While it would be nice to remain worry-free as Election Day approaches, that would be very difficult and partially irresponsible. As someone who is unable to vote, I have been doing everything I can to resolve myself of these worries- phone banking, writing postcards etc.- but at the same time, I have been making my escape plan in the case that President Trump is re-elected. It’s something that people like to joke about; they plan on moving to Switzerland or sneaking into Canada, or they’ve already built an underground shelter stocked with enough supplies for the length of a presidential term and will be conducting all of their business on Zoom. At the moment, it seems almost impossible that America would repeat the same mistake from four years ago. We laugh about schemes now but escape plans should actually be taken very seriously, and it is better to start drafting yours late than never at all. To give you all some more ideas about what you can include in yours, I’ll detail mine.

In the beginning, formatting an escape plan seems simple. Why not just move to a different country? To start, obtaining citizenship for a country you are not originally from is very difficult, and it is pretty much illegal to indefinitely “vacation” somewhere. The current global pandemic also adds to the challenge. Dozens of European and Asian countries have banned American visitors because of the abhorrent mishandling of the pandemic here. Canada, too, has completely shut down their border. I am lucky, though. I was born in Hong Kong and lived there until I was two. Now, you may be thinking “Ugh she has an advantage, she can just go back to Hong Kong with the citizenship she obtained from being born there. I am so jealous.” This is where you are mistaken. You see, China only gives citizenship to children when at least one of their parents is Chinese; that is not the case for me. However, Hong Kong did give me a different advantage – it is an international hub for people and business. This is where my escape plan begins. As a toddler, I had many friends whose parents were not from Hong Kong either, but they weren’t from the US like mine, so they had citizenship in other countries. Do you see what I’m getting at yet? 

My two very best friends were these boys whose names I will not disclose but will instead call Bachelor #1 and Bachelor #2. Because our sisters were best friends, I spent almost every day with Bachelor #1. His family moved back to Canada, where they’re originally from, right before we moved back to the states. I haven’t seen Bachelor #1 since I was 2, but my mom shares everything she sees about him on Facebook with me. Apparently he’s really good at science. 

Bachelor #2 and I weren’t as close when we were really little, and I didn’t really remember him that well until his family visited mine in California when I was 6. We rekindled our friendship instantly and were the best of friends for an entire week, but then he had to go back to Australia. I’ve seen the Facebook pictures of him since then and let’s just say he’s definitely not bad looking.

If you haven’t gotten the hint already, I plan on marrying myself off to one of these suitable bachelors to gain citizenship to either Canada or Australia if things go awry in November. Sure, I may be 15, and sure I may have not seen either of these boys in ten years, but I have evaluated my options. This is a much better alternative than living in a country where womens’ rights to their bodies are up for debate, murderers of black people face no consequence, and science is blatantly ignored, all of which will continue if the current president is re-elected – hence the escape plan. If you are not as fortunate as I and don’t have eligible bachelors awaiting you in another country, do not fret. Instead, your next best option would be to cryogenically freeze yourself for the next four years, which ranges in price from about $50,000 to $200,000. If that pathway doesn’t work for you either, refer to my introduction for some other ideas. I hope that it does not come to this, but I will say that I’ve always wished I were Canadian and wanted to visit Australia, so my options could be worse.