A liberal Florida activist is packing up for Canada. Here's why

Jeffrey S. Solochek, Tampa Bay Times on Jul 30, 2025

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TAMPA, Fla. -- Beth Weinstein isn’t known for walking away from a battle.

The liberal activist from Tarpon Springs, Florida, regularly rallies against Republican politicians, taunts anti-abortion protesters and trolls online opponents of LGBTQ+ rights.

Raised in what she called a racist Long Island neighborhood by a mom who taught her to be a feminist, Weinstein, 53, says she just can’t help herself. When others talk in muted tones, she rarely holds back.

“I am a petty b----,” she said, sitting in her home office surrounded by photos and other memorabilia from her causes and actions, from Black Lives Matter to anti-book banning.

A marketing director by profession, Weinstein has been known to collect and publicize opponents’ social media posts, often coordinating with left-wing organizations to expand their reach.

She has joined forces with Indivisible, a national anti-Trump group, to wage a campaign against Moms for Liberty. She jumped into the Pinellas County school district battle over book bans when her child’s school removed Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” from courses and libraries.

With the way U.S. politics is trending, Weinstein said, she feels compelled to get even more active in the resistance. But she just couldn’t any more.

U.S. citizens opposed to their government often say they’ll just move to Canada if things get too bad. Some actually follow through.

Emigration to Canada doubled after George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection, for instance, according to Global News. Much the same was anticipated after Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection, according to immigration.ca.

In mid-June, Weinstein invited friends to her “Farewell Comrades” party. She, her husband Steve and their two kids had sold their home of 17 years and planned to head to Toronto, despite having no housing or work lined up at the time.

“It’s been something we have discussed since the first Trump administration,” said Weinstein, who wore an “anti-Trump” T-shirt. “But at that point, the kids were much younger and I didn’t feel like uprooting them.”

Now they’re 17 and 20. Both accelerated their schooling to graduate early this spring, one from high school and the other from college. And the family is set to walk away from an environment where they said they feel threatened, belittled and unfree.

“The last time we were the good guys was WWII,” said Steve Weinstein, 56, who frequently accompanies his wife to rallies carrying a sign saying that he’s from the future and things don’t get any better. “I feel less free now than I ever have.”

Sure, they could stay to fight back, he acknowledged. But, he wondered, what exactly would they be fighting for?

His wife said she gets weekly death threats for her activism. Their older child, who is transgender, has been assailed verbally and threatened with violence. The patriarchy, he said, remains the patriarchy no matter who’s in charge.

The whole idea of your huddled masses yearning to be free?

“That’s all gone now,” he said, pointing to the nation’s anti-immigrant push.

Beyond all that, the health care system doesn’t adequately serve citizens, he said, noting his own heart scares that required experimental surgery, delaying their departure plans. Home insurance costs keep rising. Hurricanes are coming with increasing intensity.

He said his grandfather, a German Jew who came to the United States in the 1930s, instilled the message that “if you ever see this Nazi bulls—t, get away as fast as you can. ... I don’t even know if Canada will be far enough.”

In other ways, though, it will be too far, Beth Weinstein said.

“I feel immense guilt,” she said.

She’s leaving behind her mom, who doesn’t want to move, and her colleagues in arms who have organized together over the years. The issues that have fueled her activism are deepening, she said, and many people who are the targets of the right do not have the same ability to leave.

Weinstein jokes that she’s paving the way for one possible version of the future, “fleeing fascism and setting up the Underground Railroad for my comrades for when this is too dangerous to stay.”

But she’s hoping for an alternate ending, one in which she could return to a country where she doesn’t fear being “picked up and disappeared” by the government. To that end, she intends to keep organizing, messaging, digging for information.

“I have a vast network. I have a lot of receipts,” Weinstein said. “My sense of justice won’t change.”

What will change, she continued, is her peace of mind. Maybe she won’t need a camera surveillance system surrounding her house anymore, she said, or a safe filled with guns.

“It just means that on weekends I’m going to farmer’s markets. I’m going to yoga and Zumba classes,” she said. “It’s not a question of fear. I want peace.”