Ship of Fools

Sailing toward oblivion, freedom, or the devil you don't know.

Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner has know for a while that “it was time to get the fuck out of there,” meaning America.

So often these days you hear people say, “Idiocracy was a documentary.” And, yes, the sentiment rings true. The 2006 movie satire about a hyper-populist USA governed by an ignoramus — entirely according to the lowest-common-denominator tastes, desires and beliefs of the imbecilic population — does sound like contemporary reality.

Stay tuned for the sequels: Deportocracy, Rape-o-cracy, Swindleocracy and Gulagocracy.

But if the movie was a warning about the danger of a government built on scorn for knowledge, it is not the first. Plato imagined it 2,500 years ago in Book VI of his The Republic, depicting a sailing vessel with a crew of uneducated idiots, meant as an allegory for a ship of state commanded by know-nothings. Plato called it “The Ship of Fools.” Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Linda McMahon and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. weren’t mentioned by name, perhaps because even Plato couldn’t imagine such a confederacy of dunces.

The notion of blithely sailing toward oblivion did, however, capture the imagination of novelist Katherine Anne Porter, whose 1962 Ship of Fools described a passenger voyage from Mexico to Germany in 1932. Aboard were an assortment of cockeyed optimists, malcontents and marginalized travelers who believed their destinies were to be found in pre-war Europe. Steaming into the teeth of Nazism, they were correct but not in the way they obliviously imagined. Stanley Kramer directed the film adaptation in 1965. His take on tragically misplaced optimism was a disturbing cinema grotesque.

Meantime, with the Triumph of Mouthbreathers, Misogynists, Bible Thumpers, Bigots and Self-Defeating Dupes, life is resembling art in another way with the exodus of Americans to presumed safe havens abroad. America 2024 may or may not be Germany in 1932 (mark me down for “probably”), but the roundups and purges are about to begin. Immigrants, political rivals, OB/GYNs, college professors, public-school educators, bureaucrats, judges and God knows who else. So fleeing the country before democracy and rule of law are thrown on the pyre has ceased being an idle threat.

“Inquiries about relocating abroad spiked massively,” immigration attorney Jean-Francois Harvey of Harvey Law Group told Realtor.com. “People say they want a Plan B. They are worried about political instability.”

Worried in large numbers. According to the Immigration Advice Service, 47% of Los Angelinos and 35% of New Yorkers are contemplating emigration. And it’s becoming a marketplace.Today’s news included a CNN dispatch from the Italian island of Sardinia. There a struggling mountain village called Ollolai (pop. 1,175) is offering dilapidated houses in the town center for one Euro, in hopes that Americans fleeing Trumpistan will relocate and boost the eroding population and economy.

“Of course, we can’t specifically mention the name of one US president who just got elected,” Ollolai Mayor Francesco Columbu told CNN, “but we all know that he’s the one from whom many Americans want to get away from now and leave the country.”

The offer has yielded 38,000 requests for information. Mind you, for two more months, this is still America. That means that 1) the military is not yet unconstitutionally pitted against domestic civilians; 2) vaccines are still available to protect public health; and 3) people are still interested only in news that involves celebrities. Guantanamo can be converted into a death camp, Canada can start building a border wall, but that won’t get as many clicks as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson peeing into a bottle on a movie set. So the early reporting on this subject has almost entirely been through the prism of celebrities fleeing Trumpistan.

America Ferrera, of Barbie and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame, is headed to the UK, with her husband and two kids. Cher, who says she was literally sickened during the first Trump administration, has said, “I almost got an ulcer the last time. This time I will leave.” And Sharon Stone is looking at self-imposed exile in Italy.

“I think that’s an intelligent construct at this time,” she said. “This is one of the first times in my life that I’ve actually seen anyone running for office on a platform of hate and oppression.”

Two British expats, Minnie Driver and Sophie Turner, say they’re repatriating to the UK. In Driver’s case, it came after agonizing over the more righteous choice. “Living in California, you are somewhat insulated, but do you want to go and live in a bubble? Do you run away from the fire or do you go back and help?” Fight apparently lost and flight won. As for Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner, she knew a while back that it was time to “get the fuck out of there,” now a fait accompli.

Tom Hanks (Greece) and Richard Gere (Spain) have also wound up on the foreign-real-estate lists, although their expatriation predated the election and was based on their wives’ nationalities. Likewise Eva Langoria (Spain and Mexico), although she framed herself as lucky to have an offshore option.

“I get to escape and go somewhere,” she said. “Most Americans aren’t so lucky. They’re going to be stuck in this dystopian country, and my anxiety and sadness is for them.”

My favorite refugee is Vivian Wilson, famous for being Elon Musk’s transgender daughter.

“I don’t see my future being in the United States,” she posted. “Even if [Trump is] only in office for four years, even if the anti-trans regulations magically don’t happen, the people who willingly voted this in are not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Well, exactly. Wilson is not running away from an administration that frightens her. She’s running from a society that has now twice voted such a monumental piece of shit into the presidency. On the other hand, there is no small risk attached to fleeing the devil you know for the one you don’t.

If we go back to the report from the immigration law firm Harvey Group, the most popular choices for American expats include Panama, Belize and Hungary, which is an authoritarian country run by de facto dictator (and Trump role model) Viktor Orban. Belize is singled out in the CIA’s World Factbook thusly: “Current concerns include the country's heavy foreign debt burden, high crime rates, high unemployment combined with a majority youth population, growing involvement in the Mexican and South American drug trade, and one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in Central America.” As for Panama, according to the website RetiresGreat.com, there may be some creature-comfort issues to be reckoned with: “Higher costs than expected; rainy season and humidity; mañana and lack of urgency; petty crime; bureaucracy and corruption; bugs, insects, and creepy crawlies.” On the plus side: very big canal.

And then there is me. In 2023-24, I spent 7 months abroad. In 2025, it will be at least 6 months, because I’m repulsed by the Land of the No Longer Free and Home of the Hateful Coward. And where have I found refuge? Serbia, an autocratic state dominated by rightwing politics and poisoned with corruption. Yes, because my wife is a Serb and I have family and dear friends there and the culture is inviting in so many attractive ways, I, freedom-loving liberal, have embraced the Republic of Serbia on purpose.

What’s weird is, I’ll be passing some acquaintances on the way. In an epistolary exchange in Serbia’s Big Stories magazine, two prominent Balkan movie directors compared notes on their flights from authoritarianism.  One is Goran Marković, who is trading the fiefdom of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić for Trieste, Italy — a far-right Italy with a nationalist government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, ideological heir of Benito Mussolini. The other filmmaker is Rajko Grlić, a Croatian expatriate who’s lived for 20 years in the United States, but is now planning to repatriate in Croatia, itself ruled by far-right politicians who often display sympathy for the Nazi-puppet Ustasha regime of the Axis years. So both men (and Sharon Stone) are either desperate, naive or so personally offended by the state of national politics that they’re willing to accept the depredations of societies that may be equally offensive. Choose your poison, I suppose. Or any heartbreaking metaphor you prefer.

In my case, I am of my own free will adopting a country that has often disappointed me but never betrayed me, because it has never promised me a thing, least of all “exceptionalism.” The secret of happiness is low expectations. Mine for America were tragically high. Now, choked with disillusionment, grief and rage, I am left with one foot in the frying pan, the other in the fire.

[Editor’s note: A previous version of this column misstated the comings and goings of Croatian movie director Rajko Grlić.]