H1B Visa Kerfuffle and The Right's Identify Politics
Kerfuffle is a great word to say out loud.
The first great twitter spat amongst the two dominant — or the groups that consider themselves to be dominant — MAGA factions has erupted over, not surprisingly, immigration. Specifically, Musk, Ramaswamy, and other tech executives came out in support of the H1B visa program. Anti-immigrant MAGA heads like Bannon and Loomer attacked the idea that more immigrants be allowed into the country and Musk started banning and taking away that faction’s blue checks, meaning their reach would be diminished and they could not participate in revenue programs. Trump, despite having closed the program to new entries in his first presidency, backed Musk.
By the way, if none of those names mean anything to you, keep it that way. You will live a much happier life than I.
As someone who writes a lot about technology, I suppose I should have an opinion on the H1B visas. That, however, is the least interesting thing about this little spat. (I really wanted to use kerfuffle again. Just say it once out loud. Kerfuffle. Like eating the smoothest ice cream). H1B visas are bad. Not because immigration is bad but because they effectively tie the holder to a job, meaning that the worker has no bargaining power. Everyone who has worked in tech knows at least one, and likely many, people who were making significantly below market because they were H1B visa workers. They depress wages and bargaining power for American employees, they harm the workers brought in on the visas, and they reduce the incentive to invest in the American educational system. They are bad and should be replaced by a new system that allows foreign born workers the same freedoms accorded to American born workers.
No, the H1B is an old argument and support for it does not indicate support for immigrants, merely support for exploiting immigrants. What really interests me are the politics of the fight, especially the identity politics.
MAGA exists because of white identity politics. Trump’s base is largely made up of whites who resent the change in society, who feel that the opportunity line is moving too slow and minorities get to cut, and Nazis and fellow travelers. They are not the entirety of people who voted for him, but they are the animating core.
A lot of these people argue for scientifically based differences for the various races. The idea is silly, of course, but it should not be surprising when non-whites take it up. One of the escalating incidents of this little hissy-fit was Ramaswamy claiming that American culture was inferior, by implication to Indian culture. If you push the idea that races are fundamentally different, you shouldn’t be surprised when member of races not yours think they are superior to yours. It is nonsense, of course, but ancient nonsense that settles into long established grooves in our brains.
This fight, then, is an example of the identity politics of the right. Since the right’s coalition is, to at least some degree, a multi-racial coalition (as all coalitions in the US tend to be, even if they aren’t as multi-racial as the Democratic coalition), and since the identity politics they adhere to is not one of coalition but one of dominance, expect to see more of these tempests to rile the coalition.
I don’t expect this to be a serious breach. Trump will run a few mass deportation exercises in blue cities, and the Bannon, Loomer, the local Nazis, et. al. will all cheer and tell us how great Trump is. But the smarter of them realize that, right now, Trump is more afraid to piss off Musk than he is to piss off them, and will be looking for ways to “correct” that imbalance. And since, as we noted, their politics is one of racial, or at least national (though Americans somehow never seem to include much beyond rural, white people in their telling), dominance, expect to see more ugliness toward high powered tech executives from outside the United States, or whose parents or grandparents where outside the United States. It will be interesting to see, for example, if the DOJ pushes ahead with anti-trust complaints against companies like Google who are currently led by Indian-Americans. Perhaps they try and stir up vigilante violence against Indian-Americans in the same way they have for Chinese and Haitians or LGBTQ+ people.
Whatever form it takes, I suspect that the nativist-right, or at least its political actors, will be anxious to pick a fight they can win. And since their politics are about identity dominance, I expect it to only increase the amount of tension and violence in the country. Right now, they are clearly the losers and losers ot the kind of people they hate — cosmopolitan citizens of the world with enough money to buy a president. They conception of themselves requires that they lash back. The only question is who will be the target.