MAGA Civil War: Another "Ballad of the Country People"

The traditional MAGA camp, represented by rural white people, and the new turn of the Republican Party represented by Musk and DOGE, the elite of Silicon Valley technocrats, quickly realized that their interests were actually far apart after winning an unprecedented victory in the Democratic Party’s history and completely eliminating external threats to the Democratic Party. The alliance between the two sides was only built on the fragile basis of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my fren’, and the cracks appeared in front of the world observers faster than expected after the common enemy diminished.

1. The Origin and Development of the MAGA Civil War

As mentioned above, the MAGA group, which is united under Trump’s banner and opposes DEI and the deep state, consists of Silicon Valley tech elites who are actually at two extremes on the political spectrum. This is similar to 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 around the mean support the Democratic Party. This clearly indicates that Musk understands that the alliance between Silicon Valley elites and rednecks under Trump is ultimately just a temporary compromise, and it is only the midpoint between the traditional Republican establishment represented by Trump and the moderate MAGA. This alliance is very fragile.

From the perspective of Silicon Valley elites, the low-cost Indian and Chinese STEM workforce entering through H1B visas is essential for tech companies to maintain their competitiveness. However, it is well known that the extreme right MAGA verbally opposes illegal immigrants, but in reality, it opposes high-salary legal immigrants in the fields of law, medicine, finance, IT, and semiconductors. Due to the systematic failure of the American public education system, the functionally illiterate and text-reading challenged lower-class white people are fundamentally unable to replace these professional technical talents. Therefore, there is a huge contradiction between the Silicon Valley faction and the white MAGA on the issue of H1B visa immigration, especially considering that many Indian executives and Musk himself from the Silicon Valley faction have entered the highest echelons of U.S. federal power.

The recent MAGA debate was sparked by a tweet from Vivek Ramaswamy, the second in command at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and of Indian descent, which was retweeted by Elon Musk.

“Top technology companies often hire foreign-born and first-generation immigrant engineers instead of “native” Americans, not because native Americans are inherently intellectually deficient (this is a lazy and incorrect explanation). One key factor is summed up in that word starting with “c”: culture. Tackling the thorny problem requires a tough answer, and if we are serious about addressing this issue, we must face the truth: our American culture has long (at least since the 90s, maybe earlier) valued mediocrity over excellence. This situation didn’t start in college; it started when we were young. A culture that values prom queens over math Olympiad champions, or jocks over valedictorians giving outstanding graduation speeches, does not cultivate the best engineers. A culture that values Cory from “Boy Meets World”, Zach and Slater from “Saved by the Bell” over Screech, Stefan from “Family Matters” over Steve Urkel, does not cultivate the best engineers.”

(Fact: I know that in the 90s, many immigrant parents actively restricted their children’s viewing time of those TV programs precisely because these programs promote mediocrity and ridicule STEM ‘nerds’… and their children later became very successful STEM graduates).

Watch more movies like ‘Whiplash’ and less reruns of ‘Friends’. Study more math and have fewer late-night parties. Participate in more weekend science competitions and watch fewer Saturday morning cartoons. Read more books and watch less TV. Create more and relax less. Engage in more extracurricular activities and spend less time at the mall. Most normal American parents are skeptical of ‘those parents’. And most normal American kids scoff at ‘those kids’. If you aspire to be a normal person when you grow up, you will eventually become one.

Close your eyes now and imagine the families you know from the 90s (or even now) raising children in one way, and another way of raising children in a different way. Be frank. In the fiercely competitive global tech talent market, the ‘norm’ does not apply. If we pretend so, we will be hit hard by China.

This may be our Sputnik moment. We have woken up from slumber before, and we can wake up again. Hopefully, Trump’s election marks the beginning of a new golden age for America, but on the condition that our culture fully awakens. This culture will once again prioritize achievement over mediocrity, excellence over conformity, nerdiness over compliance, and diligence over laziness. This is the task we set for ourselves, instead of indulging in a victim mentality and simply hoping (or legislating) for alternative hiring practices. I believe we can do it.

Let me explain briefly:

• ‘Boy Meets World’ is a sitcom that tells the story of Cory Matthews’ growth from childhood to adulthood; ‘Saved by the Bell’ revolves around a group of students at Bayside High School, with Zach Morris being one of the central characters who is clever, mischievous, and always manages to cleverly solve the troubles he causes; Slater is the school’s sports star and has a straightforward personality; ‘Family Matters’ features Steve Urkel, a distinctive character in the show who is a nerd, wears big glasses, dresses oddly, and behaves clumsily but is kind-hearted and intelligent. The article mentions ‘Whiplash’, which tells the story of an ambitious drummer who continuously improves and strives under the strict guidance of a demanding teacher; the ‘Sputnik moment’ refers to October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched the Sputnik 1 satellite, causing a period of fear and anxiety in the Western world. Subsequently, the United States became alert and initiated an educational program to cultivate a new generation of engineers.’

Ramaswamy, a Harvard graduate, is a protégé of Soros, the cousin of JD Vance’s wife, the founder and CEO of several innovative drug companies, who once ran for president of the United States and gave up after Trump’s candidacy, and is one of the most successful members of the second generation of Brahmin immigrants. On the one hand, MAGA proponents argue that Indians are not qualified to dictate American culture and education, and that white Americans are intellectually and culturally inferior. On the other hand, in the context of Musk’s betrayal of MAGA is a foregone conclusion, Ramaswamy, an Indian and South African immigrant Musk, has become a “one-word iron hat king” by “going straight to heaven” and “entering the customs from the dragon”, and the fact that MAGA representatives such as JD Vance still have to marry their families to gain a firm foothold also deeply hurts the self-esteem of the MAGA community.

Objectively speaking, the ancestors of American rednecks did indeed sacrifice their lives for the cause of the American Civil War. The traditional white people in America are addicted to drugs, promiscuity, and generally have dysfunctions in reading and memorizing multiplication tables. The collapse of the American public education system, the excessively high cost of higher education, and the widespread influence of cheap entertainment are also closely related. It cannot be simply attributed to the inherent inferiority of rednecks. However, the fact now is that the MAGA group and the workers in the Rust Belt have been abandoned by American society. Apart from their votes, they have no more “united front value.” Therefore, after cheering for Trump and Musk, the MAGA has become a discarded pawn for Trump and Musk. Musk, speaking of “illegal immigrants,” directly posted such explicit content on Twitter:

“The reason I was able to come to the United States and establish SpaceX and Tesla, as well as hundreds of companies that make America strong, is because of the H1B visa,” which blatantly denies any meaning of America to rednecks, attributing all the credit for America’s technological competitive advantage to H1B visa STEM talent. What MAGA cannot tolerate even more is that MAGA’s poster child, Trump, also liked this tweet."

This blatant provocation and contempt have sparked a huge wave of opposition. While elite figures such as Bannon, a former White House aide, warned Musk not to get too involved in politics and not to interfere with the process of canceling H1B, MAGA supporters on the internet have also launched a merciless counterattack, asking questions such as the following:

“Why doesn’t China bring in Indian immigrants”, “Why is the threshold for H1B talent introduction so low”, “Why do truck drivers also need to be brought in through H1B visas” are indeed difficult questions to answer, and the MAGA group, which cannot be reasonably explained, has directly launched a vigorous anti-Indian immigration movement across the United States, and even well-known politicians from different camps such as Bannon and Sanders have taken a unanimous position and jumped out against H1B. However, at a time when H1B visa vetting has been dominated by Indians and H1B visas have become an industry, it is an unsolvable question to reverse the trend of Indian immigrants entering the United States, whether from the perspective of the status quo, the demand for talent from technology companies, or from the perspective of disinflation, or whether the costly public education system in the United States can produce enough engineers to replace Indians. What’s more, MAGA Rednecks like to boast that they are willing to fight to the death for their country, but the red states generally have a lower rate of joining the army than the blue states, and their promises are even less credible.

It can be said that the internal debate within MAGA represents the real “hillbilly elegy”: MAGA supporters thought that by voting for Trump, Vance, and Musk, they could regain control of their own country. However, they did not expect that before Trump took office, the capital elites who had switched to the Republican Party once again played tricks and burned bridges.