source: @ramzpaul on X
Trump has not even been inaugurated and there is a civil war among MAGA over H1b visas, between the rightwing of Silicon Valley and the Nationalist Populists Ultra MAGA. This all started in response to Trump selecting Indian immigrant entrepreneur, Sriram Krishnan, to be his AI advisor, and it was then revealed that Krishnan had made statements in favor of removing country caps on H1b visas. Elon Musk came out strongly in favor of H1b visas, and in response to the backlash, the “Free speech hero” banned and demonetized accounts that were outspoken against H1b visas or Indian immigration.
source: @NickJFuentes on X
Trump sided with Musk and the Tech Right on H1b visas, which is expected considering Musk donated about a quarter billion to Trump’s campaign. Trump greatly angered many of his most ardent former supporters including immigration hawks Nick Fuentes, Laura Loomer, and Steve Bannon while Stephen Miller, who had previously crafted legislation to restrict H1bs, has been silent. J.D. Vance signals to both these sides but since Peter Thiel is responsible for his political success, it is clear what side he will take. Regardless, it is good to see some dissent from MAGA rather than blindly supporting Trump.
source: @_johnnymaga on X
Elon Musk’s Cybertruck exploding in front of Trump’s Vegas hotel is the ultimate metaphor for the start of Trump’s second term, and how Trump and Elon Musk backstabbed the MAGA base. Trump treated his re-election as a mandate and can now take his base for granted. Perhaps Trump just exploited his base to stay out of Jail. I don’t expect much from Trump besides more corporate tax cuts and deregulation like his first term. However, I could see a scenario where Trump deports illegal immigrants but is pro-H1b.
source: @SangerGlobalism on X
Trump’s 2016 victory was taken as a signal that the power of the masses can usurp moneyed interests, which now seems foolishly naïve and a cope. Trump defeating the old guard GOP donor class, like the Koch Brothers, did not remove the donor class but created a vacuum for the new GOP donor elite in Silicon Valley. The reality is that any successful political movement needs some elite support and purely grassroots populist movements generally fail.
source: @PFIRorg on X
Much of the Tech Right crowd pivoted toward Trump very recently, in part, because they viewed the Democrats as becoming less friendly to business, with Lina Khan as FTC chair. Elon Musk voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, Trump mega donor David Sacks donated to Hillary Clinton for president, and Marc Andreessen voted for Clinton over Trump due to immigration policy. However, I wouldn’t mind it so much if Musk just positioned himself as this centrist technocratic oligarch who leans right, like Bill Ackman or Larry Ellison, rather than trying to have it both ways in embracing this persona as this ultra-based shitposter.
source: @VivekGRamaswamy on X
Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the rest of the Tech Right have this neoliberal outlook in judging people primarily based on their economic output. However, there is hypocrisy in how Musk became the World’s richest man off the backs of the US taxpayers. A more obnoxious example of this mentality is Marc Andreessen saying that opioids are good for small town America in that they keep the populace placated. Despite engaging in nationalistic and anti-woke rhetoric, the Tech Right has revealed that they view America as nothing other than an economic zone, or as Musk says like a professional sports team. This crowd is also resorting to making a disingenuous patriotic case that Indian H1b immigrants are needed to win the AI race against China.
Marc Andressen on small town America: “I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.”
Source: @AdamFostermusic on X
Trump’s initial electoral success was a grievance politics of telling downtrodden voters that they were victims of external forces, like liberal elites and immigrants. In contrast, Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s messages are a return to the standard conservative position that one’s failings are a product of bad culture and that one needs to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps. What is new is that working and middle class White Republicans are treating this as a slight against them while they wouldn’t have in the past. Remarkably, Steve Bannon is now talking about wanting to raise taxes on corporations and the ultra-wealthy. Not to mention that Bernie Sanders recently came out hard against H1b visas.
Musk engages in rightwing culture wars, and to be fair, he has done a lot of good in expanding the Overton Window on many issues including tackling anti-Whiteness, and until recently has been good for free speech. Musk has recently shilled for nationalism in Europe, including for the AFD in Germany, and has been outspoken against the handling of the Pakistani rape and sex trafficking gangs in the UK. However, the H1b visa issue is different because it impacts Musk’s bottom line. Regardless, there are parallels to Reaganism with race bating about Black welfare queens while Reagan greatly expanded legal immigration and granted amnesty, or even how the Neocons exploited post-9/11 anti-Muslim sentiment.
source: @elonmusk/status on X
source: @ScottMGreer on X
Many conservatives will fetishize successful minorities like East Asians and Hindus while having a lower opinion of Blacks, Muslims, and Central American illegals. A lot of that Tech Right crowd is open to HBD and eugenics, but that can also lead to a Social Darwinist view that East Asians and Hindu Brahmins are superior in that they outcompete the White middle class.
source: @TheEmissaryCo on X
Those like Richard Hanania say that anti-Indian sentiment is low status coded, much like anti-Semitism. The notion that one hates a more successful outgroup because they can’t outcompete them. A lot of the pro-H1b shills are also comparing protectionism for the native born against foreign competition to woke DEI, hence the cringe “woke right” meme. Basically, comparing Whites who demand protectionism from competing with Indian and East Asian immigrants to Blacks who demand affirmative action because they can’t compete with Whites. However, Indian immigrants can be very nepotistic and are often hired for cheap labor over merit.
source: @RichardHanania on X
Regardless, conservatives set themselves up for this due to their blind worship of meritocracy and free markets over putting their people first, or an assumption that meritocracy will always mean that Whites will remain on top. There will always be winners and losers and it is human nature for people to want their personal or tribal interests to come first. We also have to decide upon what selection process society is going to use to determine merit and what attributes we are going to select for.
source: @AlexNowrasteh on X
source: @stillgray on X
While some level of diversity, non-Western immigration, and various ethnic enclaves are fine for America, we need to be very cautious about significantly altering the makeup of the Nation’s elite. There are countless examples of wealthy tech immigrants showing open contempt for America’s traditional demographic and history. For the most part, this new Indian managerial elite is going to favor the Democrats, though you do have the libertarian Indian tech bros who idealize Musk.
source: @BIPOCracism on X
Those who have to compete against Indian H1b immigrants are not the chud populist demographic but rather the well educated and higher IQ from the middle to upper middle class. Walt Bismarck makes The Elitist Case for Cutting H-1Bs that “The primary reason I’m weighing in today is to dispute the basic rhetorical framing of this issue as a debate between vitalist übermenschen on the “Tech Right” who support H-1Bs and knuckle-dragging chud “National Populists” who oppose them. To me it seems straightforwardly obvious that this is a monstrously disingenuous way to slice the cake, and I’m genuinely quite surprised it hasn’t received more pushback. Because most tech workers—and particularly right wing tech workers—most definitely DO NOT want the country flooded with cheap labor who’ll undercut their salaries at a time when the job market is already strained.”
The Walt RightThe Elitist Case for Cutting H-1Bs
This will be a short article, as the fantastic Bingo Bobbins already articulated most of my thoughts on the matter in his recent essay H-1B: A Tech Bro Perspective. Everyone seriously invested in the topic at hand should begin by giving that a read…
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7 days ago · 43 likes · 16 comments · Walt Bismarck
While Silicon Valley is based on capitalist exploitation, Silicon Valley types have always viewed themselves as more enlightened than other industries like Big Oil and Wall Street. Besides being motivated by greed, I think Musk has this autistic libertarian obsession with total meritocracy which is as idealistically out of touch with reality as leftist egalitarianism. Not to mention that Musk was a liberal for many years and probably leaned into that neoliberal immigrant striver identity to overcompensate for the demonization of White South African emigres, right after the fall of Apartheid.
source: @AltCulture on X
source: @AltCulture on X
Musk like most businessmen is probably too busy with his businesses to have any deep intellectual or philosophical understanding of politics and society. Silicon Valley types are often narrow minded against anyone who isn’t in STEM or some human computer, which bodes poorly for the prospects of the AI revolution. The AI revolution will require a wide variety of people and archetypes including intellectuals/philosophers, artists, mystics/spiritualists, and parapsychologists. However, what the Tech Right and populists have in common is that they are both philistines who devalue culture.
source: @soetsappies on X
While I agree with nationalist populists on many issues, including H1b visas, a lot of them are very backward minded reactionaries. Populists are primarily focused on things like defending families and the culture of the common man and higher wages for workers, which are fine, but are less interested in Promethean ideals like expanding consciousness, advancing civilization, and thinking in terms of the future. I can appreciate how Musk has grandiose visions, like going to Mars, even though he hasn’t delivered on that.
These nationalist populist types tend to be Luddites who want the government to ban automation. However, embracing automation is needed to achieve a lot of America First objectives, including restricting immigration and onshoring manufacturing, as well as reducing bureaucracy.
Rightwing populists have described the Democrats as a high low coalition against the middle. However, Republicans are devolving into their own high low coalition, of billionaire oligarchs and working class proles while losing a lot of middle to upper middle income, college educated, white collar professionals to the Democrats. This new top down arrangement is ripe for political exploitation. Thus the Right needs to attract more intelligent younger people, including those in tech. The rift between the GOP’s new more downscale voter base becoming more anti-immigration and more skeptical of capitalism and the elite of MAGA being more neoliberal could lead to the total implosion of MAGA.
