Liberal Expats Who Fled to Europe Are Coming Back Home
Several American liberals who moved to Europe after Donald Trump won reelection now say they made a mistake. Wired magazine interviewed expats who left for Britain, Spain, and Germany in the wake of Trump's second term. Most spoke only on condition of anonymity. Two of the people Wired profiled, Josh and Kate Glavan, have already moved back to the United States. For gun owners, the story is less about firearms than about how fast the political refugee narrative falls apart once people run the numbers on daily life abroad.
Key Details
The Wired piece centers on personal accounts rather than policy data. The magazine's main claims break down this way:
- Annie moved to the UK and says social media sold her an idyllic life that did not exist. She described the quality of life as significantly lower than in the U.S.
- She pays what she calls "huge amounts of taxes and an immigration surcharge" for the National Health Service, and says the care is not free.
- She listed appliances such as dishwashers and clothes dryers as common in America but luxury items in the UK.
- Sarah Wood González, a journalist and consultant, spent three years in Spain and Edinburgh before returning to New York. She said American work culture moves faster and reaches a yes or no sooner.
- Josh moved to Berlin in 2023 expecting Trump to win in 2024. He spoke German and had lived there before. He said job hunting proved brutal and German bureaucracy had worsened since his earlier stay. He reversed the move.
- Kate Glavan, an influencer who posts about left-wing causes, moved from New York to London in late 2024. She reported that brands she had worked with wanted nothing to do with a British audience. She announced her return to New York earlier this year.
- Wired cited data showing American migrants to Spain doubled in the first quarter of 2025, and a sharp rise in UK residency applications.
- Daniel Di Martino, a Manhattan Institute fellow born in Venezuela, told Fox News Digital that Americans romanticize European life. He argued that Europe is not one place and that a Greek salary near the national average can mean near poverty.
Background
Wired built its reputation on technology, science, and business coverage. Its political reporting was never the core product. That changed during Trump's second term, when the magazine ran sharply critical pieces on the administration and on Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Readers can weigh the Wired piece against that editorial shift.
The expat exodus itself was real in the sense that people did move. Migration applications to Spain and the UK rose after the 2024 election, as the Wired reporting notes. Many of those movers were drawn by the same social media content that Annie said misled her. Europe's gun laws were a quieter part of the equation. The United Kingdom banned most private handgun ownership after the 1996 Dunblane school shooting, through the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997. Germany requires licensees to demonstrate a legitimate need, under its Waffengesetz, before most acquisitions. An American who relocates there often finds that the right to keep and bear arms does not travel with them.
Why It Matters for Gun Owners
The Wired stories give gun owners a useful reality check. Anyone who thinks about leaving the country for political reasons should first compare the firearms rules. In the UK, a typical American with a lawfully owned rifle or shotgun will find an entirely different licensing system, with police discretion and strict storage requirements. In Germany, the need requirement can block acquisition outright for people without a recognized reason, such as sport shooting membership held for a set period. Neither country offers anything close to the carry rights available in many U.S. states.
The bigger lesson is that political migration rarely solves the problem it promises to solve. Gun owners who relocate should check their firearms status before buying property, and should confirm that their existing firearms can legally enter the new country. Shipping or importing firearms into Europe requires paperwork and approval that most Americans underestimate. Watch for the same dynamic in reverse: expats who return to the U.S. often find their state's laws, not federal law, decide what they can carry.
DownRange Analysis
Under the Bruen framework, the Supreme Court in 2022 told lower courts to test gun restrictions against the nation's historical tradition of firearms regulation. Europe never operated under that test. A European government can ban whole categories of firearms without any historical analysis, and courts there defer heavily to the state. That difference explains why an American who loses firearm rights abroad rarely finds a court willing to restore them.
For the gun owner, the Wired article is mostly a story about culture and cost, not about rights. It still carries a message worth acting on. Keep your permits, purchase records, and state residency documents current. If you ever consider moving, read the destination country's firearms statutes first and talk to an immigration attorney about import rules. Vote in state elections, since state legislatures set most of the rules that affect carry in daily life. The people in this article found that Europe was not the promised land. The gun owner's job is to protect the rights they already have at home.
