Would you go on a J1 visa now?

Well, if you're an EU citizen, a professor, heading to a scientific conference in the US to present a paper… apparently having posted messages somewhat critical of Trump is enough to mean you've broken the rules, will get detained, and won't be admitted to the U.S.? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-french-scientist-detained

The advice I've seen is that they're mainly interested in people who may be travelling to the US with the intention of stirring the pot, so to speak, while there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUjP93UWTgc

Yes,thought crime is now illegal in yankeeland

What exactly do you think is happening that's making it like 1930's Germany?

Such mad hyperbole. irish funders do similar things to sciencists, speaking as a recipeient of their funding. I'd tell people go on a J1 if you want. Social media world is not the real world.

"Not having some DEI nonsense" - I've a friend who's a teacher in the US. Not allowed have a photo of his husband on his desk. Straight colleagues can and do have photos of spouses and partners. It started small in 1930s Germany, too. I mean, there was loads I could have put in there - the stuffing of the Supreme Court, the blatant gerrymandering, the removal of the right to vote (technically still allowed, but making it really hard to hard to register), the withdrawal of funding from education… but it was early.

And you seem to have missed the bit about pardoning people who literally caused serious injuries and deaths, and, well, the whole concentration camp thing.

I would definitely do it again. I went in 99 to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, great experience. Weather was amazing. People were great. It was a different world back then though as it was before the twin towers and any of the extreme MAGA stuff.

Thinking about it I don’t think I’d be treated much differently by the people of North Carolina in 2025. As an Irish person I was made very welcome there. As it was a tourist resort I worked in there were a lot of US students working there here for the summer too. One thing that stood out to me about them was how focused they were on being cool. The way they dressed, the way the talked and even the way some of them swaggered about. A little bit cringe tbh.

Could it be that it was an election year?

Nor can I, but it's a different culture there. And maybe it's a perfectly harmless practice to have such photos, that makes no difference whatsoever to anyone else?

Flags are the norm everywhere. Where I live i am the only house without them. I also do not put signs up in my yard. But every other house has either Maga or Harris during election years.

Personally, I'm not into flying flags of any type. Nor the endless bumper stickers you see here also. (most of which, in my opinion, hold many of the cars together 😀)

Wouldn't the Nazis themselves have described DEI as "nonsense"? Their whole society was anti-diversity, equality and inclusion…..it was all about survival of the fittest, a mono-ethnic state (Aryans) and exclusion of all types of minorities.

Eugenics was popular in the US too.

ICE drunk on power, arresting people waiting in car for their lawyer to come.

Using a citizenship/ naturalization meeting as pretext to get somebody to come in and arrets them. Didn’t Saudi do that to a journalist? At least they didn’t murder them and cut up the body this time.

Defying a court order and shipping a guy out to an offshore out of jurisdiction detention prison. And say sorry, didn’t meant to nothing we can do now.

Attacking any judge that rules against them, so that the next one will be afraid to do so.

Banning any media who is critical of them or ask hard questions from White house press room.

Trying to take control of universities that they don’t agree with.

Trying to shut down their department of education so they each state can teach their own agenda.

Ambushing the leader of Ukraine in public to help their enemy.

Demanding Greenland because they “have to have it”.

Approving the destruction and ethnic cleansing of Gaza so that it can be turned into a tourist resort.

Calling the bombing on a town and death of 32 civilians a mistake and not a war crime.

The DEI initiatives that result in the best people for the job not being hired?

By "unapproved words" you mean unscientific words describing gender which are unrelated to biology but instead ideology?

The pardoning is a grey area when video evidence shows they were invited and escorted into the capital by the police and guards of the building. Those who were convicted of assault served their time. None of the people on that day caused death. Police however did shoot one person.

And by concentration camps you mean regular prisons?