Not an Economic Zone

Existential Politics

As myself and others have commented before, during, and after the election, Americans were going to witness the Trump coalition engage in factionalism, fighting, and various camps trying to steer for influence as it got closer to Trump putting his hand on the Bible and taking the Oath of Office. We watched the fault line erupt into a 9.0 quake on my Twitter timeline on Christmas Morning. Fitting that the discussion over H-1B visas and immigration took place on Christmas Day; what could be more ironic than celebrating the birth of the great Savior and Redeemer than fighting about a group of people now infamous for saying, “Do not redeem!”

Now that that joke is out of the way, I’d like to focus more seriously on the issue at hand. What we’re witnessing is that Elon Musk and many in the Venture Capitalist/Tech-Sphere have made their position on immigration known after backing the candidate who has historically been the most publicly anti-immigration, and has one term showing the reduction in both illegal and legal immigration into the United States. The rift has been torn open, and this time the Silicon Valley, Venture Capitalist faction have made their hand known that they’d like the system that has made them so incredibly wealthy to continue.

However, some things are worth more than just pure treasure alone, and the economic reductionist thinking from Musk and others defending the H-1B visa system makes it abundantly clear:

America isn’t a sports team, even if you sometimes want to wave Old Glory like it is one; it has been and was seen as the historically held and correct perception of a nation. A people with customs, language, blood, and ways of thinking that could only be found in a specific part of the world. Calling America a sports team is truly alien and immigrant thinking. Sports teams in Europe and America used to be local franchises — regional, using local talent. However, they were eventually bought up by wealthy individuals and outside interests that now bring in talent from all over the world, thereby defeating the purpose of a team being remotely connected to the location for which it was originally named. This was a conflict that was inevitably going to come to a head as market forces for cheap labor (and the regulatory incentives to do so) clashed with the patriotic, nationalistic impulse of actual Americans wanting what’s best for themselves and their nation.