The van Putten Diaries

REMINDER OF OUR PREVIOUS INTRO: It has been on Nic's radar for months that I was coming after him for this blog.  He finally felt ready and we forced a few hours to ourselves over the weekend to talk - yes, I said hours.  My transcription of our conversation is almost word for word, so it's quite lengthy and I'm going to break it down into his specific points. This section is made up of follow-up questions to our original conversation. PART 4 Alex:   So, a few other questions. You came downstairs after putting the kids to bed on whatever day it was, January 3rd maybe, of 2021 and you just looked at me and you said “How do you feel about leaving the country?”  What made that your moment?   Nic:  My professor, my advisor.  It’s when I was chatting on Facebook with him.  Going back a number of years, I've been engaging in frequent conversations with my advisor from college, U.S. government professor now retired.  We would exchange thoughts o...

REMINDER OF OUR PREVIOUS INTRO: It has been on Nic's radar for months that I was coming after him for this blog.  He finally felt ready and we forced a few hours to ourselves over the weekend to talk - yes, I said hours.  My transcription of our conversation is almost word for word, so it's quite lengthy and I'm going to break it down into his specific points. Alex:   So why did we leave the United States? Nic:  Right… so, you have asked me to give kind of my take on the the political and systemic issues in the United States that made me not optimistic. I haven’t quite prepared this out, but I think it broke down into a few different issues.  First, you’ve got  the breakdown of norms that underpin our system , and that is something I started noticing as far back as 2011 and really crystallized in maybe 2014 to 2016. Second, we have the  systemic level imbalances in our political system that are on a trajectory to only worsen  towards greater minor...

REMINDER OF OUR PREVIOUS INTRO: It has been on Nic's radar for months that I was coming after him for this blog.  He finally felt ready and we forced a few hours to ourselves over the weekend to talk - yes, I said hours.  My transcription of our conversation is almost word for word, so it's quite lengthy and I'm going to break it down into his specific points. Alex:   So why did we leave the United States? Nic:  Right… so, you have asked me to give kind of my take on the the political and systemic issues in the United States that made me not optimistic. I haven’t quite prepared this out, but I think it broke down into a few different issues.  First, you’ve got  the breakdown of norms that underpin our system , and that is something I started noticing as far back as 2011 and really crystallized in maybe 2014 to 2016. Second, we have the  systemic level imbalances in our political system that are on a trajectory to only worsen  towards greater minor...

It has been on Nic's radar for months that I was coming after him for this blog.  He finally felt ready and we forced a few hours to ourselves over the weekend to talk - yes, I said hours.  My transcription of our conversation is almost word for word, so it's quite lengthy and I'm going to break it down into his specific points. PART 1 Alex:   So why did we leave the United States?   Nic:   Right… so, you have asked me to give kind of my take on the the political and systemic issues in the United States that made me not optimistic. I haven’t quite prepared this out, but I think it broke down into a few different issues.  First, you’ve got the breakdown of norms that underpin our system , and that is something I started noticing as far back as 2011 and really crystallized in maybe 2014 to 2016. Second, we have the systemic level imbalances in our political system that are on a trajectory to only worsen towards greater minority rule.  Third – and, to a ...