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Notes -
Geopolitically, America gains a lot from the brain drain that draws talented people here from all over the rest of the world. This brain drain both makes America stronger geopolitically and makes other places weaker.
Deporting people who vocally sympathize with their birth countries while still contributing to the US economy could hurt the power of that brain drain.
In Ovechkin's case it probably doesn't matter. He's not really innovating anything that would be economically transformative. But if one started deporting people who sympathize with "back home" left and right, it would start to matter.
Now, does the average American benefit from the brain drain? Maybe not -- one could argue that the average American is hurt by it at least as much as helped. However, the average American also doesn't benefit from the US-Russia conflict, so for the average American, there is also no actual good reason to deport Ovechkin. It's kind of a wash.
Truth be told, if America got rid of everyone who has ever wished for a foreign power to defeat the US government's foreign policy, we might be looking at a deportation campaign that rivals Trump's wildest border promises. The number of Democrats who consciously or unconsciously hope for US military defeat every time a Republican is running a war and the number of Republicans who consciously or unconsciously hope for a US military defeat every time a Democrat is running a war is colossal. More Democrats than Republicans, I'm sure, since Republicans tend to identify with the military much more frequently.
America is so strong that the vast majority of its wars don't really matter that much. We have the freedom to care more about a war's impact on domestic politics than about whether the war is actually won or lost.
And one of the key tenets of American mass political thought is that when the Other Side is sitting in Washington, our foreign policy is being run by shadowy elites who hate the American people and are just trying to steal our money. But when Our Side is sitting in Washington, our foreign policy is being run by noble crusaders who are trying to spread freedom and democracy.
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