Posted on 12/27/2024 7:59:39 AM PST by Starman417
Elon and Vivek accidentally chewed through a high power line yesterday, and social media has been on fire ever since. The battle lines of a fierce war between conservatives are shaping up. Today’s post focuses not on the debate’s issue, but on the character of the debate itself — and how this is MAGA’s first major challenge from the deep-state. Then we’ll discuss ways to fight back and hold recent gains rather than pop! like the Tea Party bubble.
Corporate media was beside itself. Rolling Stone ran its giddy story late yesterday afternoon under the headline, “Musk, Ramaswamy Face MAGA Uproar After Saying Tech Firms Need Foreign Workers.” But where did the ‘uproar’ really come from? Was it really from Elon and Vivek, or did it originate in some security state skunkworks?
It all started yesterday when Elon tweeted about H1-B visas. He should know, since he owns a handful of companies that depend on the visas. Elon’s perfectly predictable point was that as a tech owner, in his view there is a shortage of top engineering talent among native Americans, and so in the short run it would make American companies more competitive if they have temporary work visas for engineering hires.
In other words, Elon was advocating, at least in part, for the legal immigration of highly qualified, very productive people, from Elon’s perspective of owning a tech company.
Based on the ferocious response, you would have thought Elon called for opening the borders even wider, or for mandatory mint flavoring to be added to all commercially sold ice cream, ruining it (of course), or something even worse, like saying UFO’s don’t exist. Familiar conservative accounts tore Elon a new one, calling him woke, stupid, and nappy-headed, and screamed he should be deported back to South Africa on the first available flight. More than one conservative influencer demanded Elon be immediately ‘fired’ from his volunteer job with the Department of Government Efficiency.
It was the best news ever for corporate media. Finally, an immigration hammer to hand conservatives so they could beat each other to death. Here’s how Rolling Stone gleefully described the burgeoning red-on-red controversy. It began with Musk’s original comment:
In 2016, Trump did argue on CNN that the H1-B Visa is bad for workers, unfair, and should be ended (Clip: 0:24), but he’d used it before, because businesspeople must use the visas otherwise competitors will get an advantage. More recently, Trump has signaled that students graduating from American universities should automatically get a green card (Clip: 2:05). Trump did not weigh in yesterday.
Bottom line, Elon’s honeymoon is officially over, and the wedding party must swim back to the mainland through shark-infested waters. Elon’s stock with some MAGA types had clearly fallen below zero yesterday. Buying and freeing twitter? Who cares! Funding the Trump campaign? So what! Swinging Silicon Valley to MAGA? That’s old news! Elon favors H1-B work visas!
Now, you might think the argument over H1-B work visas is a pretty wonky and thinly sliced issue. You might think it is hardly the issue to torch the MAGA movement over. Stick with me. There’s a lot more to this, and it is dark.
Next, seeing his fellow DOGE-er being savaged in the comments, and noticing a lot of people were misunderstanding Elon’s point, Vivek Ramaswamy decided to spring to Elon’s defense. He landed right in the lion exhibit. Vivek uncharacteristically botched an obviously correct point about American culture not valuing STEM or academic achievement, not when compared to other cultures like Asians and (he should’ve omitted this one) Indians.
Vivek should have just said the American educational system has been hollowed out by wokeness so there are currently more good STEM graduates available from cultures that haven’t gone woke yet. But he went just that much further and things went sideways.
What followed next was some of the ugliest free speech you can imagine, with apparently respectable conservatives throwing around anti-Indian tropes so repugnant I won’t repeat them here. Think gas stations and motels and Apu from the Simpson’s and you’ll start to get the idea. People accused Vivek of racism, complained he smelled like Indian spices, and accused Vivek of wanting to replace Americans with his extended Indian family.
I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m hardly scratching the surface.
At some point in the afternoon, euphoric corporate media began piling on, triumphantly reporting the glorious Fall of Elon at the hands of “his own supporters.” It was the one time media failed to defend legal immigration. If anything, in its glee, corporate media even hinted darkly that H1-B visas might in fact be the worst thing ever, finding common cause with disgruntled anti-DOGE conservatives. Headline from the Washington Post:
Corporate media is so happy today.
For what it’s worth, I’m skeptical of H1-B visas. But nearly all Silicon Valley CEOs think they are critically needed, and I have no reason to doubt Elon’s good faith. So the issue deserves intelligent debate and inspection.
But, and this is a big but, H1-Bs seem like the least of our immigration problems right now.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
The Trump Administration needs to honor its MAGA promises or go the way of the Tories in the U.K.. The time for abandoning political promises to Americans is over.
“H1-Bs seem like the least of our immigration problems right now.”
Corporate abuse (takeover?) of immigration law shouldn’t be minimized. It’s a pernicious form of fascism.
Big oops by Musk and Vivek.
I don’t see this as a non-barganable issue. Vast majority of my problems with immigration are these people are not here by lawful process, following no border customs inspections, hired by people who are abusing labor laws in local states, or engaging in illegal activities. Additionally US cutizens should not be paying social assistance for people living here illegally.
Aside from that, I caan see limited use of a “operation paperclip” style immigration policy.
Limited only.
I have every reason to doubt Elon Musk's good faith on the point of H1-B immigrants. As to the Silicon Vally CEO's opinions, to hell with them. They already made their fortunes by strip-mining the workforce.
The H1-B system has always been one of foreign indentured servants undercutting the wages of the native workforce. There are major business segments which have become totally dependent on this feature (third-world wages, first-world prices) to continue operations, so in that sense, the Silicon Valley CEOs are correct in asserting that low-wage foreigners are "critically needed".
"This one's not going to end well for anyone".
Trump from 2016:
Trump's "advisors" for DOGE, Musk and Ramaswamy's insulting comments:
Elon Musk argued that without these workers, America would be at risk of falling behind foreign competitors...Vivek Ramaswamy insists that there are simply not enough high-quality American laborers to fill the jobs needed in tech and other industries.
Also from the comments section:
My husband with multiple degrees in computer sciences and engineering was a high-ranking engineer at a firm for 11 years before he was let go. The company founder actually bragged about how cheap he could get Indian workers. For months after my husband moved on he was getting calls from former clients and users for help because the Indian workers couldn't help them and couldn't engineer their way out of a brown paper bag. Hubby told them he couldn't help, he didn't work there any more. The company lost contracts to competitors.
It's not that demanding. Simply capping the numbers forces hiring managers to seek higher value, the way H1B was supposed to work. By opening those numbers, the product moved down-market to larger numbers of cheaper place-holders displacing more Americans. Hence, the argument is (and should be) where on that curve it is best for American policy should be set, lest Americans are beset, then costing us all for unemployment, homelessness, and ever declining child-rearing standards.
“I don’t see this as a non-barganable issue. Vast majority of my problems with immigration are these people are not here by lawful process, following no border customs inspections, hired by people who are abusing labor laws in local states, or engaging in illegal activities. Additionally US cutizens should not be paying social assistance for people living here illegally.”
You’re absolutely correct. The concern regarding “migration” by MAGA and non-MAGA alike is the rampant influx of undocumented/unvettec/illegals being allowed (if not outright encouraged) to cross our borders for political reasons, along with all the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people.
This is nothing more than an attempt by the left to change and control the narrative regarding the “immigration” issues.
We must never again allow the left to control the narratives or the agendas - no matter how hard they try . . .
Two things to notice
The claim that Musk had to walk back his statement changing it to elite engineers
The claim that Musk is censuring people who are speaking out.
I have no idea if either claim is true but it has gotten people riled up.
X is his site. His rules.
I worked in tech my whole life and I know people who have worked at Tesla and Twitter/X.
While I was grateful to Musk for helping Trump win, he is not and has never been trustworthy. He’s always been “Musk first” not “America First”. Always. And I’m telling anyone who will listen that he and Ramaswamy, like so many weasel tech bros, they do not care one iota for America or Americans except for what they can squeeze out of us or exploit us for.
These foreign POSs are only concerned about getting the cheapest workers possible. H1B lets them hire knock-off workers for a fraction of the salary that educated American workers get. How? Well, if you can basically tell your workers to submit and accept whatever pittance you give them or we’ll terminate your H1B visa, what you then have is a compliant foreign culture workforce that pushes out smart and capable American workers or makes them accept substandard salaries.
In a way, it’s MORE insidious than the unchecked illegal immigration that we all voted against when we re-elected President Trump. Corporate leaders want unchecked illegal immigration so they can have indentured servants in low skill jobs like farming, who will work hard for almost nothing, but unlike Musk and Ramaswamy, those jobs are mostly not wanted by Americans. Whereas Musk and his ilk want to firehose foreigners into America and literally take good-paying jobs away from highly qualified Americans who want those jobs. Because that’s cheaper and they don’t care if they ruin American culture! If you are at all concerned with us being replaced by immigrants, don’t look away. THIS IS REPLACEMENT WRIT LARGE.
Musk, Ramaswamy, and all the tech overlords are running a scam and you’re fools if you fall for it. America First is what we voted for, NOT THIS.
Not really the point.
Think more about why it might be relevant if he is censuring and demonitizing accounts that are speaking out about H1b
They are “critically needed” because Silicon Valley CEO’s would much rather pay $80,000 to an H1-B Visa holder than pay $130,000 to a US citizen for the same job. Don’t delude yourself — these people are looking at the bottom line first and foremost.
If we want to compete we have to hire the best the world has to offer. That WAS Americans before white liberal 'elites' took over the education industry in the United States and turned our schools into propaganda/pervert spreaders.
So, it ALL has to be fixed. Putting DET idiots in high tech jobs is NOT the answer Biden's 'energy dude' the guy who wore women's dresses that he/she/it stole from women's airport luggage went to one of 'our best' American tech schools - - during the time they were adding DEI 'students'.
That said, there needs to be a balance - there ARE American tech workers who know their stuff AND carry the benefits of a sane culture incentives - - something China and India are deficient in... So limit foreign workers, but let them be part of the mix.
I'm glad to have Musk and Vivek on our team.
They miss the point... Just like you want to bring the manufacturing here into the United States versus importing from overseas You want to bring the manufacturing of the talent in the United States versus importing from overseas
Whether it’s people or product you need to produce it here it needs to be homegrown
If we want to compete we must train our own people otherwise it’s all just a con and a sham. If MAGA Trump does this to us then %#$& him and the horse he rode in on.
The Bushie ‘compassionate conservative’ backstabbers are out in force today. Don’t you feel shame?
You’re totally right. And because Musk and Ramsawanny are who they are they are perfect to work on down sizing the US bureaucracy. But that’s it.
They don’t need to be encroaching into other areas. The H1B visa program needs to be down sized not super sized.
H1B signed into law in 1990 by George HW Bush. 34 years of expansion. These people are supposed to be temporary for 6 years but employers find ways to extend their terms, especially if they apply for green cards. Then they bring their families
https://www.visaverge.com/h1b/the-history-and-origin-of-the-h-1b-visa-program/
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