Even before even being inaugurated, Donald Trump faces raging internal conflict in his MAGA coalition, especially between Ramaswamy-Musk and the Trump base, who are going to war over immigration.
The nationalist base does not wish to concede to investor privilege. Ramaswamy, who made his millions as a Wall Street huckster carrying out pump-and-dump stock schemes, believes the U.S. is culturally deficient for promoting mere "normality" over academic and scientific excellence. Musk, an engineer with a talent for exploiting others, prefers to import "top" technical talent, rather than rely on the U.S. labor market. The MAGA base, for its part, wants America First to count for something, especially in employment, as there are plenty of unemployed American engineers who could use the jobs Musk awards to foreign workers.
From a worker standpoint, there is more to be said for the MAGA base side of the argument than for the Musk/Ramaswamy side, which as both Steven Bannon and Ann Coulter have pointed out, is simply a policy aimed at acquiring "indentured servants" by issuing H1B visas (while at the same time operating as a "brain drain" in the countries they come from). Many make substantial salaries (but less than U.S. workers would cost) but they are instantly deportable if they don't please their employers' every whim, a characteristic form of exploitation under capitalism, "populist" pretensions notwithstanding.
Con-man that he is, Donald Trump has already sided with his tech-bros, saying he likes the H1B visa, which gives special consideration to technically savvy immigrants. However, it is the extra control over the imported talent that matters most, not the technical know-how. All that remains to be done at this point is for the MAGA base to rationalize the kick-in-the-face as somehow consistent with Trump's "populist" essence, as they have done on similar occasions many times in the past.
The entire discussion bears on assumptions about what constitutes an American. For the Trump base, being born and raised in the image of the European founders of the republic represents Americanism in its purest form and counts for everything. For wealthy elites like Musk and Ramaswamy "excellence" is a distinctively American trait wherever it is found, and legal American visas extended to such talent are merely confirmation of that fact. Not to extend such visas in preference for a consumer culture of mediocrity is, for them, an insult to common sense and a kind of treason to the national essence.
Both groups overlook the possibility that achievement in making the U.S. less horrendously unjust may be the most praiseworthy element of the national character, and one would think we had already conceded this point by declaring Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday.
In any event, Musk outlined his feelings about the H1B visa on X:
"The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built Space X, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," he wrote to user Steve Mackey, who had criticized the visa. Overcome by indignation at "ungrateful" MAGA types, he lapsed into a semi-coherent rant: "Take a big step back and Fuck Yourself in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend." Steve Bannon, responding for the base, called Musk a "toddler."
Ramaswamy was more composed, incongruously calling for a culture of excellence from his extra-constitutional DOGE position granted him by the proudly ignorant Trump, world famous for being the quintessential "ugly American":
"Trump's election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America," he implausibly announced, "but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity, hard work over laziness."
He neglected to mention that Trump's "excellence" is in repeatedly taking companies into bankruptcy for his own benefit, and fomenting sectarian warfare with an unflagging barrage of mental diarrhea that inflames ugly passions and pushes us towards a second Civil War.
If he is to be the measure of our national greatness, he should change his slogan to, "Make America Rubble Again."
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