Not surprisingly, we’re seeing the same virtue signaling as 2016, with cultural elites suggesting if Mr. Trump wins, they’ll leave the U.S. Now the temptation is to say “good riddance” and there is a reason to encourage that. Look, if you’re unhappy in this country, there are many others that might accept you. Consider one, and go ahead and make the move. The fact that none of them did after 2016 is meaningful.

My country, love it or leave it, has both good and bad aspects. Our charge is to make wherever God places us just a little bit better–not to play the spoiled brat and say if things don’t go the way I think they should, I’ll start crying and demand everybody adjust their behavior to match my preferences. So in the good sense–my country is my country, both the good and the bad. I should praise the good and try to improve the bad. It does not mean that my country is a perfect country–there is no such thing, and it would be bad to suggest there is not meaningful improvements we can make to improve our country.

But I think we can say something much more powerful–especially for our privileged celebrity elites. In their celebrity status, they have choices that many Americans don’t, in that they could relatively easily go live in another country. And they don’t–and that’s significant. The very fact they stay here in America not only suggests they are dishonest in their condemnation of the U.S., it says that they consider living in the U.S. the best option available in this world. There is no country they’d rather live in! If they would rather live in another country and stay in the U.S., that is what economists define as irrationality–making a choice that you know leaves you in a lower state of well being than other available choices. For these celebrities to say, “well, my happiness would be much higher if Mr. Biden were elected,” I say that this is irrelevant. We could all imagine better realities politically. For all those that seemingly hate America, we can say far more than they are ungrateful. The fact that they stay here when there are other choices possible means that, even for them, the United States of America is the best country in the world. So let’s all work toward making a great country an even better country, for everybody.