I will do my best to address the OPs questions… I’m afraid this will be long winded, so I apologize in advance. 😊
We are retired and have been part-time expats in Portugal since 2021. We did this for many reasons. At first it was a desire to explore the world during our retirement years while we are still mentally and physically able. However our strong push to make a more permanent decision was due to the 2016 election results, further fueled by the non-peaceful transition of power to the current administration, and what seems to be a country that is becoming a pressure cooker ready to blow its top.
While we originally committed to straddling the Atlantic Ocean and enjoying the best of both worlds for some years, it became extraordinarily clear to us that the strong and dangerous divide amongst the American people and our rapidly changing culture has made the US a country that, regardless of who gets into office, is very possibly irretrievably broken.
We are concerned that regardless of the voting outcome, the threat of violence is very real, either by another violent insurrection or the voting of a self-admitted wannabe dictator into power. As a result, this year we made the decision to change our living accommodations in Portugal from a small apartment to a villa so that we have what we feel is a more comfortable and permanent living situation. Before returning to Portugal, we scheduled ourselves to vote overseas absentee, and prepared ourselves to stay in Portugal full-time indefinitely.
We consider ourselves fairly even keeled. Not a lot causes us to cry that the sky is falling, and we are definitely not what would be considered “doomsdayers.” But this time around, it is different. As citizens of one of the world’s superpowers with significant political and economic ties worldwide, we certainly have concerns on what the ripple effect the outcome of this election will have on relationships with other countries, including our current allies, and how that might affect Americans living abroad. We have already experienced a lot of questions and comments from people in the various countries we have visited over the past 8 years, and we have seen a significant change in the way that the world has started to view the Americans and the USA.
We are concerned with the value of the USD and what will happen with our investments in the US if turmoil happens after this election. This was not something we were worried about in the past elections, even if our chosen candidate did not get elected. This too has pushed us to look at alternatives for protecting our nest egg. However, the US economy and politics also has an effect on many other economies around the world, so the path forward for this is not totally clear.
As for living in Portugal as an American expat: the welcoming attitude of the vast majority of the country’s natural citizens, the availability of high quality healthcare at an extremely accessible cost (albeit maybe not the fanciness we have become accustomed to), the civility of the residents, and the high level of safety and generally low levels of crime throughout the country make Portugal the best choice for us. Yes, it is taking us some time to get used to how things operate here, and that can be frustrating, but we acknowledge that we are guests in this country and we chose to be here, so we do our best to work within the system rather than complaining about how it is “not like back home.” And yes, taxes are high and have heard about political corruption with the money, but we actually see beneficial returns for the money paid (subsidized medical being a big one) and are happy to pay our fair share for the privilege of being here.
Portugal is not without its own political faults; however, every country—including the US—has had some form of them since the beginning. There will always be disagreements in philosophy and policy. There will always be issues with enough resources for one group or another. There will always be some level of not-so-great people in high positions.The key is how the leaders and citizens of the country choose to work through those issues. To date, what we have seen of the EU—and more specifically, Portugal—there are outspoken and strong opinions, but it seems as though people usually choose to voice them with words and activism rather than violence; and in the mean time, they largely choose to live within the laws while working to find compromise and solutions to problems.
