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The other reaction I had to this post was somewhat surprise to hear that the pro-immigration side "won". I don't really follow twitter/X stuff at all. I instead hear about politics through second hand sources, the main one is themotte. But the secondary one is via comedy podcasts.
Tim Dillon is one of my favorites. I feel like he has a good understanding of what I'd call the dirt bag political pulse. The kind of people that barely pay attention, and if they were to pay attention it would not add anything positive.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3_LVaHqP96k?si=i4nFHV-slWKMUOXV
His latest episode covers this topic. And he unashamedly bashes Elon and Vivek. Especially Vivek. And the overall impression I got was that this is one of those embarrassing and wonky positions that people high up in the Republican side will take. But that it is a distinctly uncool position to take.
Tim Dillon truly is great. Here is one of his all times greatest if you haven't heard it: https://youtube.com/watch?v=U1jPKVQ09-M
Just in the realm of comedians being oddly excellent political commentators, here is Sam Hyde's thing from today: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hcsm1B8Z8d4
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It's still ambiguous. Trump, Vance, and Musk themselves have signaled some capitulation on the issue. But both sides are declaring victory.
I think we'll see some H1B reform that will be attributed to this debate, but it won't be radical enough for the anti-immigration wing to claim an unambiguous victory. But as of right now the dust hasn't really settled.
Yeah that kinda feels like the "nothing ever happens" position, which I'm always tempted to take. Since it seems right most of the time.
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It might be an uncool position with the base, but does that matter if the overwhelming majority of important politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties, plus the overwhelming majority of rich Americans, support the Elon/Vivek position? MAGA nativists can complain online but does it amount to anything more than one of those Middle Ages peasant uprisings that got quickly dispersed once the elites sent a few mounted knights in their direction? What are the MAGA rank and file going to do? Vote Democrat? Buy ten more guns that they will never use for any political purpose? I mean, they can sit out the next few elections and cause a bunch of Republicans to lose elections, but that would just mean the victory of a bunch of Democrats who are also in favor of the pro-immigration side.
If the MAGA base tanks their support of Trump then a significant number of Republican politicians will follow suit. I do not see MTG, Boebert, etc. going against the base, considering they will get primaried if they do. This results in two possibilities. The first is that it becomes impossible for Trump to do anything and he ends up in the same position Bush was after 2005 where he's still the president but has no influence and no one pays attention to him. The second possibility is that the Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans support the Elon/Vivek position. Trump can get things done, but not without making concessions to the Democrats, which may or may not be worth it. Either way, I don't think Trump wants to end his time in office being pilloried by his own base as a fraud and sellout.
MTG has already come out in support of Elon/Vivek, as has Alex Jones (not making this up). The real threat to on the fence republicans is not the base primarying you if you don't agree with them, it's with Elon and his fat stacks of cash primarying you if you don't agree with him (God Musk is amazing!).
Interesting. What's even more interesting is that her support stems from owning a construction company and understanding how hard it is to find employees, which suggests that she'd be willing to extend immigration beyond the H-1B level to find employees. If there's actually this much consensus on the issue then I'm optimistic we can reach some kind of deal where we make it easy enough for people with job prospects to get work permits, expand the numbers for those, crack down hard on illegal immigration, close the asylum loophole, and declare the whole problem solved so we can move on to other things. Democrats get increased immigration, Republicans get crackdowns and mass deportation. Everyone wins. Except people that don't like immigrants altogether, but Trump can always point to the "great big door" he talked about during his first campaign.
Yep, that's probably the best solution we can get on the issue: Much easier to legally come to the US (ideally as difficult as immigrating to Australia or NZ or the UK) if you have a specialized skill there is a shortage of and can get an employer to sponsor you while anyone who tries cutting in line and jumping the border gets summarily booted out.
A country the size of the US can easily handle an average yearly load of 500k skilled immigrants (over all visa types) + their dependents.
This turns gobs of power over to whoever gets to decide that there is a "shortage" of something. Moreover, it avoids asking important questions like, "Why is there a shortage? What are the barriers that are preventing the market from clearing? Can we get rid of them?" Of course, the answer to those questions depends on things like whether you use the domestic supply curve only or the world supply curve (which will have different equilibrium prices/quantities)... and again, it is almost certain that the real power will be who gets to decide to implicitly use one or the other for deciding whether there is a "shortage" in any particular industry. Obviously, folks like Elon want to use the world supply curve for determining that there's a "shortage" of tech workers, while the unions will want to use the domestic supply curve to claim that there is no "shortage" in their industry.
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