Is like watching a cage match between the two worst people in the world.
In this corner, the screw the peons billionaires.
In the other corner, the racist anti-immigrant nativists!
Personally I’m cheering for the racist anti-immigrants.
Vivek Ramaswany delightfully opinined that the problem is that American culture doesn’t produce people willing to work hard enough and celebrates prom queens and jocks over math olympiads. (American engineers aren’t keen on 12 hour work days.)
Funny thing, I’m in my 50s so I remember when prom queens and jocks really were worshipped and nerds were beaten up: and back then the US still led the world in engineering. And the 50s, the pinnacle of American power, were not noted for love of nerds. There’s some truth to what Vivek says, but culture isn’t why America has fallen behind. Instead America deliberately offshored its industry to China and China has maintained a cost advantage.
H1-B visas obviously take jobs from Americans. Yes, companies must say they doesn’t, but they do. H1B workers can’t leave their employers unless they have another lined up immediately, so they do what they’re told or go home. As such, they obviously have reduced bargaining power compared to natives or landed immigrants. This drives down wages for natives, “if you won’t do it, we’ll get an immigrant to, and they’ll take the wage we’re offering.”
The left-wing argument against guest workers, and H1B visas are just tech guest workers, is that if we genuinely need workers, then they should be over here either as landed immigrants or on a visa which allows them to quit and have some reasonable time to find another employer. A class of workers with reduced rights will obviously be preferred by management and will reduce the bargaining power of native workers.
Indians, who get most of these tech visas, aren’t culturally superior workers. They’re desperate workers, and desperate workers are good workers, for bosses.
Trump, of course, came down on Musk’s side. Billionaire solidarity is real and Trump has used H1B visa workers often in his own business.
Trump’s in his second term. MAGA got him elected, but the only reason he might care what they want any more is concern for mid-terms. Other than that, they don’t matter.
If they do want to win, the way is to emphasize that Musk and Vivek are in charge, they’re the real Presidents, and that he’s just their “cuck”, to use the modern term.
Trump doesn’t care about anybody but himself, but he has plenty of ego. Use it.
In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the cage match.