"If we’re being clear-eyed about it, America has, historically, been brutal to many of its citizens. For some, that treatment is far more recent and unfamiliar, inspiring the desire to find happiness, safety, and security elsewhere. And while it’s tempting to believe this sense of urgency can be wholly blamed on Donald Trump, he was, in reality, an accelerant to a necrotic system.

When the middle class began to crack in the years following the 2007 economic collapse, the old American instinct to migrate in search of opportunity shifted. If leaving was something Americans did domestically, the horizon shifted further afield."