One of the ideals it seems that has been embraced by the "progressives" and the "global elite," if-you-will, is this idea that borders are now becoming a quaint concept of the past, that the future lies in a world without borders, an international global society in which everyone is a citizen and just can travel anywhere and that's that. John Kerry for example made this point in a speech to university students some months ago.
This view however is not popular among many Americans, and probably not among many people in the world period. Myself, I think it is a pseudo-intellectual view on the part of the global elite (i.e. those in positions of wealth and power who can travel the globe as they please). After Trump's inauguration speech in which he basically defended the concept of nationhood, some have tried to call the speech "nationalist," others have tried to even claim there are aspects of Nazism and anti-Semitism to it (?).
The problem is that it is easy for a wealthy person for whom travelling to Paris from Manhattan is done with the equivalent difficulty, or maybe even less difficulty, then a trip to the grocery store is for the average American, to think of themselves as a "global" citizen, and to begin to think the concept of patriotism and borders as quaint and archaic. That is because they live in a bubble. The people in their wealthy elite bubble traverse into each other's countries and major cities and are highly, highly-mobile. They do not just grow up and exist and remain in one nation (and generally one part of one nation) for most of their lives and thus identify with that culture.
But the average person does. The average person does not travel from global capital to global capital with relative ease. They can't just hop a private jet on Friday, be in Berlin by Saturday, then be back in Manhattan or Los Angeles or wherever it is they call home on Monday morning. They instead live their lives in their nation, and as such, identify with that nation and its culture. For many of them, national service and service to their community is a huge part of their culture. Whereas national service and community service are virtually unheard of among the globe-trotting wealthy elite. They do not have their sons and daughters in the volunteer fire department, or local law enforcement, or in the military as infantry soldiers or whatnot. Telling the ordinary citizens thus that borders are now to be a thing of the past, and that if they disagree and don't want the floodgates just thrown open so that a bunch of foreign peoples can come in, that they are nativists, nationalists, racists, fearful of different people, etc...is a very ignorant and elitist, and in my opinion, pseudointellectual view.
Pride in one's nation, in one's culture, believing in strong borders, etc...is not the same as being a racist or a nationalist. Neither means one believes that they are better than everyone else, or that everyone else must submit to their will, or anything like that. They are just parts of a people's identity. Belief in nationhood does not mean that one doesn't believe that their country should nonetheless strive to be a good global citizen (if I can use that term there), but it also doesn't mean that one thinks that anybody and everybody should just be let into the country either.
The belief that the future lies in the disappearance of the nation-state, that we will exist in one giant global community "governed" (i.e. ruled) by an international class of elites who know what is best for us, that if you live in small-town Alabama, you will be treated the exact same if you go to some big city in China (and vice-versa) is utopian, pseudointellectual nonsense. It is seen as being a high-minded, intellectually-superior position to be of the "global" mindset among its proponents, but in my opinion, it is a position grounded in ignorance, elitism, and utopianism.
