On Immigration and What's Wrong With American Culture
Let's look at what Vivek Ramaswamy had to say and where he made or missed the point.
It seems that the likes of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy touched a nerve, only in this case, it wasn't about Democrats... it was about Republicans.
Actually, Musk and Ramaswamy never addressed Republicans specifically. Rather, the remarks they made this week appeared to be taking a shot at the MAGA movement when it came to their views on immigration and, in Ramaswamy's case, what he saw was the issue with America.
I want to first focus on Ramaswamy's post on X (The App Formerly Known As Twitter) and unpack what he was talking about. Here's a direct link to his tweet (it's a long one so I can't do a screenshot).
Let me start by saying that when he talked about what tech companies were doing, it may not have been clear to some what he was talking about here. That's because the discussion turned to the H1B visa, which has been abused by major corporations replacing American workers who earned degrees to get good-paying jobs in the tech industry, only to be replaced by immigrants who were less skilled but, hey, they'll take a lower salary.
Ramaswamy was actually referring more to the need to bring in the best and the brightest of immigrants, rather than just hire cheap labor. However, the way he started his post led to confusion. If you start an argument with a sentence in which some believe you are talking about A when you are thinking about B, you aren't off to a good start with your argument.
With that said, Ramaswamy did have valid points throughout his post. I agree with him that the culture of the United States has focused too much on mediocrity over excellence. We have gotten away from the concept of innovation and have become too risk averse for our own good. Too many people want to get risk to zero when that simply isn't possible.
Look at the difference between the entrepreneur and the investor. Entrepreneurs are always taking risks, even if they don't realize it. Investors are risk averse, even as they play an important role.
Think of it this way: The entrepreneur is maintaining a garden, using the elements of nature to grow crops, while figuring out how best to meet demand for crops and figuring out if there are ways to grow a better crop. He may not always succeed, but he keeps at it because he understands you can't innovate if you don't try new things.
The investor can come along and offer additional resources to help the entrepreneur, but if you let the investor run the garden itself, his "bottom line" mindset kicks in and he thinks too much about profits and, thus, falls into the trap of thinking about the cheapest way to grow crops with little to no risk involved, even if it doesn’t result in a good crop.
Our current economic policies puts too much emphasis on investors and not enough on entrepreneurs. We can look at the tech industry for many examples of this. The entrepreneurs want to use technology to find ways to improve people's lives, increase productivity and make society better as a whole, even if there may be flaws that need to be mitigated. But those with the investor mindset would rather use technology to make a quick buck or to increase profit margins, even if that comes at the expense of making society worse. And while I understand businesses need to meet a certain profit margin to stay in business, that does not mean you pursue a higher profit margin just to pacify investors.
Getting back to Ramaswamy's post, let's consider his pop culture references he used to illustrate a point. When he talked about Slater and Zach versus Screech, he wasn't talking about the actors but the characters — and in this case, it was about character stereotypes. Slater, Zach and Screech were all based on stereotypes of high school students, with Screech being the geek who had intelligence and a good heart but said plenty of stupid things and was the butt of jokes.
The problem with that wasn't when people in foreign countries started quoting lines from shows like Saved by the Bell, but people in the United States who were raised on those character tropes and left with an impression that, to be successful, you couldn't be the awkward geek.
And while it's true that, in today's TV landscape, plenty of shows celebrate geeks and nerds, they're often living the same affluent lifestyle as the jocks and prom queens Ramaswamy talks about in his post. In other words, being a nerd is about being wealthy with credentials, not necessarily about making the world a better place.
But getting back to Ramaswamy's point, I do think he may not have done the best job with his analogies. While I understand what he was saying about touting the prom queen over the math champion or the jock over the valedictorian, I can tell you it's possible for a student to be both. I can cite multiple examples of students I've observed who got crowned royalty and were strong in athletics but excelled in the classroom as well. These students didn't necessarily participate in math Olympiads, but they are involved in a lot of activities that require a lot of time and commitment.
I will note that the students I've observed have all attended rural schools (I've spent my career working at newspapers in rural communities), but that does not mean it isn't possible for somebody in an urban setting to excel in academics and athletics while getting recognition associated with pageantry, whether that somebody is a public, private or home-schooled student.
I will say there are some pop culture references that we can discuss which point out either what America should really about or what America has become instead. The first one is Back to the Future Part II, which I think is the weakest of the Back to the Future films but does bring us a world in which we have flying cars, self-driving jackets, hoverboards and Mr. Fusion. All of these things were based on the idea of how American society was innovative. While I don't know if it's possible to actually make these innovations become reality, we'll never know if we emphasize mediocrity over excellence.
The other pop culture reference I thought of is more obscure. In 1995, Don Henley released "Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits." It included three new songs, one of which is titled "The Garden of Allah." Few people likely remember this song but I found it to be one that held meaning back then and still holds up today. The CD release included the lyrics, described as the devil finding "a large Western city and finds that he has become obsolete." Let me share a sample of lyrics for you:
It was a pretty big year for predators.
The marketplace was on a roll.
And the land of opportunity sprung a whole new breed of men without souls.
This year, notoriety got all confused with fame.
And the devil is downhearted.
Because there's nothing left for him to claim.
I look at Henley's lyrics not as a critique of capitalism but a critique of this 1980's mindset: "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." The song is less about wealth itself and more about the mindless pursuit of wealth and credentials and what it does to people.
And that ties into the immigration topic as much as the idea of mediocrity being emphasized over excellence. I would argue the mindless pursuit of wealth and credentials has played a big role in the entitlement some young people have. If we are told that the purpose of America is to get rich quick and stack up the credentials, rather than innovating and making certain products we see in the movies happen in real life, then we are not doing a good job of cultivating the next wave of entrepreneurs.
The last point I want to make is that we have too many of the elites in America who don't ask themselves what it means to be an American. If I was going to answer the question “what it means to be an American,” I would say what it is that you are free to choose your own path, but some of that means taking chances. The risk is always going to be there but you learn how to deal with it. And if you do cause more harm than good, you need to learn from it. But it's that innovative spirt and the willingness to take chances that is what America is really all about.
We talk about the likes of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington when it comes to the Founding Fathers. While they all had influence on this nation, the more I’ve read up on the Founding Fathers, the more I put Benjamin Franklin at the top. He was not only somebody who had good ideas about how government might best work, but he was an innovator and had that entrepreneurial spirt. Everybody likely knows the tale of him and his adventures with electricity, but his contributions outside of government went beyond that. Franklin may have embodied the American spirit more than any Founding Father.
As for what to do about it, I think Saagar Enjeti had a good critique of Ramaswamy's tweet. Again, I have provided the link to it because it's too long to screenshot:
Enjeti also talked about putting a moratorium on immigration. I agree that this needs to happen because we have a lot of work ahead to get a proper immigration policy in place. And that policy needs to not be about cheap labor (which is what it has been for some time) but about what immigration to the United States should be: To become a United States citizen.
However, this means that we need to not just focus on the best and brightest of immigrants, but on immigrants who may not have been valedictorians but do have the entrepreneurial spirt and see the United States as the best place to get started. In other words, we don't just want the immigrants who excel in everything STEM, but the immigrants who may not have had the best grades but have an invention or business in mind that could benefit society a great deal.
As far as American citizens go, I understand not everyone will have the entrepreneurial spirit in them but, for those who do, we need to allow them to flourish. And while we shouldn't tie the hands of investors too much, we don't want them leading the way because they are far less likely to take chances. You can't make real progress without taking on risk, which is why investors are not the best people to bring progress.
Last thing I will say is it was good for Musk and Ramaswamy to start this conversation because it allowed others to point to current flaws in the system. That's necessary to figuring out the best possible solution. But when it comes to fixing issues with immigration, it's not just what happens outside the U.S. borders, but inside them as well, and it's not just about those who aren't U.S. citizens but those who are.