Vivek Ramaswamy Has The Answers

Vivek gives us one of the best tweets of 2024. A perfect summation of the right-wing reality distortion field.

As the right-wing Civil War regarding H1-B visas rages on, I wanted to take a bit of a break from research-driven stuff for the holidays and break down the maundering Vivek Ramaswamy tweet that went viral last week. In the midst of this battle between outright White Nationalists who oppose any and all immigration and uber-capitalist billionaires who are desperate for cheap labor is (apparently) a fight to restore the culture of America’s work ethic. According to Vivek, the bulk of the millennial generation was spent reveling in mediocrity. All of our favorite media taught us that lazy little shits like Cory Matthews and Zach Morris were bastions of American prosperity, and overachieving nerds like Steve Urkel and Screech should be reviled and cast aside as weirdos. It was in this era that the desecration of America’s ability to set high goals and achieve them began, and the 2nd Trump administration allows for an opportunity to turn it around. If you’re wondering what the hell this has to do with H-1B visas, then you’re in the right frame of mind. His entire diatribe is meant to distract from the realities these immigrants face as workers and pose his endorsement to maintain H-1Bs as they currently exist as a matter of cultural exhortation. Vivek claims their importance to him (and Elon and Trump) is based on a cultural aptitude that no longer exists in this country. Surely it has nothing at all to do with the exploitation of their immigrant status and lack of labor power. Instead of going on about it all at once, let’s just go line by line.

---

The c-word in question here is capitalism. Or how about cheap? The sheer irony here of an acclaimed patriot like Vivek criticizing American culture as lazy and unambitious is rich. If you want more high-skilled workers, then fix America’s education system.

Taking the side of nurture in the nature vs. nurture debate, Vivek presents the idea that the modern American zeitgeist is a product of millennial era youths being molded into mediocrity. This is the basis for the rest of the tweet.

This culture he’s referencing is entirely antithetical to the Make America Great Again brand of politics that Vivek and other right-wingers advocate for. It’s not that it doesn’t exist it was just born out of the Americana, superficial aesthetic qualifications for success from the 50s, 60s, and onward that have come to define the classic American image. This block of text is a critique of his own ideology.

This is where he really starts to cook. In what world do American millennials, or even some early Zoomers, see characters like Cory Matthews and Zack Morris as pillars of success? If anything, the culture has come around to the idea that Zach Morris was kind of an asshole (the oldest of those linked videos is 7 years old!) and Cory Matthews was just another vanilla middle-class white dude. Let’s also be real: despite their good intentions and sweet nature, Urkel and Screech were complete klutzes whose clumsiness comes with its own set of consequences, including burning down small businesses.

Fact: This is anecdotal.

This one is my particular favorite. Whiplash, famous for its core dynamic of harmful physical and verbal abuse from an instructor onto a student, is definitely a model for what we should strive for as a culture. His blatant misinterpretation of the movie is a perfect example of how his entire argument is based on a false premise. As for everything else, why does having more of any of those things mean we need fewer of the others? Young right-wingers are obsessed with co-opting the very real loneliness epidemic as a harbinger of their depression and incel-ism. We should be encouraging kids to hang out more!

Vivek does not have this same kind of sentiment for LGBTQ+ groups, whose “lack of normalcy” is the entire basis for conservative vitriol towards them. Double standard aside, “those kinds of parents” and “those kinds of kids” are just vague representations of maybe somebody you knew once. It’s rooted in no concrete reality.

If your parents love you and are proud of who you have become, it doesn’t matter because Vivek thinks you might be a fucking loser.

Again with the “normalcy.” Not only is it ultimately subjective, but this kind of global comparison really comes down to improving American education. Which, if I can remind everyone, is continually neglected and intentionally underfunded.

Does anyone want to tell Vivek that American innovation as a result of the success of Sputnik came from an intense government effort to compete that included pouring tons of money and time into national programs and resources at the federal level? That’s the exact opposite of Vivek, the small government crusader (per his Twitter bio). Also, if I’m reading the end of that second sentence correctly, does Vivek want us all to go woke??

This guy literally just said he doesn’t see legislation as a solution. No wonder he thinks they have their work cut out for them. How do you expect to change a culture without altering the socioeconomic conditions that create that cultural perception to begin with? Whatever tax cuts this next administration puts forward, he may get that. Just not in the direction he thinks.

---

At the end of the day, America’s culture crisis has nothing to do with an inherent laziness or desire for mediocrity. It’s a product of a complete apathy for the prospect of a viable future. For decades, young adults were being sold an American Dream that was the result of hard work and an education. That American Dream has become progressively harder to attain. Not because Cory Matthews was just so goddamn cool that we all wanted to be like him, but because the meritocracy that was supposed to be a product of the American experiment has shown itself to be a lie. If Vivek, or Elon, or Trump, or any other billionaire hack is concerned with a lack of high-skilled labor in America, then it starts with reforming public education. Oh wait, they want to eliminate the Department of Education.