The recent controversy with the H1b visa’s that the incoming Trump Administration, with people such as Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, posting unpopular statements, and receiving a lot of backlash for it, is rather amusing to me. While there should be a discussion around migration, immigration, and granting foreigners access to the United States, the discussion has brought out quite a few unhinged takes and opinions. These unhinged views were further inflamed by a recent terrorist attack in New Orleans, and a potential terrorist attack outside of a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, where the driver of a Cybertruck killed himself, and blew the vehicle up (I’m skeptical that it is even a terrorist attack). All sorts of insane takes and responses have been made about all of these issues, somehow strung together by kooky ideas of race, and racism. Somehow, the race of people is something important to consider when factoring in their opinions. Someone’s opinions are suspect because they’re foreign born, or their parents were foreign born, even if ostensibly the individual in question is on your side. Racism is brainrot; it turns people who function normally, into blathering idiots.
I want to discuss this, as the aforementioned events all occurred wihin a day or two of each other. The context goes more or less like this: Elon Musk made a statement about H1b visa immigration, and a group of die-hard Trump supporters, who are vehemently anti-immigration, chastised Musk for speaking that opinion. Shortly after, on New Years Eve, a terrorist attack occurred in New Orleans. The attacker had an Arabic name, and somehow that meant he was another immigrant hellbent on causing strife in the US (despite the fact he was an Army veteran who deployed to Afghanistan). Seeing unhinged posts in response to the attack, framed on the H1b issue, was rather strange. I saw many people, especially acquaintances. The next day, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. Immediately, I saw a flood of brainlet posts and takes about how another immigrant was destroying America. This was even more unhinged, because the alleged bomber was a former Green Beret, who had shot himself in the head before his vehicle exploded. As stated above, I’m not entirely convinced it was even a terrorist attack, but rather another unfortunate circumstance of the dismal state of mental health services provided for veterans.
It was amazing to see how the mask slipped with lots of people, and how the racial aspect of a situation, rather than, say, the actual motive or intent of the suspects in question. What was even crazier was the idea that racial characteristics cause certain behaviors, which is a central theme behind the terrible takes I’ve been seeing. Racism was blinding them to thinking critical about these terrible events. Furthermore, even connecting these terrible events to the H1b visa issue is rather…… strange. H1b visas are about skilled temporary workers visas, and the terrorist attacks were terrorist attacks (or veteran suicide). The brainrot causes people to connect disparate and unrelated events together. It also just plainly makes one seem unhinged. If your crusade is whatever is fashionable on the news, and you connect it to your preferred issue, it makes you seem unintelligent and one dimensional.