Thought the same. We do not include include those who left. We say don't let the door ... And we don't even need to keep their seat warm, somebody already came in and sat down and they keep coming in and sitting down. A great many keep coming to this great nation.
I'm a globalist, not a nationalist. I believe there's nothing inherently great about a nation; people make a nation great, and people are fickle. Ask the Germans. The collapse of the American era is unfolding before our eyes in slow motion. It wasn't the Nazis, or the Soviets or China's communists, it's simply imploding of its excesses, of its inability to renew itself, of its selfish rejection of its foundation, a cesspool of self absorbed, greedy, angry simpletons. How can you call America great when a white supremacist nationalist was elected president by a minority vote count whose tag line is making America great again? When a word has lost it meaning, is used by anyone to mean anything, it's called a filler. Damned great.
A globalist is someone who believes trade is the key to lowering the risks of war. America decoupling from China is the first step to increasing such risk. Trade is not just economic but also social and cultural. Knowing your neighbor and their way of life and realizing that despite everything we are more alike than not helps further reduce the willingness to kill one another. Globalism recognizes that the world is more important than the nation. What the Asian nations, the European nations and the American nations do have implications globally, positive and negative. Fir example, when we affirm our right to own weapons in the US, we also have a responsibility to ensure such weapons don't end up in central America where gangs run rampant and push their populations on our borders. Everything is interrelated.
In the context of great structures, Elon Musk is certainly no inspiration. The only one I know of is his Boring company BS, which had that stupid idea of building a giant network of pneumatic tunnels for the next gen of rapid mass transit, which was actually attempted in New York in the latter 1800s but failed. Granted, technology had improved a great deal since then, obviously, but come on Elon! As for US? I think we did pretty well with the Freedom Tower. But megastructures are damned expensive, so I wouldn't say that our lack of banging one out every decade is a sign we don't have confidence in ourselves or our future.
Right look at China now with their megastructures and mega-debt. Empty cities relatively speaking and massive wealth outflows. We know how to do debt right. lol. Anyway to paraphrase Mark Twain "The reports of our (USA) death are greatly exaggerated."
Trade has to be fair. When one side sets up barriers so it can protect its own industry, then globalism cannot work. Unfortunately, the weaker side has to do it to survive and it becomes a death spiral. Everyone cheated, some more some less and that is what essentially will destroy trade. I don't have the answer.
In my view, it is the confidence in ourselves that allows us not to have to build "showcase", "trophy" megastructures to impress. If you are Buffett, you don't need to impress others with a trophy house, trophy wife...