During his podcast Friday, Libertarian strategist Tim Miller criticized Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-head Vivek Ramaswamy for his “insane” stance on America’s culture as part of an online feud over H-1B visas.
Arguments over the use of H-1B visas, specifically within the tech industry, broke out earlier in the week as many Republicans online criticized Ramaswamy and DOGE co-head Elon Musk for defending them. On “The Bulwark,” Miller called out Ramaswamy for criticizing American culture and for saying it praises “mediocrity over excellence.” Ramaswamy, on X, listed ’90s sitcoms as examples to back up what he said.
Ramaswamy said that “a culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”
Within his lengthy post, Ramaswamy said that the reason tech companies often hire “foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans” isn’t due to an “innate American IQ deficit,” but rather the country’s culture.
“Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates,” Ramaswamy said.
Miller responded.
“Do you think that Donald Trump’s parents were preventing him from watching The Andy Griffith show or whatever was fucking on TV in 1932 when he went? No, OK? This is so out of the whole MAGA-ethos,” Miller said.
WATCH:
Miller went on to ask his co-host, Sam Stein, if he could have imagined what would have happened if Vice President Kamala Harris had said the same things about American culture as Ramaswamy.
“Could you imagine if Kamala had been like, ‘The reason why I’ve succeeded is because my mother’s Indian immigrant culture is so much better than the American culture, and the Americans, they’re celebrating these toxic men like Riggins from Friday Night Lights, and that’s not how it works in India.’ If she had said that, Trump would have won 50 states,” Miller said.
While the DOGE co-head has repeatedly been criticized for his stance on culture, some people online have supported Ramaswamy’s take. Public figures like Tom Woods, the Hodgetwins, and Adam Grant defended the political figure’s take, with some saying the hate against Ramaswamy was “unjustified.”
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America
