“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence

The feeling is all too familiar: the strange feeling of having left something dysfunctional and foreign, where people are not like you, where society is developing in (according to you) completely the wrong direction, and where the certainty that you can never feel completely safe (not even when sleeping in your own bed) constantly lies like a wet blanket over reality.

When you have become accustomed to constantly searching for “the absence of the normal and the presence of the abnormal”, it feels strange to suddenly notice that you are in a safe environment, among people who are similar to you, and where life flows on a little carefree.

You get on a plane, take off, and after x number of hours in the air, you land in a completely different world.

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…”

The last time I experienced that feeling was almost 15 years ago, when I woke up in Sweden after six months in Afghanistan. Now I’ve experienced it again, when I left Sweden and woke up in the United States.

How can I? I, who have had the privilege of being born in the finest, best country on earth, the country that people from all over the world seek to visit. Surely I should be overjoyed to live in Sweden? So how can I feel relief at finding myself in the fascist stronghold of the Western world, populated by far-right gun fetishists, racist rednecks and megalomaniacal MAGA supporters?

But that’s exactly the relief I feel.

It’s almost as if I’m ashamed. But only for a moment.

Then the painful realization sets in: My Sweden, the Sweden I grew up in and that I will always love, that Sweden no longer exists. The relaxed and undisturbed, the positive and safe, the trusting and communal Sweden has been replaced – by polarization, distrust, uncertainty and confusion.

The childhood belief that the welfare state would always take care of me when I needed it turned out to be just a beautiful fairy tale, which was eventually replaced by the adult realization that I – as a Swedish taxpayer – will always be prioritized last. My needs, opportunities and dreams are no longer important, but the needs, opportunities and dreams of everyone who has arrived in Sweden from all corners of the world are.

My only task in the eyes of the state is to support the entire multicultural project with my tax money and then die.

The Astrid Lindgren world was just a dream. The architects of reality are spelled Orwell, Kafka and Marx.

I am not alone in having drawn that conclusion, and it has consequences for society as a whole. Swedes no longer care. The violence and the constant aggravation have become normalized, they shrug their shoulders, eat their Friday tacos and watch Robinson – and hope that no one in their family gets robbed, raped or murdered this very weekend.

Those with financial means are looking for a “bail out”, a place to escape to – either abroad or far out in the Swedish countryside.

The entrepreneurial spirit of the Swedish people and their belief in their own ability to improve not only their own lives and their own nation, but indeed the entire world, has been replaced by hopelessness.

Society has retreated, and the authorities are now trying to reach their new residents with information about who gets child support when the child is married to an adult man, how appropriate it is not to throw your rubbish out the window or what support the municipality offers to “returned” IS terrorists.

It all boils down to this: I don’t recognize myself anymore. Not there. Not at home.

However, I do so here, in a country that is not mine and that, from what I have heard in Sweden, can best be compared to the Mordor of the West, dictatorially ruled by Trumpuman the Orange, surrounded by his MAGA orcs.

But that is not the case. Not at all.

Here I encounter everything I remember from my childhood Sweden, everything that has been lost and everything I miss: Streets, beaches and parks are clean. The nation’s flag flies wherever I look. People express their pride in their country, their nationality and their religion. The conversations are about normal things. People are happy and nice, they smile and greet even complete strangers, offer to help, to do more than they have to, more than is expected. Why? Because they care and because it is obvious.

The wording in the Pledge of Allegiance which describes the United States as “one nation under God” is not an empty phrase, but has consequences for both morality and spirituality.

“But it’s not like that everywhere in the US!” you might say.

No. Of course it’s not. There are problems here too – but social developments in the US are positive, unlike in Sweden.

For anyone who listened to Trump’s entire State of the Union address on Tuesday, it became clear: The American Dream is alive and kicking.

The United States is doing well as a nation, and the Trump administration is clearly showing that it prioritizes the well-being of its own citizens.

Of course, there are problems in the United States, big problems, but they are talking honestly about them and doing something about them. With great seriousness, and with the tools needed to achieve what they want for their citizens: security, economic stability, and faith in the future.

Somewhere in there, I understand why I feel the way I do: we strive for the same things, the United States and I. That is why I feel at home.

Here I can breathe, here I can relax, and feel community with those I meet—even with those I do not know. Here there is a future, a bright future. Here we wish each other well. Here I am visiting freedom.

This year, the United States celebrates 250 years as a nation. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence in the Pennsylvania State House on July 4, 1776, could never have dreamed of how the nation would develop during those years.

But one thing hasn’t changed at all: the United States is still the place for those seeking “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”