They perceive no moral difference between a flood in North Carolina and one in Bangladesh, a sweatshop in Los Angeles and a sweatshop in Ecuador, hungry kids in Alabama and hungry kids in Burundi. To the pure globalist, all are equally worthy of concern. I admire pure globalists, but I also wonder about them. For most of us, it's easier to empathize with compatriots than with humanity as a whole, and easier to think we can do something to help those within our borders than those outside. Pure globalists have noble values, and some act on their convictions, but I worry that globalists may feel less compelled to act than people whose sentiments are more rooted.
History teaches that one of the two faces of nationalism almost always predominates.
A society with a lot of positive nationalism is likely to be tolerant and open toward the rest of the world because its people have learned the habits of good citizenship and social justice. Dictators and demagogues, on the other hand, flourish where social capital is in short supply. People who feel little responsibility toward one another will turn against minorities in their midst and outsiders across their borders, in return for promises of glory or comforting fictions of superiority. Negative nationalists prey most directly on people who are losing ground economically and socially. The recent resurgence of negative nationalism in Austria, France, and Switzerland is especially evident among blue-collar manufacturing workers and young men who feel the economic ground shifting under them.