After achieving an unprecedented victory over the Democratic Party and completely eliminating external threats to the Democratic Party, the traditional MAGA camp represented by rural whites and the Silicon Valley technical elites who have recently turned to the Republican Party, represented by Musk and DOGE, soon realized that their interests were actually very different. The alliance between the two sides was only based on the fragile foundation of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and after the common enemy declined, the cracks appeared in front of observers around the world faster than anyone expected.
1. The Origin and Direction of the MAGA Civil War
As mentioned above, the MAGA group and Silicon Valley tech elites who united under Trump to oppose DEI and deep state in the 2024 election are actually at two extremes on the political spectrum, just like the famous controversial tweet that Musk liked. In the normal distribution of Americans IQ, the Silicon Valley elites with the highest IQ on the right and the rednecks with the lowest IQ on the left both support the Republican Party, while those with IQs near the middle mean support the Democratic Party. This clearly shows that Musk clearly knows that Silicon Valley elites and rednecks working with Trump are ultimately just a stopgap measure, just a compromise between the far-right MAGA and Silicon Valley elites, which happens to fall at the intersection of the traditional Republican establishment represented by Trump and moderate MAGA. This compromised and temporary alliance is very fragile.
From the perspective of Silicon Valleys elite entrepreneurs, low-cost Indian and Chinese STEM technical labor entering through H1B is essential for technology companies to maintain their competitiveness. But as we all know, the far-right MAGA verbally opposes illegal immigration, but in fact opposes high-paid legal immigrants in the legal, medical, financial, IT, and semiconductor industries. However, due to the systematic failure of the US public education system, the lower-class white people with general functional illiteracy and dyslexia cannot replace the work of these professional and technical talents. Therefore, on the issue of H1B visa immigration, there is a huge contradiction between the Silicon Valley faction and the white MAGA, not to mention that the Silicon Valley factions talkers have already had a large number of Indian executives who have entered the highest center of US federal power together with Musk.
The MAGA debate was sparked by a tweet from Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian who is Musk’s second-in-command at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE):
“The reason top tech companies frequently hire foreign-born and first-generation immigrant engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because native Americans are inherently intellectually deficient (that’s a lazy and false explanation). One key factor comes down to that “c” word: culture. Tough questions require tough answers, and if we’re really serious about solving this problem, we have to face the truth: Our American culture has long (since at least the 1990s, and probably earlier) valued mediocrity over excellence. It didn’t start in college, it started at an early age. A culture that values prom queens over math Olympiad champions, or athletic prodigies over valedictorians, doesn’t produce the best engineers. A culture that values Cory from Boyz n’ Grown, Zach and Slater from Saved by the Bell over Screech, or Stefan from Alien over Steve Urkel, doesn’t produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know multiple immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited their kids’ viewing of television shows precisely because those shows promoted mediocrity and mocked science “nerds”…and their kids went on to become very successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash and less reruns of Friends. More math tutoring and less all-night hangouts. More weekend science contests and less Saturday morning cartoons. More books and less TV. More creative writing and less “relaxation.” More extracurricular activities and less shopping. Most normal American parents are suspicious of “these parents.” Even more normal American kids are disdainful of “these kids.” If you grow up determined to be normal, you will eventually become normal.
Now close your eyes and imagine which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raised their kids according to one model and which families who raised their kids according to another model. Please speak your mind. In the ultra-competitive global market for technical talent, “normal” does not apply. If we pretend it does, we will get clobbered by China.
This could be our Sputnik moment. We have awakened from our slumber before, and we can awaken again. Hopefully, Trump’s election marks the beginning of a new golden age for America, but only if our culture fully awakens. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over norm; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; and diligence over laziness. That is the task we set for ourselves, not to indulge in a victim mentality and simply hope (or legislate) that alternative hiring practices will emerge. I believe we can do it.”
A little explanation:
Boy Meets World Synopsis: This is an American teenage sitcom that tells the story of Cory Matthews growth from childhood to adulthood; Saved by the Bell mainly revolves around a group of students at Bayside High School, with Zach Morris as one of the core characters. He is smart and naughty, often causing trouble but always able to solve it cleverly; Slater is a sports star in the school with a straightforward personality; Family Matters Steve Urkel is a very distinctive character in the show, he is a nerd, wearing big glasses, wearing weird clothes, and behaving clumsily but kind-hearted and smart. The film Whiplash mentioned in the article tells the story of an ambitious drummer who constantly improves and works hard under the strict guidance of a strict teacher; the Sputnik moment refers to the fact that on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite before the United States, plunging the Western world into a period of fear and anxiety. After that, the United States became alert and launched an education program to cultivate a new generation of engineers.
Ramaswamy, who graduated from Harvard University, is a disciple of Soros, the cousin of JD Vances wife, the founder and CEO of several innovative pharmaceutical companies, and once ran for the US presidency but gave up after Trumps candidacy. He is one of the most successful second-generation Brahmin immigrants. His remarks caused an uproar. MAGA supporters believe that Indians are not qualified to point fingers at American culture and education, and are not qualified to say that white people in rural America have inferior IQ and culture. On the other hand, in the context of Musks betrayal of MAGA being a foregone conclusion, Ramaswamy, an Indian who points fingers, and Musk, a South African immigrant, reach the heavens and enter the pass from the dragon to become iron hat kings side by side, and the fact that MAGA representatives such as JD Vance have to marry into his family to gain a foothold, has also deeply hurt the self-esteem of the MAGA group.
Objectively speaking, the ancestors of American rednecks did sacrifice their lives for the American cause of conquering the south and the north. The addiction of traditional white Americans to drugs, promiscuity, general reading impairment, and inability to remember multiplication tables are also closely related to the collapse of the American public education system, the high cost of higher education, and the excessive popularity of cheap entertainment. It cannot be simply attributed to the bad nature of rednecks. But the fact is that the MAGA group and the Rust Belt workers have been abandoned by American society. Apart from the votes in their hands, they no longer have any united front value. So after MAGA cheered for Trump and Musk, it became a discarded child that Trump and Musks camp casually discarded. Musk, an illegal immigrant, directly tweeted this explicit content:
The reason I was able to come to the United States and build Spacex and Tesla and hundreds of companies that make America great is because of the H1B visa. This is tantamount to a naked denial of any significance of redneck to the United States, and attributes all the credit for Americas technological competitive advantage to H1B visa STEM talents. What is even more unbearable for MAGA is that MAGAs poster child, Trump, also liked this tweet.
This blatant provocation and contempt aroused a huge wave of opposition. While former US presidential aide Bannon and other elites warned Musk not to get too involved in politics and not to interfere in the process of H1B cancellation, MAGA ordinary people also fought back mercilessly on the Internet public opinion field, such as the following questions:
Why doesnt China introduce Indian immigrants? Why is the threshold for introducing H1B talents so low? Why do truck drivers also need to be introduced through H1B visas? are indeed difficult questions to answer. The MAGA group, which cannot get a reasonable explanation, directly launched a vigorous anti-Indian immigration movement across the United States. Even well-known politicians from different camps such as Bannon and Sanders have taken a consistent position and jumped out to oppose H1B . However, at a time when the H1B visa review has been controlled by Indians and the H1B visa has become an industry, it is an unsolvable problem to reverse the trend of Indian immigrants entering the United States, whether from the perspective of the current situation, the demand for talents by technology companies, or the perspective of inflation, or whether the expensive public education system in the United States can train enough engineers to replace Indians. Whats more, MAGA rednecks like to boast that they are willing to die for their country, but the military participation rate in red states is generally lower than that in blue states, so their promises seem even less credible.
It can be said that the internal debate within MAGA represents the true hillybilly elegy: MAGA members thought that by voting for Trump, Vance and Musk they could regain control of their own country, but they did not expect that before Trump took office, the capital elites who switched to the Republican Party would once again abandon their resources and destroy their bridges.
