Blog/2025-01-02/Politics in the New Year

From Rest of What I Know
Revision as of 07:10, 3 January 2025 by 136.24.60.199 (talk)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Bernie Sanders X logo, a stylized letter X
@sensanders

Elon Musk is wrong.

The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire “the best and the brightest,” but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.

The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.

Jan 2, 2025[1]

When I talked about politics before the election I reluctantly landed on the Republican side because I thought they were America's best chance at making it in this new millennium since the Democrats were all about managing the decline of the United States. For taking a crack at America being still competitive on the world stage[2] I thought it was worth taking the risk on:

  • Abortion
  • Immigration
  • IVF

There were others I was concerned about but these were the big ticket items to me. In a bizarre twist of fate, the Trump administration's stated positions have ended up being fine on these topics. They're leaving abortion to the states, they're not messing with IVF, and the funniest thing of all is that they are the pro-immigration team! Perhaps even more crazy is that the Democrats are anti-immigration!

I didn't see this coming, but it looks like the usual fan websites are mimicking the Bernie position that folks who came here on a H1B are actually terrible for America. So I was entirely wrong on which side was dangerous for immigration. If the Republican positions start trending towards what they were when George H W Bush and Ronald Reagan debated, that would be fantastic. But absent that, I will settle for this.

Everything can change. The people living in the heart of empires never see that. Once, the British were rulers of the world. That could be America's fate and the world would be poorer for it.

Footnotes

  1. Bernie Sanders [@sensanders] (Jan 2, 2025). "Elon Musk is wrong. The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire "the best and the brightest," but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad. The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  2. Because overall the US belief in free-trade and individual freedom and prosperity is ultimately something I do like, in addition to the fact that I live here, my wife is American, and my children will be American as well.