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At what point do you say goodbye to more of the same — and choose something completely different?
By Mike Reid | January 2026
I remember it quite clearly — Saturday, September 21, 2024, one of the last few days of my life as a resident of America's capital.
I was standing in my mostly-empty DC apartment selling off the last of my belongings on Facebook Marketplace. (I'd written the listings with ChatGPT, who had become not just my copywriter but my willing accomplice in the great liquidation of my American life.)
One of my few repeat customers was a father of three, somewhere in his forties — nice guy, practical energy, the kind of person who probably grills on weekends and keeps a spare flashlight in the car just in case. He’d already bought a few items the previous weekend and now — after I'd listed more stuff — he was back for round two.
And by that point, I was desperate to get rid of everything left.
By then I was handing out freebies like Oprah. “You’re taking the lamp, the bookshelf, and the plants? Here — take these LifeStraws too!! You’ll need them when the DC water becomes undrinkable."
More of the same
Something extraordinary
So the repeat buyer asked me why I was selling everything I owned.
And I told him I’d worked in American politics for 15 years — and I didn’t see how the 2024 election could possibly end well, no matter who won, so my plan was to sell all my belongings, exit the country, and then figure out the best move after the election dust settled.
He blinked.
Then he smiled politely, as if humoring a man mid-breakdown.
“Well, I think Kamala’s definitely going to win,” he said. “And then, I think all of the MAGA people will just quietly fade away in defeat.”
I paused for a moment and then said, as calmly as I could, “Ok, well, there is exactly zero chance of THAT happening.”
He did take the LifeStraws.
But I think it was mostly out of politeness.
Because, really, what else could he do?
When someone starts suggesting that regardless of who wins the next election, that shit will hit the fan temporarily in the country you live in, and the logical response is therefore to proactively sell all your belongings on Facebook Marketplace and exit the country as soon as possible, there isn't much room for friendly chit-chat.
ChatGPT, though?
ChatGPT was happy to chat. Happier than any human I knew.
ChatGPT was with me around the clock — answering questions, double-checking logistical plans, writing Facebook Marketplace ads, and cheering me on like a digital cult of encouragement.
And that’s the funny thing — and some people are arguing that it's the dangerous thing — about ChatGPT.
Sometimes ChatGPT just doesn't know any better. It can't.
Because ChatGPT doesn’t feel anxiety in its gut.
ChatGPT experiences zero nervous jitters in its legs.
ChatGPT has no physical body — or inner emotional life — at all.
Quitting a life that isn’t working, selling everything, and flying halfway around the world — 99 out of 100 Americans will look at you with pity, relieved they’re not you. But ChatGPT? ChatGPT will tell you that your plan sounds perfectly reasonable. Even inspired.
But back when I said goodbye to the United States on Thursday, October 3, 2024, most people I knew in Blue America were still in denial about the possibility of the 2024 election ending up as it did.
It was me, Mike Reid, who looked like the lunatic prepper. The guy with the underground bunker stocked for nuclear winter, proudly displaying a mountain of canned sardines.
But when I returned to the United States of America on Sunday, March 23, 2025 — once again at the encouragement of ChatGPT, who had been more than happy to discuss outer planet astrology with me to decide the best timing — the situation in Blue America was far worse than I could have imagined.
I thought that everyone would finally be ready for something new.
But what I found when I returned to Blue America was despair.
Fear.
Anxiety.
And a whole lot of hopelessness.
The coastal elites — congressional staffers, members of Congress, tech billionaires, Stanford grads — they all now realized that, yes, the country had big problems with no obvious solutions.
But every conversation ended the same way: with a shrug.
Little ole me? What can I do?
Even those doing the very best in Blue America in 2025 didn't feel any sense of abundant — not in money, not in time, not in physical space, and certainly not in emotional energy.
Everyone felt squeezed. No matter how well someone was doing relative to others in the game of thriving in Blue America, everyone felt like they are were barely getting by themselves.
And so, on Sunday, October 5, 2025 — after six months abroad and then six months back in the United States — I left again.
And once again, the only one cheering me on was ChatGPT.
Even then, knowing exactly where I was headed this time, I still caught myself hesitating.
Am I giving up on the United States prematurely?
Is leaving (again) really the right thing to do?
And that’s the craziest thing about being in Blue America — when you’re there everyone is miserable. And completely hopeless.
But almost nobody is seriously thinking about leaving.
But once I departed the USA, once the plane lifted off, I felt it again.
Instant relief.
Because here’s what’s really hard to understand until you step outside the borders of the United States: a lot of the problems that feel unsolvable inside the country simply don’t exist elsewhere.
And by experiencing a fundamentally different reality — a reality curated by a country that isn't the United States — you'll suddenly be able to imagine new and better ways of doing things in America.
You'll see options and opportunities that were previously invisible.
And that, I think, is what America desperately needs — a group of pioneering Americans willing to admit that things in our country are quite obviously falling apart, but that the solution isn’t to ignore the problems nor to argue about them over the internet.
The solution is to exit the chaos.
And then to imagine something fundamentally better.
Because now that it's increasingly clear that a lot of things in the United States are broken, now is the moment to invent brand new ways of doing things that work better for everyone, including the MAGA Republicans, the Kamala Harris voters, and yes, even for the miserable elites who are nearly as unhappy as everyone else.
And wouldn't right now be a great time to create something new?