Every 15 minutes, Americans are given a fresh reason why we need to buy troops of immigrants.
Our food may go bad on the vine ( I shudder at the thought of the great fruit lack that plagued America before mass immigration ), tableside avocados will cost more than Wagyu, and, most recently, our STEM fields did go bad, leaving America entangled in a comparatively dark age of technology as our opponents run laps around us.  , Regardless of the latest justification, one thing remains constant: You’re a bad person ( and probably a racist ) if you ask whether there’s an ulterior motive.  ,
If you managed to disconnect from politics and social media over Christmas, good for you, but for those who couldn’t pry themselves away, they witnessed a heated debate on X over H-1B visas. As the discussion unfolded, a myth was dispelled: H-1B visas are limited to supremely technical fields that require genius-level IQ. It turns out, H-1B applicants include wannabe 7-Eleven clerks, priests, plumbers, and architect interns, to name a handful.  ,
Others correctly argued that we cannot assess the existence of a rumored domestic labor shortage in technology without taking into account racial discrimination in the hiring practices of tech feeder universities and discriminatory hiring practices in Silicon Valley, which disadvantage outspoken conservatives and white applicants. As obvious incentives for businesses to use H-1B workers, cheap labor and strict control over employees were presented.  ,
As the general narrative for mass migration changed from” just doing jobs Americans won’t do” to” Americans are the equivalent of lobotomized torsos who lack the mental and physical ability to do literally any job,” those with vested interests in the current system scrambled to defend the program.
There’s a spectrum of beliefs on the issue, but if you distill the discussion to its core, almost everyone falls into one of two groups: 1 ) Chamber of Commerce, growth-at-all-costs types who see America as a” sports team” or 2 ) those who see America as a people with a specific culture.
Elon Musk ,
Elon Musk is firmly a member of the sports team. On its face, the sports analogy seems benign, but America is not a basketball franchise. A narrow focus on a common goal defines a sport team as a small, tightly controlled environment. Fundamentally, everyone on the team wants the exact same thing. Because of this, diversity in small team settings can be lessened. Even in these settings, one cannot escape the reality that camaraderie is always positively related to shared values.  ,
In spite of the rapidly declining cultural overlap that comes with endless immigration, applying the sports team approach to America assumes that hundreds of millions of people will always have the same goal. The false claim that people of all cultures want the same thing is always based on the ridiculous and ridiculously broad idea that” We all want America to succeed” is false. The problem is, depending on who you ask,” America succeeding” might mean communism or the murder of CEOs.  ,
There were early signs that Musk’s views on immigration would clash with conservatives. Musk stated on X in September 2023 that” Illegal immigration needs to stop, but I’m super pro-simplifying it.” Anyone who proves themselves to be hard-working, talented and honest should be allowed to come to America. Period” . ,
According to Musk, America should open its arms to everyone who is “hard-working, talented, and honest”. This isn’t practical or even desirable. Hard-working and talented are vague and subjective concepts, and we cannot measure the honesty of potential immigrants. If you asked 100 people to give you a percentage of the world’s population that is hard-working and talented, the responses would range from less than 1 percent to 100 percent. Sure, we should try to identify talent, but that’s quite different than saying every so-called hard-working and talented person” should be allowed to come to America. Period” . ,
Vivek Ramaswamy ,
In an X post with more than 100 million views, Vivek Ramaswamy claimed Americans have lost their competitive edge, and that’s why tech companies hire foreigners over native-born Americans. There is much to criticize in today’s culture, but Ramaswamy’s post fell short.  ,
In a ham-fisted attempt to place blame, he shoehorned in cultural references where they didn’t belong ( apparently, he never actually watched” Saved by the Bell” ). ” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons”, Ramaswamy wrote. The underlying premise seems to suggest that cultural greatness and whimsical childhoods are mutually exclusive. Parts of his rant resemble the assistant principal in” Uncle Buck”
There’s a reason the best coming-of-age movies aren’t built around math competitions. Generations of Americans before them created a society that was responsible for some of nature’s greatest accomplishments and enchanted, lighthearted childhoods.  ,
The notion that our traditional childhoods are preventing us from being competitive is absurd. I spent most of my childhood camping, fishing, and hunting — yet managed to teach my seventh-grade AP algebra class when our teacher was on vacation. Excelling in math at an early age certainly helped, but I wouldn’t trade my outdoor childhood adventures for 100 math trophies. Today’s children need to spend more time outdoors, not less.
Ramaswamy closed by saying we should return to” a culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy, excellence over mediocrity, nerdiness over conformity, hard work over laziness”. This sounds good, and there’s undoubtedly some truth in here. I want less conformity and more individualism — and who doesn’t want achievement? However, some of these ideals fall victim to the “overly vague goals” fallacy that I mentioned above. What does “excellence” mean? Perhaps Ramaswamy and the typical Trump voter share the same vision of cultural excellence. If that’s the case, Ramaswamy should have worded his post differently.  ,
Going Forward
While certain 2024 trends were encouraging, unless there’s a significant shift in demographic voting patterns, even a modest change to America’s demographics spread across swing states would make it all but impossible for a Republican to win the presidency. What did we accomplish if we win the STEM war through an immigration process that ultimately leads to one-party rule by Democrats at the federal level?
If the election didn’t make this clear, I’ll state it as plainly as possible: We want less immigration. That includes legal immigrants and H-1B workers. And if you continue to tell us that no matter how many foreigners we import, America will always be as American as it always has been. Many Americans have played the ridiculous game to avoid being labeled as bigots, despite it being ridiculous.
If there’s one decisive victory of the Trump era, it’s that we aren’t playing that game anymore, and the name-calling in response is no longer a deterrent. America has done its share of charitable immigration. People from all over the world have greeted us. It’s time to put Americans first, and that includes reforming the H-1B visa program.  ,
