NY Times advice column ponders appropriateness of fleeing the country if 'wrong candidate' gets elected

The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist columnist on Thursday answered a reader’s question about whether it is appropriate to leave the country if the "wrong" candidate becomes president.

Without calling out former President Donald Trump by name, the reader, along with some friends have "no doubt that the U.S. would fall to some form of authoritarianism if the wrong candidate were elected."

"They, and I, are white, well educated, nonimmigrants and upper middle class, with a wide range of well-connected and financially stable friends," the reader said of themselves and their circle of friends. "Our demographic backgrounds are relevant to my question, which is on the ethics of leaving a country because its democratic institutions are failing."

"As members of some of the groups who most likely will retain many tangible privileges and are least likely to be negatively affected, do we have an ethical obligation to stay and help those who will be impacted more harshly than us, or is it ethically acceptable to leave the country? — Name Withheld" the question reads.

The headline for the advice column read: "Is It OK to Leave the U.S. if the Wrong Candidate Becomes President?"

Ethicist columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah compared it to the G.K. Chesterton complaint that to say "my country, right or wrong," was like saying "my mother, drunk or sober."

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"By my lights, though, when genuine patriots say ‘my country, right or wrong,’ they mean that it’s their country whether or not they agree with what is done in its name," he wrote. "That’s the opposite of giving the country a free pass. It expresses a commitment to trying to help your country do what it should —