on | The civil war in Trump-Musk’s MAGA universe – Firstpost
The racist genie US President-elect Donald Trump unbottled has gone viral. The beta version of this genie was MAGA (Make America Great Again). The narrative was “America First”.
On the surface, during Trump’s first term, MAGA was meant to convey nationalism, not white racism.
But MAGA warriors were always clear: America was for white Christians. The beta version of MAGA didn’t say this outright. If left it to hard Right ideologues like Steve Bannon to declare that America’s values were rooted in the founders’ European Christian values.
Immigrants from non-white countries made for convenient targets: MAGA adherents said Trump wanted to expel illegal immigrants because they took away American jobs and engaged in drugs and crime.
Race was initially kept out of the MAGA universe. America First was about culture and family. As Trump’s second presidential term approaches, MAGA warriors have been emboldened to drop the pretence.
When Trump nominated Chennai-born Sriram Krishnan as Senior White House Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, the MAGA masks fell off. It was time to shift MAGA from its beta version to a full-blown MAWA (Make America White Again).
Laura Loomer, a longtime MAGA warrior whose racist rhetoric forced an embarrassed Trump to sideline her, posted this on X about Sriram’s appointment as an AI czar: “High skilled immigrant doesn’t have running water or toilet paper. LMAO. Our country was built by white Europeans. Not third world invaders from India.”
Loomer accused Sriram of donating to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s campaign: “Hey Sriram Krishnan, what is this? Why did you donate to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign less than one month before the 2024 presidential election? You didn’t even vote for Trump…Now you want to infiltrate his admin?”
Loomer was immediately called out for mixing up Sriram Krishnan with another person with the same name.
More sensible voices on the MAGA Right spoke up in defence of Krishnan and condemned the anti-Indian campaign whipped up by the hard Right wing of the Republican party.
One user posted: “Sriram Krishnan’s appointment has provoked the sort of online racism I haven’t seen since 9/11.”
Another user said: “Indian-Americans are there because of their talent and hard work. Remember 6 per cent of US income tax comes from Indian-Americans (who are 1.5 per cent of the US population).”
The new Jews?
With a median annual income of $1,45,000 — double that of American whites and the highest of any demographic group in the US — Indians are, as one user said, the new Jews.
The hard Right comprises mostly poorly educated whites who see immigrants — and especially Indians on H-1B visas — as a threat to their livelihood.
Elon Musk too is an immigrant, albeit white (from South Africa). It was Musk, however, who saw potential in Krishnan and hired him to revamp X.
Krishnan is accused of seeking unrestricted H-1B visas for skilled Indian workers. The current cap on H-1B visas per nation is 7 per cent on a total of 85,000 available visas. If the Trump administration removes the cap as Krishnan advocates and the hard Right fears, far more Indians will be eligible for work visas.
The Washington Post editorialised: “Far-right activists clashed online with billionaire Elon Musk and other supporters of President-elect Donald Trump, over the need for a skilled-worker immigration program that has long been a lifeblood for Silicon Valley – signifying a potential rift between Trump’s core nationalist base and technology executives who have come to support him.
“The fight that spilled into public view over the holiday week could preview a wedge within Trump’s coalition over how to execute immigration policy, an issue that animated Trump’s White House campaign.
“Tech executives, including Musk, have said they would prefer to hire American workers because obtaining visas for foreign workers can be time consuming and costly. But Musk, who once held an H-1B visa and has relied on the program to employ thousands of Tesla employees, said recruiting foreign workers is a crucial way technology companies obtain the best engineering talent to compete globally.
“The number of people who are super talented engineers and super motivated in the USA is far too low, Musk wrote on X on Christmas. If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.”
Culture or racism?
Middle America’s fear is that the US stares at a mixed-race future. By 2050, the US will for the first time in 300 years have more non-whites than whites.
A polyglot America will increasingly resemble Brazil where well over half of the population is black or mixed race.
For a nation founded on the notion of black slave ownership and usurpation of Native American land, that is a discomfiting thought.
Since George Washington became the first US president in 1789, the US has elected a total of 47 presidents, including President-elect Trump. Of these, 46 have been white and one half-white (Barack Obama’s mother was white).
The fear of a future when, within a generation, mixed-race presidents (like Kamala Harris) could be the norm underpins the incipient MAWA movement.
Five million Indian-Americans form just 1.5 per cent of the US population. But their success makes them a lightning rod for white Americans who believe the country their European ancestors founded through invasion 400 years ago, driving the original American-Indian inhabitants into impoverished, hovel-like Reservations, is now threatened by what Laura Loomer called “invaders from India”.
The difference of course is they come today with H-1B visas, not guns, as European invaders did 400 years ago.
The writer is an editor, author and publisher. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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