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Revisiting Vivek Ramaswamy's Christmas Rant: One Year Later
The tome in question, in case you need to refresh your memory. One hundred and twenty five million views. This single tweet tore open a gash in the Republican coalition that has yet to heal (though I don't want to overstate the counterfactual impact here, this particular fault-line was inevitable).
Looking back, it is clear now that the controversy was never just racist shit-flinging. There is a real philosophical conflict underlying the backlash. It is perhaps most elegantly stated as a variant of the Euthyphro dilemma; is our culture good because it is American, or is it American because it is good? Vivek is a functionalist. If an aspect of American culture is non-functional, then it should be replaced. His opponents in the comments are overwhelmingly essentialists. Americanness is an ontological property that is good because of it's essential nature as American. In this context, the idea that someone might choose to discard prom queens or jock sports fandom is a threat to America itself. Of course, this begs the question, who counts as American? And we end up with the "Heritage American" discourse that has been popping up lately.
We had the discussion last time. Vivek was (and presumably is) just wrong. Zach on Saved by the Bell was all-around competent. He's not mediocre at all. Canonically he gets a 1502 on the SAT. He was almost as good at sports as Slater, almost as book smart as Screech, he had Tom Sawyer's social skills and business skills on top of that. And a rebellious streak a mile wide, which gives lie to Vivek's later complaint about "nerdiness over conformity". Perhaps Ramaswamy's own immigrant parents sheltered him too much from American culture, and he is criticizing that which he does not understand.
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I don't think that's what's going on here. There may be some root value differences that are due to different cultural backgrounds, but the Boy Meets World fans don't think "I don't care of Cory's life sucks; it's ontologically American so I support it!" No, they think that living a good life (functionally) is not just about being valedictorian and going to the best college. I think a big part of why America is so successful has to do with values such as individualism, experimentation, exploration, personal integrity, and kindheartedness. That's what Western "mediocrity" narratives teach.
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Ramaswamy is doing some motte-and-bailey nonsense here, pointing out a few flaws in American culture, but then using that as a non-sequitur to justify his ridiculous immigration views. The simple fact is that the H1B system is used to undercut American wages. While ostensibly only permitting "foreign experts", companies game the system by allowing diploma mill bachelor's degrees in India to be valid, and then pay them garbage salaries. An easy solution would be to just require anyone hired on an H1B visa to have high relative wages. Basically everyone agrees this would fix the problem, but nobody makes the change because they actually want to use it H1B's as a cynical vehicle for mass-migration.
There were some big changes to the H1B program announced this month, https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-changes-process-for-awarding-h-1b-work-visas-to-better-protect-american-workers
Applicants will have their applications weighted based on salary for the job occupation code and location. Devil is in the details, but they are trying to change things.
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Indeed, only the jobs they're taking are as you note, degreed jobs. Gated sinecures reserved for the aristocracy, or at least the striving class being told they're the aristocracy. The "white collar" college jobs have been using anti-white racism to justify the wholesale displacement and attempted replacement of the working class (previously white catholic ethnics and black people) with more tractable hispanics. Now they find out their precious college degree-gated industries aren't safe from a billion indians, and the actual ruling class finds them as disposable as they found the Poles or Guatemalans.
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