H-1B flare-up creating civil war within MAGA? Things are certainly heating up thanks to the media fanning the flames, but MAGA will be fine. Not so sure about Elon and Vivek , though. They’ve lost standing in the eyes of many in the MAGA base with their defense of the H-1B visa program.
The MAGA backlash was swift and probably eye-opening to both of them. However both are reacting differently . Elon Musk is walking back his original declaration while Vivek Ramaswamy is doubling down on his ill-timed observation.
Musk is now calling for major reform to the broken H-1B visa program and proposing to make it more expensive to hire overseas than domestically. Ok , that seems reasonable, much more so than his original angry Tweet:
Threatening to go to war against critics of this abused government immigration program? Part of this “war” must be clamping down on free speech, since X recently censored commentator Laura Loomer’s account for half a day, basically demonetizing her . (more on this later)
For someone portraying himself as a champion of the First Amendment, that was a petulant move to MAGA, Elon. Sorry, but silencing the opposition is right out of the Democrat and Uniparty playbook.
As for Vivek, whom I am still on the fence about , his impassioned and ill-timed defense of H-1B sounded much like Uniparty rhetoric about needing immigrants to do the jobs Americans won’t do.
“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.”
Does Vivek make some good points? Yes. Leftists have dumbed down education and created a culture that venerates mediocrity. But bringing in foreign workers isn’t the only answer as the Uniparty would have you believe.
Why not begin a national campaign for academic excellence in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)? Or how about incentives to hire and recruit more Americans to these tech and financial corporations? Our salvation should be marshaling the talents and potential of our own citizenry to meet the challenge, not only importing foreign workers.
Defenders of H-1B say the program allows the to recruit the best and the brightest. The problem is the vast majority of H-1B visas are a method to recruit thousands of low -wage IT and financial services workers.
The system allows companies to recruit way over yearly statutory caps and, surprisingly, the vast majority of these employers recruiting these workers are Indian companies headquartered in America. That’s what Robert Sterling found when he crunched the numbers (here).
This all blew up on Christmas Day after Laura Loomer criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan as senior policy adviser for Artificial Intelligence at the White House. Krishnan is on record for removing the caps on green card per country of origin. He did not necessarily comment on expanding the H-1B visas.
Still, Loomer commented she found that “deeply disturbing”, saying,
“Our country was built by white Europeans, actually. Not third-world invaders from India. It’s not racist against Indians to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. I voted for a reduction in H-1B visas. Not an extension.”
Musk and Ramaswamy, soon to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and David Sacks , incoming AI and Crypto Czar, support Krishnan. Hence, the media egging on their portrayal of Loomer as a racist , justifying her censorship on X by Musk.
Any censorship of conservative voices is not a good move. MAGA has an extreme abhorrence to the leftist trope of freezing, targeting and isolating critics as racist, especially when it comes from mouths of so-called Republicans.
Whether people disagree with Loomer’s statements, or not, she should be able to make such comments under the First Amendment. Musk suspending her account was un-MAGA to say the least.
Steve Bannon, mincing no words in his criticism, has called Musk a “toddler” for his initial handling of the situation. Going to war against a guy who hosts a show called “War Room” is not a good thing for Musk or Ramaswamy.
Why? The Biden DOJ jailed this guy for contempt of Congress. In a way, he was martyred for MAGA and is a living articulation of it. Therefore, patriots listen when Bannon speaks.
Will this controversy hurt MAGA or Trump? Doubtful. If anything, it’s great this issue has come to the forefront now so debate can commence.
The question now is whether that debate will be fairly carried out on X. The Conservative Treehouse is reporting Musk has changed the algorithm to diminish MAGA voices critical of the Silicon Valley group.
Unlike the left, the Uniparty, or big corporations, MAGA welcomes debate on the controversial. Is this H-1B flare-up creating civil war within MAGA?
No. If anything, this is showing the battle is not left vs. right, but from the top down: elites vs the working class.
Trump will need to step in .
What do you think? Please leave a comment below.
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