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Donald Trump is not yet in office, but his strange political coalition of anti-immigrant MAGA supporters and globalist billionaires is already beginning to crumble.
The most recent reason was the nomination of Sriram Krishnan as Trump’s senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence. Krishnan is an Indian-American with close ties to both Trump and Elon Musk (he helped facilitate X’s evolution from Twitter). Krishnan, like Musk, wants to make it easier for skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. on H-1B temporary visas.
Although Silicon Valley relies on these visas because of the shortage of skilled tech workers in the United States, the Maga community opposes them, not only because they give priority to foreign workers but also because they can drive down US tech wages. According to a 2020 paper by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, 60 percent of the top 30 employers pay less than the local average wage for jobs offered on H1-B visas. Trump’s own position on the matter has, surprisingly, flip-flopped; While he appears to support the visas now, in 2016, he called them a “cheap labor program.”
The rift sparked a viral online debate between Musk and mega-activist Laura Loomer, a self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” who wants to offer H1-B jobs to American science, technology, engineering and math students. “Our country was built by white Europeans. . . Not a third world invader from India,” he posted on X. “Wanting the core Maga principles I voted for is not racist against Indians. I voted for H-1B visa cuts, not extensions.”
Meanwhile, Musk defended the visas, writing: “I’m in America and a lot of the critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong are because of H1B. Take a big step and fuck yourself in the mouth. I will go to war on this issue that you probably don’t understand.”
There are many lessons to be learned from this. But, as is usually the case when dealing with anything Trump-related, one wishes that the cast of characters portraying them were a little less toxic.
Loomer’s posts are xenophobic, but standing up to Musk is brave and brings up an important point, which is how to properly support US workers in the face of global competition. The fact that the state has failed to do so in the manufacturing sector since the late 1980s is one of the reasons America started Trump.
Kasturi, on the other hand, is a self-interested hyper-capitalist who has no qualms about his power to intimidate people. Loomer claims he lost his X Verification badge and the ability to monetize posts after going to war with him online.
But he’s also right that America needs more engineers than ever. What’s more, the success of the South African-born entrepreneur — like many in Silicon Valley and the US C-suite — reflects what is one of America’s greatest strengths: its openness to immigrants.
This fight is important because it reflects a fundamental rift in the Trump coalition that will only grow. Maganese and globalists disagree not only on immigration, but also on defense, employment and free speech. It was an alliance whose most notable overlap was the desire to topple the previous government. Now that they have, I think they’re unlikely to merge into anything else.
There are two more things to say about the H1-B dust up. First, Democrats are looking to make hay with the divisions already present in Trumpland. A memo written by a small group of lawyers, entrepreneurs and academics circulated last week noted that “the Loomer-Musk conflict represents a unique opportunity for coalition-building with disgruntled factions of the Republican Party,” including the tech oligarchy, those concerned about free speech, labor rights, and national security. On the latter point, Musk’s business ties to China and conversations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin have already raised concerns in the defense community.
The memo drew positive responses from some high-profile officials and former officials on the left, as well as academics, think-tankers and union advisers. Late last week, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders weighed in on the issue, accusing Musk of pushing H1-Bs to get “cheap” workers, not smart ones.
Watch this space carefully. The fight between Republicans and Democrats for the working class is going to be the defining political battle for the next four years and beyond.
Second, while I’m surprised to write this, Trump himself actually has a policy idea that could help increase the number of Americans qualified for good tech jobs. He proposed creating a free online university called American Academy, which would offer high-level courses and accept transfer credits from other colleges and universities, helping to push back against rising tuition costs and student debt. The left-leaning Washington Monthly magazine recently praised the idea.
This type of online education, along with programs that graduate high school students with two-year college degrees, is an obvious way to quickly train more tech workers. My one caveat – please put someone other than Mask or Loomer in charge.
