Tiger Dad

Former presidential candidate and shifty entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-chair of the mythical Department of Government Efficiency with noted robber baron Elon Musk, has, along with Musk, advocated for more H1B visas for foreign workers to take jobs in the tech sector.  Many if not most of these workers would be South Asian like Ramaswamy himself.

This created a serious rift in MAGA between the tech right and the alternate right over American identity and American values.  Ramaswamy specifically said that foreign workers are needed to work in the tech sector because native-born Americans are not smart enough, which is what one must expect when we have a culture that values the prom queen over the "mathlete" and the jock over the valedictorian.  Ramaswamy could have stopped there, but he said that the culture also lauds intellectually impoverished TV sitcom characters over their brainier counterparts in shows like "Boy Meets World," "Saved by the Bell," and "Family Matters."  He also suggested that parents should get their children to stop watching such sitcoms and spend more time hitting the books.

I don't know enough about those sitcoms to comment on that observation - I rarely if ever watched them - but on the former point, I would have to say that Ramaswamy is absolutely right.  High schools are supposed to prepare teenagers for adulthood and also help them succeed to the best of their intellectual ability, yet the students with the best brains and the most serious commitment to their studies are often ostracized and even ridiculed for their intellectual fortitude.  High school culture values the most popular kids, the athletes over the mathletes - and this is just a microcosm of the general popular culture in America overall, where intellectuals are rejected in favor of "folksy" or "populist" figures.  How far back do you want to go?  The presidential election of 1828 was framed by supporters of Andrew Jackson as a contest between President John Quincy Adams, who could write, and Andrew Jackson, who could fight.  We all know who won.  (If you don't, you're part of the problem.)

Obviously, the alternate-right wing of MAGA doesn't like Ramaswamy's characterization of their nation and themselves as morons, and they feel betrayed by Ramaswamy's (and Musk's) support for increased immigration from places like India.  The alternate right, after all, wants to keep America white and keep brown people out (although South Asians are actually members of the Caucasian race, George Carlin once having called them dark brown white people).  The ensuing fight between the two factions had splintered MAGA and set the stage for a period of inaction come 2025, and liberals are enjoying the show, sitting back and eating popcorn as they watch.

Don't get too giddy over this internal MAGA feud, fellow anti-MAGA people.  They're still basically united on making America a nation of toxically masculine virtues that persecutes anyone who has a problem with that.

And as proof that Ramaswamy is right about American intelligence . . . who won the presidential election last month?