\n<\/a>The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/27letter-web1-master768.jpg\")
<\/a>Former President Bill Clinton speaking at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York this month. Credit Stephanie Keith\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n
Until recently, you didn\u2019t hear people being referred to as \u201cglobalist\u201d very often. But in a time of rising nationalism, those who see the upside of globalism have become a distinct \u2014 and often embattled \u2014 tribe.<\/p>\n
Last week, the globalists had a big family reunion in New York. The gathering was focused on the United Nations General Assembly<\/a>, but a growing array of side conferences and summits and dinners also attracted concerned internationalists of every stripe: humanitarians, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, donors, investors, app peddlers, celebrities.<\/p>\n But an absence haunted the week. Almost by definition, nationalists and localists are underrepresented at these global gatherings. Their paucity was especially notable this time, because the rising signs of nationalism \u2014 whether in the form of Donald J. Trump\u2019s winning the Republican nomination<\/a>, the British vote to leave the European Union<\/a>, or the German backlash<\/a> against Angela Merkel\u2019s welcome to refugees<\/a> \u2014 hovered like a specter over many of the discussions.<\/p>\n The globalists have lofty aims, of course, like working toward a climate-change agreement<\/a>, finding a solution for the refugee crisis, and deepening cross-border trade. But there seemed to be a growing realization that solving the problems of the world\u2019s commons becomes harder when the globalists neglect their own backyards.<\/p>\n Again and again, in private conversations and in public forums, the globalists spoke of feeling besieged. Take the valedictory address of former President Bill Clinton<\/a>, the paterfamilias of the globalist reunion. The Clinton Global Initiative is one of the major factors in helping to transform what had been a week centered on United Nations diplomacy into a broader Davos-on-the-Hudson for international aspirations.<\/p>\n Mr. Clinton spoke of the globalist vision of a \u201cnonzero-sum\u201d world in which everyone wins together and of how that idea was under attack by \u201czero-sum\u201d tribal politics.<\/p>\n In a discussion Mr. Clinton moderated on shared prosperity, his four guests were esteemed globalists. The panel included Mauricio Macri<\/a>, a former businessman who recently defeated Argentina\u2019s entrenched populists to become president; Matteo Renzi<\/a>, the Italian prime minister who styled his own career on the pro-market progressivism that Mr. Clinton called the \u201cThird Way\u201d; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala<\/a>, a former Nigerian finance minister and World Bank official; and Sadiq Khan<\/a>, the first Muslim mayor of London, who was a forceful advocate for Britain\u2019s remaining in the European Union.<\/p>\n \u201cArgentina has suffered decades of populism,\u201d Mr. Clinton said in welcoming Mr. Macri. Mr. Clinton told Mr. Khan that he was \u201can example of positive interdependence.\u201d But the panel\u2019s insight was limited by the absence of anyone who could explain populist ire with authenticity \u2014 who could explain why, as Mr. Clinton put it, \u201cthe intensity of the feelings of people resisting our being pulled together outweighs the intensity of those who are winning from this.\u201d<\/p>\n The advocates of a more densely enmeshed world seemed caught in a bind. Their project has long been to get people to enlarge the sphere of their worry, to look beyond national boundaries.<\/p>\n But now more than ever, neglect the unemployed workers in the Rust Belt<\/a>, or ignore the dissatisfaction with Europe in northern England<\/a>, and it becomes harder to help Syrian refugees or thwart climate change.<\/p>\n I asked Mr. Clinton after his conference about the challenge of balancing help for Kenya with care for Kentucky, in an age when Kentucky anger threatens to push the United States toward less engagement in foreign problems.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you call \u2018Kentucky anger\u2019 is being fed in part by the feeling that the most powerful people in the government, economy, and society no longer care about them, or look down on them,\u201d Mr. Clinton responded via email. \u201cThe pain and road rage we see reflected in the election has been building a long time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n But he sought to deny the inevitability of tension between globalism and nationalism, pointing to the example of a program he recently visited that was building nanosatellites at Morehead State University<\/a> in eastern Kentucky. Kentucky benefits from the program, but so, he argued, might Kenya, where the satellites could, for instance, detect and help combat the trade in phony medicines.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen opportunities are increased in one part of the world,\u201d Mr. Clinton said, \u201cthere are often positive effects where you might least expect them.\u201d<\/p>\n