Vivek Ramaswamy’s criticism of US culture sparks MAGA fury
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Vivek Ramaswamy’s criticism of US culture sparks MAGA fury

Posted on by Amelia Pressman

President-elect Donald Trump’s attempt to keep Silicon Valley tech moguls in coalition with his even more rabid anti-immigrant supporters collapsed this week after he appointed Indian-born venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan to a top artificial intelligence position in his the next government. Far-right social media influencer and Trump ally Laura Loomer said Krishnan’s desire for more H-1B visas for “highly skilled” foreign workers is “in direct contradiction” to Trump’s agenda.

Elon Musk, who once held an H-1B visa, said it is important to seek out the best talent wherever they are. That’s a good argument.

Trump adviser and major campaign donor Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and once held an H-1B visa, said it was important to seek out the best talent wherever they are. That’s a good argument. But then his DOGE colleague Vivek Ramaswamy, who was born in Ohio to Indian immigrants, chimed in and blamed the country’s tech shortage on 1990s sitcom depictions of “cool” and “nerdy” kids . We’d have more engineers, he argues, if America praised the Screech character from “Saved by the Bell” rather than his handsome counterparts from prep and sports.

When Trump spoke about the H-1B visa program during his 2016 campaign, he said, “We shouldn’t have it. Very, very bad for workers.” During his first term, Trump made it more difficult for foreign-born workers to enter the United States. If he had intended to do something different this time, he would not have appointed Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy.

Loomer is right when he notes that it is strange that Trump chose Krishnan as his senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence, especially given Krishnan’s remark to Musk

But for me, political incoherence is more important than a complete commitment to a bad idea. If Krishnan can convince Trump to be more open to foreign workers, it will be better for this country.

People from India make up about 75% of those applying for H-1B visas. With less than 12%, people from China make the second most applications. (It’s worth noting that more than a third of the world’s population lives in either China or India, and that each country’s population exceeds that of the United States by more than a billion.)

The fact that 35% of the world’s people live in either India or China – and that 95% live outside the US – means there is more talent outside of this country than there. Therefore, it makes sense for any company that wants to compete on the global stage to look for talent everywhere, and it makes sense for our government to let them in.

“There are far too few people in the US who are super talented engineers AND super motivated,” Musk said in a Christmas post on X. “If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you have to recruit top talent from everywhere.” Maybe they are .” Saying that the U.S. talent pool is “too low” sounds like an unwarranted judgment. Suffice it to say that the world has a larger talent pool than any other country.

The USA’s medal tally at this year’s Olympic Games in Paris illustrates this. Although no country won more gold medals and the United States won 35 more than its closest competitor, China, other countries still won 88% of the gold medals and 88% of the total medals awarded.

Asking why a U.S. employer would give a job to someone outside the U.S. is like being angry that someone abroad is particularly fast, strong, or graceful.

Suffice it to say that the world has a larger talent pool than any other country.

However, instead of making the relatively safe argument that the world is overflowing with talent, the confident Ramaswamy, who had vowed to “eradicate” the program when running for president, decided to attack US culture.

In a post on Stefan about Steve Urkel in Family Matters…won’t produce the best engineers.”

He added that he knew of “*several* groups of immigrant parents in the ’90s who actively restricted the number of television shows their children could watch precisely because they encouraged mediocrity… and their children went on to become highly successful STEM majors. Graduates developed.”

The logical fallacy is blatant. That some people who weren’t allowed to watch silly, broad sitcoms aimed primarily at children became “highly successful STEM graduates” doesn’t mean they succeeded because those shows were banned. But that is hardly the biggest problem with Ramaswamy’s argument. Why does he think character tropes in 30-year-old sitcoms have anything to do with the quality or quantity of our engineers? Why does he think a country’s culture should be measured by the quantity or quality of its engineers?

And perhaps most importantly, why doesn’t he know that Steve Urkel ended up starting a successful STEM career – and winning over the beautiful Laura Winslow?! Did his parents ban the show? Wait, he counts himself as one of the “extremely successful STEM graduates,” right?

It’s a defeat we should hope will be won by those who favor more H-1B visas — even those who are self-important and obnoxious.

Ramaswamy’s argument was not only simple, but it also had the effect of alienating the MAGA crowd he had worked so hard to support as a presidential candidate.

“I always love it when these tech bros emphatically tell you that they have no understanding of American culture and then have the audacity to tell you that YOU are the problem with America,” wrote Brenden Dilley, a pro -Trump podcaster, on Let’s do it now.”

It’s a defeat we should hope will be won by those who favor more H-1B visas — even those who are self-important and obnoxious. America has never become stronger or more competitive, nor will it ever be, by lacking itself in talent. And no thoughtless belief in American exceptionalism will make it true.

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