My husband and I drove along a quiet neighborhood street counting the house numbers and scanning yards for an open house sign. Looking to the left, I pointed as I spotted our destination. “Oh, hell no,” he said just as we slowed in front of the house. What was it? I scanned for devastating cracks in the foundation, a flooded yard, or some other immediately noticeable flaw. Then I saw his eyes pointed across the street.
“Aw man!” I said, recognizing the deal breaker immediately. A giant, red Make America Great Again flag was posted proudly outside the neighbors garage pointed right at the front door of the home we had come to look at. “Should I just keep going?” he asked. We went in purely out of curiosity, and I just got more upset every time I opened a door to a room that was just what we were looking for. The structure was perfect, but there was no way we could live in that environment.
It turns out that we weren’t alone in feeling repulsed at the thought of buying a home with trumper neighbors. Real estate agents have observed that it can be more difficult to sell properties with political signages nearby. And while there may or may not be malicious intent on the part of the flag waver, their property value is affected too, often by tens of thousands of dollars. Many people just won’t willingly walk into such a toxic living environment. I sure wouldn’t.
What we observe on the micro level of today’s housing market doesn’t seem to be isolated to American home hunting: trumpism and its related politics discourage people from all over the world from moving to America. Though some republicans have the idea that everyone worships the United States and are trying to move here to take advantage of our legendary benefits, this fallacy is becoming further from the truth with each cruel word and policy from their administration.
In fact, he’s likely driving away current American citizens as we speak. Reports in the early days after the election found that there was a drastic increase in google searches for how to move to another country. A study that was released at the end of January found that a majority of Americans don’t trust their government or their neighbors, and they don’t have faith that their future in this country will be bright. So who would be surprised if they left?
Right now, our American living situation has all the red flags- literally and figuratively- that no one wants to live with.
Donald has manifest destinied America into a country that the world laughs at, that is in decline or even dying. Though he puts on a big show about flipping the House and cleaning up crime, he’s actually tearing down infrastructure and rocking the foundations of our country. He makes it increasingly difficult for most people to live here in a myriad of ways. Trump’s America is a toxic environment with a bad vibe, and as long as he’s in the neighborhood, few want to buy anything.
Let’s evict him asap.
With love and hope for the future,
Stephanie
If you were Trump’s neighbor, how do would you drive him out of the neighborhood?
For more information:
https://money.com/can-trump-flag-lower-property-value/
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/american-immigrants-world-view-b2152715.html
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1824916958761951466?prefetchTimestamp=1740072083290&mx=2
I’m in New Zealand, and was a regular tourist to see dear friends in the USA. There’s no way I will visit, let alone spend my tourist dollars there, with a fascist government in charge. I’m so sad for my friends that it has come to this, just 80 years after the Allies’ defeat of the greatest tyranny in history. So very very sad.
There are cities and places in the US that I would like to spend more than just vacation time in, but I would never move there and now I have no intention of visiting. I’m quite content to staycation in Canada.