This year, my best Christmas present was a war over legal, high-skilled immigration on X. On December 23, Laura Loomer tweeted:
Deeply disturbing to see the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. . . . How will [we] control immigration in our country and promote America First innovation when Trump appointed this guy who wants to REMOVE all restrictions on green card caps in the United States so that foreign students (which makes up 78% of the employees in Silicon Valley) can come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students. . . . This is not America First policy.
Soon heavyweights like Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, and Vivek Ramalamadingdong weighed in on the side of Sriram. The sports team analogy was duly trotted out: America needs to compete against China, so we need to recruit the very best team members from around the world, by removing the country-caps on H-1B visas, the vast majority of which go to Indians. Winning against America’s global rivals is measured by GDP and corporate profits.
This is a totally disingenuous argument, because H-1B visas are not for recruiting the “best of the best.” We have a different visa for that: the O visa, which is a temporary non-immigrant worker visa for people of “extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics,” including movies and television. About 38,000 of these visas were granted in 2023. If we had a complete ban on immigration and mass deportation of illegals, I would have no problem with O visas.
H-1B visas are very different. Companies seek these for entry-level positions. They have to prove that they can’t find Americans for the job. But this is obviously bogus, because in many cases, companies have fired existing American workers (mostly white), then brought in H-1Bs, mostly from India, to replace them. These H-1Bs work longer hours at lower wages. Many are incompetent. Many have fake degrees. But they cut costs, raise profits, and enrich management. The fact Indian recruiting firms fill companies with fellow Indians is not meritocracy in action. It is Hindu nepotism. Unsurprisingly, Sriram and Vivek are all for it.
The claim that Indian H-1B visas are about bringing in “the best and the brightest” is entirely fraudulent. It is entirely about lowering wages by hiring substandard, cut-rate, corporate coolies. Yet countless prominent and credentialed people, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramitupyoursnout, will look you straight in the eye, give you a firm handshake, and repeat that lie over and over again. To borrow a line from Matt Parrott, it is as infuriating a shit test as being asked to pretend that Bruce Jenner is now a woman.
The claim that Big Tech has to resort to hiring foreign workers because they can’t find American workers is entirely bogus. There are thousands of unemployed, mostly white American tech workers who are systematically discriminated against racially by major American corporations. White Americans who seek STEM degrees are also systematically discriminated against by colleges and universities. There are thus many thousands of highly intelligent white Americans with STEM degrees who are unemployed, underemployed, and deeply bitter about their lot. And how many more would pursue STEM if they felt it was a viable path?
The tinder was heaped up. All it needed was Laura Loomer’s spark.
Much to my pleasure, Laura Loomer stood her ground and doubled down, going so far as to demand a divorce between Big Tech and the MAGA movement. We don’t need a divorce. But MAGA needs to show Big Tech that it wears the pants in the family. For this alone, I am declaring Loomer—who describes herself as a “Jewish white nationalist”—to be Counter-Currents’ [Non-White] Ally of the Year for 2024. To those of you who are annoyed because Loomer is a Jew, my answer is simple: if Laura Loomer wants to use her Jewish magic to defend white Americans, good for her. The only thing shameful here is that more white Americans aren’t doing the same.
Unsurprisingly, pro-white stalwarts like Kevin Deanna, Auron MacIntyre, Matt Parrott, and Hunter Wallace weighed in on the right side. Much to my surprise, Loomer was joined by some other Alt-Liteish figures with large followings, including Jack Posobiec, Mike Cernovich, Ashley St. Clair, and Milo Yiannopoulos. Frankly, if you had asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to predict which way these people would have gone on this question.
Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, and Blake Masters have also weighed in on our side. Masters is especially significant, as he is a Peter Thiel protégé and thus I would have bet that he would take the Silicon Valley position. Another Thiel protégé, Vice-President elect J.D. Vance, made one statement in defense of American workers. Since then he has been conspicuously silent. Maybe he’s been celebrating Christmas with his Hindu family.
Beyond that, hundreds, now thousands of people I had never before heard of on X have joined in on the side of nationalism, populism, and American workers. It is a vast, beautiful, and highly entertaining convergence of creative and irreverent minds unified to promote sound nationalist and populist ideas against globalist, classical liberal, free-market clichés. It really is reminiscent of the glory days of the Alt Right in 2015 and 2016. David Zsutty said it best: “There’s only one job Indians can do that Americans can’t: Uniting the Right.”
It is also gratifying that most of these meme warriors have excellent talking points.
Aside from simply pointing out that H-1Bs are not for recruiting the best but simply for paying Americans less while expanding Indian tech mafias, many commenters have gotten to the heart of the issue: what it means to be American.
Many openly defend the idea that Americans are a white people, with racial/ethnic interests of our own. Many are cataloging all the ways in which whites have been systematically discriminated against in STEM education, recruitment, and careers.
The use of sports team analogies has been roundly dismissed. America is a nation, the homeland of the American people, not a sports team.
The idea that America’s health can be measured by GDP and corporate earnings has also been soundly rejected. America is the homeland of the American people, not an economic zone where cutthroat alien mafias can enrich themselves.
We have seen full-throated defenses of the idea that Americans should have preferences in hiring in America, simply for being Americans. The partisans of colorblind individualism simply splutter, “That’s like DEI.”
Yes, in a way it is. Americans want preferential treatment simply for being born Americans, just as DEI gives preferential treatment for really anybody but white Americans. But since DEI is just the Great Replacement at work, giving white Americans privilege in our own homeland is pretty much the opposite of DEI. And it is not unfair to Indians, because they have privileges too . . . back in India.
There has also been pushback against Republican clichés about competition and hard work. Nationalists and populists need to be crystal clear on this point. Your boss would love to pay you less and sweat you harder by making you compete with the Third World. American workers prefer higher pay, shorter working hours, and greater employment security. National populism means nothing if we don’t side with workers against employers on these issues. That means protectionism, including protecting the gains made by the labor movement against capitalism.
The debate was spirited but civil when it was mostly among whites. Things heated up when Indians started logging on. Suddenly, we were informed that whites were lazy and stupid compared to Indians. We were informed that Indians were taking over our businesses and countries. Once that happened, white men would be out of luck and white women would flock to their curry-scented conquerors. Whites were denounced as colonizers. (Never mind that America pushed the UK to decolonize India.) Therefore, in addition to enriching us with their diversity and genius and culinary slop, Indians were also here to punish us for our racial sins.
We were even informed that the whites who opposed Sriram were “inbred.” This is ironic, since Sriram is a potato-headed mutant, and India is one of the most inbred places in the world.
These Indians were astonishingly clumsy, tone-deaf, and self-defeating. It makes one question the value of their code. Many people who were defending Indians on colorblind individualist grounds were offended at such blatant racial hatred and triumphalism. They fact that most of them had nothing better to do on Christmas than rubbish white Americans did not go unnoticed either. For many people, this was their first exposure to how profoundly alien and hateful Hindus are. They are cringingly obsequious buffoons when seeking power, petty sadists when they feel they have it.
Vivek Ramasomethingsomething even claimed that Americans in tech were losing out to Indians because of Indians’ superior culture. You see, Indian teens like Vivek spent their weekends studying, whereas American teens spent their time playing sports and going to the mall. If Americans want to compete, they need to become Asian-style tiger parents—never mind that this ended with a 0.7 birth rate in South Korea. Obviously, Vivek is just a resentful, anti-white nerd. He’s the last person that white Americans should want in political power. His political career should end here.
Unsurprisingly, many Americans began to think that maybe we should protect their children from these creepy, cutthroat infiltrators, before it is too late. Again, it was so clumsy and self-defeating that even his fellow subcontinental Republican operator Nimrata Haley has distanced herself from Vivek.
Both Elon Musk and David Sacks quickly retreated from the bailey of H-1B mass immigration to the motte of O visa highly talented guest workers, but not before Musk made an absolute fool of himself and alienated vast swathes of the MAGA movement.
But the clearest sign of defeat emerged today, when it was revealed that Laura Loomer has been locked out of her account, which has been decertified and demonetized. Many other prominent critics have been decertified and demonetized as well. Musk also announced that if blue check accounts heavily block an account, it will be deboosted. This is a clear indication that Musk has been humiliated and is lashing out in anger. So much for free speech on X.
Day 1 of my new life, hating Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/YdICl48Xaa
— KekMagician🫘🆙 (@KequeMage) December 26, 2024
This fight needed to happen. As I discussed in my essay “Trump’s Great Betrayal on Immigration,” it was clear that Trump was spouting Silicon Valley talking points about skilled immigrants. What was worse, Trump’s rationale for legal immigration had nothing to do with nationalism and populism. He simply referenced economic arguments. Your boss prefers to pay you less for longer hours by making you compete with the Third World. If Trump sides with the bosses, then nationalism and populism are dead. If anything, scab labor is a form of corporate welfare with the tech bros being the biggest welfare queens of all.
Still, given the choice between Harris, who offered millions more illegals plus unrestricted legal immigration, and Trump, who promised to keep legal immigration, end illegal immigration, and deport millions, Trump was the better choice. I am grateful to Elon Musk for helping us elect Trump.
But once Trump was in the White House, our movement’s next step was to begin the battle against legal immigration. That battle has already been joined, and I am delighted to report that our side is far more numerous than I thought, that we are making excellent arguments with passion and wit, that we have powerful allies, and that our enemies are doing a lot of our work for us.
Can nationalists bring Elon Musk and his allies to heel? Maybe, but we need to start building a single-issue immigration restrictionist voting bloc today. Then we need to start throwing our weight around in the midterms. If we can display the bloody scalps of a few RINOs, we might be able to deter Silicon Valley and the Indian Mafia. If Musk wants to go to Mars, he needs to stave off the Left, which means he needs our votes.
It is encouraging to see just how large and bitter and spiteful the counter-jeethad movement is. (I want to thank my friend Gaddius for that turn of phrase.) All that capitalists like Musk can appeal to is rational self-interest. But spiteful men are willing to harm themselves to harm their enemies. Thus they are ungovernable. They must simply be appeased.
Happy New Year! The tide continues to turn in our favor.
