd still be having it.
As a US citizen who has daydreamed about moving to a Dutch city like Ultrecht I'm curious what they found, and how it feels to be an immigrant in the Netherlands.
The reason it's "daydreaming" is that we're not yet ready to give up on New England, but I'd still like to start getting our ducks in a row in case there's a rush for the exits and we have to move quickly.
> He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy.
Sounds like what we're looking for.
It does all seem to be too much.
US citizens are, of course, allowed in even if they refuse, but they will confiscate a citizen's phone in exchange for a custody receipt (Form 6051-D) and they are supposed to return it to the US citizen after they break into the phone / crack the encryption. If they can't crack it, they can choose to never return the phone to the US citizen. And it can be a very stressful situation in which citizens may not know what their rights are in the moment (or can't afford to replace their phone or lose access to it because how would you even get an Uber from the airport or coordinate a pickup if you don't have a phone).
You can choose to bring burner phones or make sure your phone is freshly factory reset, but if you're a non-citizen that can also be a reason to be refused entry, and if you are a citizen that can "get you on a list", leading to getting "SSSS" stamped on every boarding pass for every flight you take, in every country in the world, for the next many years. If your boarding pass gets "SSSS" written on it, you will get pulled aside by security and all your bags get individually hand-searched prior to every single flight (even transfers/connections/layovers).
Non-citizens are also sometimes asked for a list of your social media accounts and the passwords to their social media accounts. Refusing to provide your passwords can be used as a reason to refuse entry to the USA. If the USA believes you have a social media account that you failed to tell them about, that can also be a reason to refuse entry.
Also, as of recently, visitors from 38 countries have to post a ~$10,000 bond just to be allowed into the USA.
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-09/Test_Results...
I've visited a lot of countries in my life but I've never been treated as rudely as on the US border.
However, if you’re a noncitizen you might be refused entry, and if you are a citizen you might never see that phone again. The phone will be stored for years until/if Cellebrite finds a vulnerability in that iPhone model, and then it will be searched. Also the government might target your future phones for Pegasus-style remote attacks, so if you present your phone to CBP in lockdown mode, you may want to leave lockdown mode enabled forever.
Modern iPhones are very, very hard (impossible) to crack today if they’re locked down properly: strong password, biometrics disabled, and/or lockdown mode.
Getting a very good lockdown mode requires both owning the entire stack (Apps + OS + Silicon) and being willing to sacrifice repairability (swapping chips/cameras/displays/touch controllers is a good way to help hack into a phone), and willingness to spend a lot of money on something that few people would actually pay for. Apple is the only company that's even positioned to take on this challenge.
AndroidOS has to work with a bunch of core functionality chips that Google/Samsung don't make. Having a bunch of different code paths/interfaces for a bunch of different SoC's, cellular modems, touch controllers, and cameras is not a winning recipe for security. Both Google and Samsung also use their own SoC's (Google Tensor G5, Samsung Exynos) but Samsung also uses a lot of Qualcomm Snapdragons ... and if you're using someone else's SoC there's no chance in hell of coming up with a proper "Lockdown Mode". Samsung or Google might be able to come up with a fully integrated solution someday, each have invested in parts of this. Beyond SOC's, Samsung has their custom silicon which helps them lock down security for their combo touch/display controller. Samsung has also invested a lot into customizing their Knox Secure Folder solutions (and everything else branded "Knox" as well, which is all mostly industry-leading for Android options). Google has the Pixel with their own Titan M2 security chip, and obviously they own the OS.
But it's a lot of work when so much of your engineering is dealing with changes that other companies are making. Google has to keep up with Samsung's hardware changes, because the tail wags the dog there, and Samsung spends a lot of engineering time figuring out how to deal with / customize / fork changes to AndroidOS that Google pushes (while the dog still wags the tail, too). Both have to deal with whatever Qualcomm throws at them for cellular modems, and it required a monumental effort/expense from Apple to only just recently bring up a replacement for Qualcomm's modems.
You are in legal limbo before you enter the country.
Reminded me of COVID time...
Sure, there will always be die-hard fans that will show up not matter what, but with so many teams, I bet we'll see empty stadiums for some matches.
You mean full of AI spectators.
2. International Tourism in the US is not that big. Total international visits were expected to fall from 72.4 million (2024) to about 67.9 million (2025). https://www.ustravel.org/press/us-travel-forecast-2025-modes... So visitors to the U.S. dropped about 6% in 2025. I've seen some crazy numbers in this chat. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fewer-foreigners-visited-us...
More than 1.5 billion tourists spent $11.7 trillion on hotels, cruises and flights last year, according to the data from the World Travel and Tourism Council.
A fall of $12.5 billion is a lot but not something that will alter anything significant.
The majority of the people that are declining to travel to US are Example drops recorded:
Germany: ↓ 28% Spain: ↓ 25% UK: ↓ 18% Canada: ↓ 17% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_States
3. Some states and some countries are going the opposite (Argentina, Israel, two examples). https://skift.com/2025/12/29/us-international-travel-which-s...
4 .There is an offset by Americans traveling inside the US as well. https://www.thetravel.com/how-and-why-us-international-touri...
Overall, this is a small macro impact.
It's not like this is the first time in recent history that region has been somewhat unsafe for travelers. Or the second time, or third, or fiftieth.
BTW, the irony is that they decided not to go to the US, but they are victims of the danger caused by the US anyway.
Less than 0.01% of travelers to the US have their electronics screened. A similarly small fraction of travelers get turned away at the border. It's remarkable how big of a story it is for how much of a non-story it is, especially when you consider the fact that similar laws exists in the UK, France, most of the Middle East, East Asia, and more. The only story here is that America is (regretfully) becoming more like the rest of the world.
In short, the thing is that countries like UAE are predictable. Follow their laws and don't mess with them, and they won't mess with you. The US has become unpredictable, hence more dangerous.
The Trump admin acts like it is on cocaine. Many people - and I think this can be a highly rational preference - prefer predictable more evil of chaotic less evil.
That said, I do see a lot of ads for domestic tourism to places that ordinarily would really have no need to advertise. Disney buying YouTube spots to persuade me,a US resident, to visit Florida seems remarkable. I suspect things are not rosy?
“Tourism” is not a separately-tracked sector in the data, but would be reflected in several of the tracked sectors ("Leisure and hospitality” particularly, but slices of the tourism spend would be in several of the other tracked sectors.)
With that said, I’m sure the US Iran conflict is going to have all kinds of fun effects.
Also of note, all four of those states are ‘Conservative’ havens…
I am interested in seeing some natural scenarios and also experiencing the American culture and way of living in mostly middle and small cities.
tl;dw - They say Vegas visitor numbers are down, but profits are actually up. This is because the tourism industry there has refocused on higher end clientele
Here is much better quality reporting from NBC News with a breakdown per industry at 02:01 in the video:
"The U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, stoking labor market worries" - https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/2026-labor-market-s...
The most hysterically funny take on this is Cramer..( who else) and CBNC saying its AI...its NOT.
Only right now? The US touristic cities have been and continue to be the most expensive places in the world to visit by far, so most of the planet will never visit the US out of cost reasons alone, regardless of their views on $CURRENT_POLITICS.
Foreign tourism probably isn't large enough part of the US GDP to be making a dent in the US economy as a whole.
@WarmWash: where is the dollar collapsing? USD:EUR and USD:GBP are on par with where they were 10 years ago. Hardly a collapse. The people who can't afford flights and boarding in Vegas, Santa Monica or NY won't get any massive benefit from current currency fluctuations.
And international tourism supports local tourism. I think Las Vegas will continue to be a shell of what it was until international tourism rebounds.
BEA used to have these cool interactive tables on GDP by industry, but they’ve now been discontinued. It really feels like our current administration just does not like public data.
And what types of jobs are those 15 million? High paid high skilled or low pay low skilled?
Because from what I can tell you about EU tourism jobs, most jobs tourism creates over here are low pay, hard labor, unskilled jobs, mostly filled by minimum wage migrant seasonal workers who then send the money back home, meaning the biggest beneficiaries from those jobs are the wealthy land/business owners who exploit cheap mirant labor, and not the local workforce who mostly suffers gentrification as they don't work in low pay tourist jobs and have to deal with increased rents from tourism on top.
Plus, the massive black economy tourism creates where a lot of the money is under the table and avoids the tax man further compounds to the problem. So I doubt much of the US working class will suffer from a tourism stagnation.
@HEmanZ: Did you read anything I said? Who's losing their job when almost all tourism jobs are done by foreign seasonal workers? The locals mostly aren't losing any job because they don't work in tourism due to pay and work conditions.
Are you using the same logic to cry for the western workers making clothes and sneakers who lost their jobs to Asian sweatshops? Do you think they miss that type of jobs and would want them back?
Are you using the same logic to cry for the western workers making clothes and sneakers who lost their jobs to Asian sweatshops? Do you think they miss that type of jobs and would want them back?
Probably all of it since tourism was 11% of total GDP in 2023, a third of that being international tourism would be on par with european averages.
2023: 2.36T (i misread and took 2024 prediction)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188105/annual-gdp-of-the...
2023: 27.7
2.36 / 27.7 * 100 ~ 8.5
so 8.5 percent, not 11
I don't have a paid access to the website since 2021, so i can't look at the primary/secondary data, but it never failed me, and doesn't have the bias more political economic institutes has, so i mostly take data from there. If you have different data i will take them.
But maybe the right way to frame it is it wouldn’t be felt as much nationally, but international tourism drops are pretty catastrophic to local economies of some of our biggest cities like New York Miami and Los Angeles Angeles.