{"id":6205,"date":"2021-01-07T20:57:56","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=147349"},"modified":"2021-01-07T20:57:56","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:57:56","slug":"theyre-trying-to-tear-down-the-country-says-us-expat-in-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/07\/theyre-trying-to-tear-down-the-country-says-us-expat-in-nz\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They\u2019re trying to tear down the country\u2019, says US expat in NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\">\n<p><em>By Ella Stewart, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/world\/434183\/us-expat-they-re-trying-to-tear-down-the-country\">RNZ News<\/a> reporter<\/em><\/p>\n<p>American expats are feeling grateful to be living in Aotearoa after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/world\/434176\/how-it-all-unfolded-gunshots-broken-glass-as-trump-supporters-breached-us-capitol\">watching the chaos and violence unfold at the Capitol building in Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Madeline Nash, her husband, and her two children looked at moving to New Zealand after the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Her eldest child was just about to start school and during the hour-long school tours they went on, 20 minutes were spent explaining the school&#8217;s shooter protocol.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/world\/434179\/live-house-democrats-move-to-impeach-trump-after-capitol-violence\"><strong>READ MORE<\/strong>: For live RNZ updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2021\/01\/07\/delighting-in-causing-complete-chaos-behind-trump-supporters-brazen-storming-of-the-capitol\/\">Analysis: \u2018Delighting in causing complete chaos\u2019 \u2013 behind Trump supporters\u2019 brazen storming of the Capitol<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/world\/434176\/how-it-all-unfolded-gunshots-broken-glass-as-trump-supporters-breached-us-capitol\">How it all unfolded: Gunshots, broken glass as Trump supporters breached US Capitol<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/world\/434175\/how-security-failures-enabled-trump-mob-to-storm-us-capitol\">How security failures enabled Trump mob to storm US Capitol<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/on-the-inside\/434163\/opinion-trump-loses-control-of-his-own-deluded-narrative\">Opinion: Trump loses control of his own deluded narrative<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They finally made the big move to Auckland from Austin, Texas, in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Although she is not surprised, she said what was happening in Washington, DC, was far worse than they had ever imagined.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To actually see that people have taken it so far that they are willing basically, I would say to hop over the line to sedition and treason, they&#8217;re really just trying to tear down the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nash said partisan politics had become extremely polarising in the US but living in New Zealand was like being in an alternate reality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad that we have this ability to be here and our children are a bit sheltered from what&#8217;s going on, but as an adult it is very hard to be straddling both worlds right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \">\n<figure style=\"width: 720px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supporters of President Donald Trump occupy the US Capitol building. Image: RNZ\/AFP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>US &#8216;in shambles&#8217;<\/strong><br \/>\nJade De La Paz is an American citizen who moved to Dunedin to complete her PhD at Otago University.<\/p>\n<p>She has been feeling stressed and can&#8217;t take her eyes off the news.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We just had this huge victory and now the whole country is falling apart, but there&#8217;s nothing I can do from here except for vote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re sitting here thinking my country is in shambles,&#8221; De La Paz said.<\/p>\n<p>Katie Smith moved from Southern California to Auckland in 2017 with her New Zealand partner and is flabbergasted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to know what alternate reality these people live in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While Smith is a Democrat, much of her family are Republicans, but even they don&#8217;t agree with what is happening.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not about and it hasn&#8217;t been about politics for a very long time. it&#8217;s about being a decent human being.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Smith said that everything that has been happening in the US has been affecting her mental health.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t see things getting better for the States any time soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said she is grateful to be living in Auckland here at the moment and wishes she could move her friends and family living in the US to New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2018 census more than 16,000 people living in New Zealand identified as American.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2021\/01\/07\/theyre-trying-to-tear-down-the-country-says-us-expat-in-nz\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ella Stewart, RNZ News reporter American expats are feeling grateful to be living in Aotearoa after watching the chaos and violence unfold at the Capitol building in\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1682,1683,432,5,365,6,1684,118,255,4,12,14,1156,35,368,1685,631],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6206,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205\/revisions\/6206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}