As things on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) took a big turn toward a massive debate between pro-large scale legal immigration and anti-mass economic migration factions of the MAGA coalition, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley emphasized their somewhat surprising respective positions in the fight, with Vivek taking an anti-American culture position and Haley defending America’s culture.
Vivek began it by chiming in with a much-derided post in which he claimed American culture is rotten. He said, “The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”
He continued, “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).”
He then attacked sleepovers and socializing at the mall, saying, “More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.'”
Still not done, he said, “Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve. Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest. “Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.”
He then said, “This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness. That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸”
Chiming in with what many thought was a surprising take given her generally neocon sensibilities, Nikki Haley said, “There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”
Also among the many commenters who chimed into slam Vivek was Mike Cernovich, who said, somewhat representatively of the many others, “The Woodstock generation managed to build out aerospace, the one before went to the moon, America was doing great. Underlying your post is that we were all living in squalor until being rescued by H-1B’s. Then why did everyone want to come here?”
Much in contrast to Musk and Vivek, JD Vance has said he thinks America is not an “idea,” but a certain group of people, something encapsulated in a portion of a speech that he reposted during the H-1b immigration debate. Watch that here:
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