The real estate investor and his partner, Taylor Stevens, are travelling north for a simple knee injection. U.S. doctors offered 35-year-old Stevens either an entire joint replacement or ongoing anti-inflammatory medication following a motoring accident. To get the more-tolerable injection, the pair must cross the border once a year.<\/p>\n
Soon, they hope to make an even more drastic move.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re done with the U.S. and want a new life five and a half thousand miles away \u2014\u00a0in Italy.<\/p>\n
The couple are just two of a number of individuals Fortune<\/em> spoke to who cited America\u2019s polarized politics as a major factor in their decision to leave the States.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of State told Fortune<\/em> it does not have numbers for how many Americans have moved to different countries.<\/p>\n But with the upcoming presidential elections, the number of households looking to leave is likely to increase: Relocation experts told Fortune<\/em> their phones have been ringing off the hook since the Trump vs. Biden debate.<\/p>\n Their destinations vary widely, but their feelings are often the same: Politics in the U.S. is toxic. There has been an attempted assassination of an ex-president. Rioters stormed the Capitol trying to overturn an election. These are events Americans associate with unstable, developing countries, far from North America.<\/p>\n America is beginning to feel foreign to them. So they\u2019re going in search of home elsewhere.<\/p>\n Property entrepreneurs Stevens and Zavarce know where their move will be to, but aren\u2019t as certain on when.<\/p>\n The pair will be looking to settle in the northern Italian city of Vicenza\u2014around an hour\u2019s drive from Verona. With Stevens having lived in the area for more than a decade, and Zavarce being of Italian descent, their move will reunite them with \u201clifelong\u201d friends. <\/p>\n \u201cIt just felt like home,\u201d Zavarce recalls of his first time in Italy. \u201cPeople looked like me, people had names that were like mine, people sounded like me, people dressed like me. My \u2018otherness\u2019 was never pointed out, and here I\u2019m always going to be that \u2018other\u2019 person.\u201d<\/p>\n In Louisiana, Zavarce and Stevens say they don\u2019t feel safe because of the constant background level of hate for people who might be liberal.<\/p>\n Multiple motorists have attempted to ram their car\u2014a Rivian R1S\u2014off the road because it is an electric vehicle, they say.<\/p>\n In their most recent incident, a truck raced up behind Zavarce from a quarter of a mile away, moved into the inside lane, and began steering towards the Rivian in at attempt to maneuver it towards the road\u2019s barrier. At the time Zavarce was driving on a bridge over a lake.<\/p>\n The truck then pulled close in front of Zavarce and slammed on its brakes\u2014forcing the shaken EV driver to do the same. <\/p>\n Driving an EV, Zavarce believes, is increasingly being taken as a political statement given the push the Biden administration has made towards renewable energy. Donald Trump, by contrast, has lambasted the sector, describing the push for electric cars as \u201cinsane.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAll of that has caused people to view individuals who drive EVs with the utmost \u2026 anger,\u201d Zavarce said.<\/p>\n They also got tired of living in fear of homophobic harassment. They purchased the empty lots on either side of their home to create a security bubble around their house.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way that Italian society is \u2026 you can be and do anything you want, as long as you do it yourself and you don\u2019t impose it on anybody else. They don\u2019t blink twice when I say \u2018This is my husband\u2019,\u201d Zavarce said.<\/p>\n Financial security is another factor.<\/p>\n The pair, who run realty firm Hello House, have already offloaded four American properties in order to begin investing in an Italian portfolio.<\/p>\n Their plan is to build up a property inventory designed to attract families visiting the nearby military base in Caserma Ederle: customers in need of home comforts and realtors who speak English.<\/p>\n He has already submitted business plans to the Italian Chamber of Commerce to establish his company ahead of a move.<\/p>\n Their relocation will likely be between 2026 and 2027.<\/p>\n Assassination attempts and insurrection at the White House led UC Berkeley student Benjamin Fields to book a flight to Cameroon six weeks ahead of the election. <\/p>\n Fields will stay in the African nation for a total of three months across the election period, saying he fears for his safety due to political unrest.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old told Fortune<\/em> he \u201cnever truly believed\u201d he would be in danger in the U.S. but added: \u201cAfter there was an assassination attempt \u2026 and you see how much divisiveness there is it\u2019s like: \u2018At what risk do I put myself being in the country at that time?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI have a feeling people are going to get violent because a lot of people feel like this is a permanent turning point for the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n The Oklahoma-born student, who studied for his undergraduate degree at New York University, describes himself as politically \u201cnot one way or the other\u201d and believes living standards will get worse under either party.<\/p>\n Which is why Fields\u2014who is two years away from finishing his PhD\u2014plans to stay in the U.S. to build up some cash reserves but during his November trip to Cameroon he will buy land to build a home.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can say it\u2019s one administration or the other but \u2026 if you look at the percentage of wealth held by the top 1% or 10% over time, regardless of administration it still goes in the same trend,\u201d Fields said.\u00a0\u201cHousing prices can fluctuate more so \u2026 but they\u2019re still going up. It\u2019s like two heads of the same snake\u2014[the parties] can be socially against each other but both in both directions are still about the money.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018People try to ram us off the road for driving an EV\u2019<\/h2>\n
Safety fears during the election<\/h2>\n
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