It’s not that they don’t want to leave; it’s that they know they’d lose their pedestal elsewhere.
I don’t have the personal experience with them that it sounds like you do, but I’m guessing if this offer were given by, say, New Zealand, at least some of them would take them up on it and do what Cubans in Miami do- pretend they’ve brought Cuba with them and still talk about how they’ll take Cuba back someday. Because New Zealand is not the shithole America is. It’s quite nice.
I’m sure you’re right overall, but I’m also sure “America is a massive shithole and getting worse by the day” is also a big factor here.
I’m South African and from where I’m standing, both New Zealand and Australia seem to be popular places to move to. I’m not going to claim that most white South Africans aren’t conservative bigots because I would be lying. But there are also a lot of good reasons to leave this place, I’m afraid.
My sister lives in NZ (for no reason other than she met her now husband who is a Kiwi while traveling overseas after school). And after being there for a visit, it’s hard to put into the words how it feels to experience a country where things are actually run well. And there’s no trash anywhere. And even the toilets are modern and efficient (something I noticed because there was a drought in South Africa at the time so I was watching flushes). And you can walk down the road with headphones on, listening to music on your phone without looking over your shoulder in case you get mugged (which I have been 3 times now).
Coming back to South Africa and driving down a road filled with trash and stray dogs, I could actually almost physically see and feel the black cloud coming over me again. And it hits me hard because having spent my childhood in the '90s when Mandela had been released and the ANC was taking over, I had huge hope back then. As a child, I bought into the hype hard. And one Jacob Zuma later, it’s all fucked.
But yeah, fuck these racist farmers. I’m gonna sound a bit heartless here but I went to boarding school in a conservative shithole one horse town. And wherever a farm murder occurred (which was twice or three times over the course of me being there I think), there was never a time where there weren’t whispers about how those farmers treated their workers like borderline sub humans. I’m not condoning murder but I think our society will be better off without the people who live like it’s still 1980 and apartheid.
I wouldn’t want them to go to the USA though because I like a lot of Americans and they’ve already got their own backwards hillbilly confederates to deal with. I don’t think it’s fair that they get more.
Oh come on now. Surely you’ve heard that expression before. I’m actually tempted to just block you because you’re either a troll or just looking for a stick to beat the dog with and clearly not joining this conversation in any good faith.
You’re not wrong about America being a massive shithole, but let’s not pretend New Zealand is some utopia for these folks either. They wouldn’t just “bring Cuba back someday”—they’d try to recreate their pedestal wherever they land, all while whining about how the locals don’t “appreciate” them.
This isn’t about geography; it’s about entitlement. Whether it’s Miami, Auckland, or Mars, they’ll cling to their apartheid nostalgia and demand the world accommodate it. The pedestal isn’t tied to a place—it’s tied to their worldview.
And sure, America’s spiraling, but that doesn’t excuse their refusal to face reality. They’re not victims of circumstance; they’re architects of their own irrelevance. Let them stay where they are and stew in it.
