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Notes -
I'll step in an steelman Vivek here. Remember Vivek's presidential campaign ran to the right of Trump on one issue: ending affirmative action.
Let's start by loading into context the take-aways from Compact Magazine's "The Lost Generation" - that Heritage American sold out their own sons from taking positions they were as-qualified or often better-qualified for. Now imagine you're Vivek - you come to this country and you like the Red team's vision for the future, you want them to win - but everywhere you look in the halls of power tells you the Red team can't possibly win. They've walled their own people out, and the Blues are in no mood of letting any more Reds through their gate.
You're Vivek so you are familiar with one mode of social mobility: a generational compact where the older generation assists the capable and deserving strivers of the rising generation if they will demonstrate consistent work ethic. Is this not exactly what the doctor ordered for the Red team's ailment?
To dig a into a Straussian reading of Vivek's lament: Grill Americans have largely adopted a slave morality that elevates "Special Education" spending to multiples of Gifted and Talented programs. They've co-signed student loans for their daughter's gender studies (albeit through gritted teeth) while sending their sons into low level career training programs (that were good enough for the Boomers).
But you can't run for President and just tell your voters this "your cherished morality is wrong - stop spending more on literal retards then your future inventors - it's why you're losing!" Instead you need to find a rhetoric that is within the Overton window - and that's football programs and sitcom re-runs. Less of that you say but this isn't an exhortation for the kids to adopt Korean study habits (as many seem to think), but for Grill Parents and Grill Towns to make a new social compact of assigning social prestige and support to activities that generate more Power for the Red team. This is of increasing importance in this new American landscape of zero-sum or even adversarial negative-sum games, like the land where Vivek and his family escaped from.
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