Ever since the voters handed Donald Trump the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in November, I’ve thought a lot about leaving the United States. Until the election, I took it for granted that this was my permanent home. But since a plurality of the electorate voted for Trump, I have been asking myself whether I should stay or I should go.

I’m not alone. The possibility of decamping, at least until the 2026 midterm election, is on many people’s minds. By some accounts, online searches related to emigration skyrocketed by 1,514% after Trump’s victory.

Unless you have been asleep at the wheel, you understand why.

But thinking about departing is one thing. Saying farewell is an entirely different matter. Some people stay because the idea of pulling up stakes and beginning anew ultimately seems too scary. Family ties or work obligations may make leaving a nonstarter. And buying your way into another country can cost a bundle — Portugal’s famous “golden visa,” for instance, requires a 500,000 euro (about $540,000) investment.

I’m among the fortunate few for whom leaving is a realistic option. My husband, Niko, is a Finnish citizen, and as the trailing spouse, I can stay abroad indefinitely. I don’t have a family to keep me here. What’s more, Niko and I are virtual nomads — he is a consultant, and I’m a writer — and if there’s a decent internet connection, we are set.

Fight or flight — I have the option of chucking it in, but should I?

“Europeans don’t make such a big deal about leaving their country,” Niko often reminds me. “They move all the time.” But no one leaves Finland because they don’t like what’s happening there. They depart for a better job or nicer weather.

“America, love it or leave it” was the barb that right-wingers hurled at Vietnam War protesters. These days, I can’t say that I love this country. Yet the fact that I can leave it doesn’t answer my question.

Day after day, our democracy keeps getting beaten up like a punch-drunk fighter.

We look to the media to hold the government accountable. But the Washington Post,with the proud motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” turned off those lights when multibillionaire owner Jeff Bezos neutered its editorial board.

We need universities to incite students to think and to conduct envy-of-the-world research. But the White House blackmailed Columbia, one of the nation’s wealthiest and most venerable institutions of higher learning, into abandoning academic freedom. Other world-class universities, including UC Berkeley and Stanford, are in Trump’s sights.

We rely on lawyers to defend our rights, but Paul Weiss, one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, paid off the White House Mafia don to maintain its attorneys’ security clearances, and other powerhouse firms have followed suit.

We count on civil servants to keep the machinery of government up and running. But Musk and his mini-Musks are gleefully throwing sand in the gears.

We depend on the financial security of the markets for our pensions and 401(k)s. But Trump’s highest-in-history tariffs have spawned chaos at home and abroad.

All this has happened in less than a hundred days. No one, except perhaps the authors of Project 2025, could have predicted that the so-called guardrails of democracy were made of papier-mâché, that this country could so quickly be teetering on the precipice of autocracy. One thing I’m sure of — there’s more, and likely worse, to come.