But the
world has changed. And the America people emigrated to a century ago no longer exists. Even US immigration itself has flipped from a "bring a boat to Ellis Island" to "Sorry, no papers no party, rapist darkie". Meanwhile, a place like Portugal had one of the highest rates of emigration in Europe next to Ireland. The government literally told young people of any ambition to leave the country, get jobs elsewhere, and send remittance money home because there was nothing here for them. But it's not 1973 anymore. There's a reverse brain drain going on now... lots of people who were in London and Berlin, etc., who have come back.
Similarly, if you were ambitious and smart in Delhi, it once would be insane not to go to the U.S. Now you can stay in- country, found a unicorn startup, hire fellow nationals, and berate Muslims without ever needing a US visa.
In the US there's still tons of opportunity, ridiculous amounts of money, and the liberty to pretty much do whatever you want, your neighbor be damned. But the actual planet where that used to be an attraction has changed too. Globalization, international travel, international finance, and now participatory citizenship have arisen as modern phenomenon where the world is characterized less by unlimited factory mass production at scale and more of a world navigating systemic limits. And as a result, we've seen the rise of
nomad capitalism,
sovereign man stuff, and elective citizenship where privileged citizens choose their countries.
Because your nations really don't feel they owe you squat anymore, so you are better off working international arbitrage of finances, rights, and freedoms to your benefit. And we all may have to, given the coming disruptions from climate, inequality, war, civil unrest, famine, plague, etc. resulting from these systemic planetary constraints.
You can worship the late 18th century US constitution, but being an originalist actually puts you at risk of being out of date from intentional blindness over the past few centuries and the modern dynamics now globally at play. I've lost count of how many former empires have counted on their exceptionalism to pull them through. The only exceptionalism now is to create your own.