Vivek Ramaswamy Dragged After Wild Rant on How American Workers Suck

https://newrepublic.com/post/189681/vivek-ramaswamy-american-workers-suck-maga-reaction

43 comments

  2. Does Vegas take bets on when Trump calls for Elon & Vivek’s deportation investigations? Serious question.

  4. It’s not a smart thing to say politically (especially looking at republican voters) but he’s right. Not that American workers suck but about what the article quoted him on.

  5. The only hope I have for the next four years is the fact that the GOP is petty, inept, incompetent, and spiteful. Our best hope is that they cannibalize each other and they accomplish nothing.

  6. He argued that American culture has become “mediocre,” suggesting that it prioritizes social popularity over academic and technical excellence. He stated, “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

  8. White dudes got a taste of what they say about other groups and lost their shit lmao

  9. White engineers being labeled as “native DEI hires” because they cost more won’t be well-received. They could have handled the situation discreetly and manipulated everyone, but now they must defend their actions or retract them. In Fascism, weaknesses are quickly consumed.

  10. I doubt this will last. All Vivek and Musk needs to do is to change “American workers” to “trans/black people/DEI” and MAGA will forgive.

    MAGA has a memory of a gold fish.

  12. Having spent time in Texas I can only assume their high school STEM classrooms are as impressive as their football stadiums.

  13. It’s baffling that Republicans have been able to run on a message that’s “pro-working” class when they’ve been chipping away at the labor movement since Reagan.

    So let’s start there.

    There is no other figure in recent history that has had such a negative impact on the middle class and American worker’s way of life.

    Reagan’s Administration ushered in the greatest redistribution of wealth in a generation.

    His admin cut social programs and welfare benefits for countless Americans.

    Reagan took money from the social security fund to pay for his budget deficits.

    His admin rolled back labor organizing dramatically, and his handling of the air traffic controllers union strike was heavy handed and normalized union busting

    Reagan played the most prominent role in carrying out supply side economic policies. Part of this agenda involved removing regulations and lowering taxes on businesses and corporations, which was supposed to translate into things like higher wages for workers, better jobs, etc, hence the “trickle down” label.

    However, unlike the new deal response to the Great depression, which depended on the federal government intervening in the economy, the Reagan administrations response to “stagflation,” did not result in long lasting positive outcomes for the working and middle classes.

    Before Reagan’s presidency, income tax on the wealthiest Americans was as high as 70%. By the end of Reagan’s presidency that number dropped to 28%.

    Reagan was also responsible for generating major tax breaks for corporations and estates, all for the sake of limited government and a redistribution of wealth to the top.

    People brag about short-term improvements during Reagan’s presidency, but the emphasis should be on short term, while it should also be emphasized that during this time, the rich got richer, and the poor, middle and working class saw little improvement.

    The incomes of the wealthiest Americans rose by over 100%, by comparison, the incomes of workers rose by a whopping 17%. All that wealth really trickled down huh?

    And since then, that wealth gap has only continued to widen.

    Since Reagan stepped into office, executive salaries have skyrocketed as much as over a thousand percent, while average worker compensation has increased by only 18%

    In 1980, the average CEO earned 36 times the average worker. Today, the average CEO earns 400 times the average worker.

    For the average worker, wages haven’t even kept up with inflation. Where’s the trickle down?

    Throughout Reagan’s presidency, even though there were concerns directed at his policies, Reagan still maintained that if workers weren’t getting richer, It was solely due to their own moral failures.

    And ever since Reagan, this idea has taken hold in the Republican consciousness.

    In terms of Reagan’s influence on unions:

    The mid 20th century saw a peak in Union activity, nearly 1/3 of workers belonged to a union. Not only that, but unions had power, power to mount challenges against their employers. This even allowed unions to bring about important labor laws.

    During this time, Reagan was a member of a union himself. He was even president of the screen actors guild. But then he flipped.

    While he was president of the screen actors guild, he abused his power to grant his talent agency a waiver that would get him comfortable and well paid television roles. The FBI actually investigated this for anti-competitive behavior. His talent agency was eventually forced to shutter its doors.

    Despite this, Reagan still used his previous position as a union president to appeal to union workers on the campaign trail.

    **The air traffic controllers union strike:**

    These workers were striking for better working conditions and higher pay.

    The problem is that they were federal workers, and Reagan made it perfectly clear during a press conference that what they were doing was against the law, and that if they did not end their strike immediately, they would all be fired. Yeah, what a real working class hero.

    Two days later, 12,000 workers were fired, not only that, but they were barred from working for the federal government ever again.

    This actually crippled the labor movement, and it hasn’t recovered since.

    At its peak, union membership accounted for over a third of all workers in the United States, at the end of Reagan’s presidency that number was cut in half.

    Today, union membership accounts for around 10% of all workers.

    Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers sent a heavy-handed message to Union workers. That message, in part, not only legitimized Union busting, but made it more acceptable.

    Moving on…

    Today, Republicans like Trump have taken a page from Reagan’s playbook, appointing corporate loyalists and cronies into positions of power within agencies like the NLRB where they can cripple the power of unions, make it harder for them to operate effectively, and continue disrupting whatever balance is left between employers and employees.

    While Trump was president, his administration rolled back labor regulations, making it difficult for unions to organize and negotiate for better working conditions.

    His administration also implemented policies that struck down protections for federal workers and restricted collective bargaining rights.

    Trump’s policies favored employers over employees. Don’t forget his recent remarks in front of a crowd of Union workers where he stated he “hated” giving overtime pay.

    Trump’s new administration is expected to be the richest in US history. Billionaires funding billionaires helping billionaires, yet they run on a so-called populist platform.

    On the other hand, Joe Biden has been one of the most pro-union presidents in recent memory.

    Biden has publicly and outspokenly supported unionization efforts. He is the first president to join workers on the picket line. He has issued executive orders that have helped improve working conditions for federal employees, and he has supported legislation that makes it easier for workers to unionize and bargain collectively.

    By comparison, the labor relations board under Biden has been more active in protecting workers rights, even investigating union busting practices.

    Biden’s policies have protected worker’s overtime pay and pensions and have ensured federal support for union jobs, construction projects, higher wages, collective bargaining and labor standards.

    Under Biden’s admin, the gender pay gap narrowed. His administration also targeted workplace discrimination and the PUMP Act provided workplace protections for pregnant and post-partum workers.

    Biden’s infrastructure agenda funded tens of thousands of infrastructure projects nationwide. Many of these projects require that all manufactured goods and construction materials be made in America.

    Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act invested in the US semiconductor manufacturing industry, in workforce advancement and training, and in chips research and development.

    The Biden admin also helped to implement a corporate minimum tax and a surcharge on corporate stock buybacks.

    In the end however, the media and the American electorate have memory-holed Trump’s record as president. The general public is an irrational force, a much too large percentage of American voters aren’t making politically informed decisions, instead, they’re letting their feelings decide the outcome of our elections. And that’s what got Trump elected, *feelings*

  14. There are many competent employees of Indian extraction, where I work in IT. And a whole lotta nepo-babies too, who don’t know jack-sh*t. Which is Vivek?

  16. Wow the wannabe oligarchs have total contempt for us. I am so surprised

  17. Remember he’s talking about the culture that produces the most advanced technology in history. Apparently that culture sucks at producing good engineers.

  18. They kept this to themselves just long enough to get thru November. Dont fear: Republican workers will blame immigrants even harder in ‘28.

  19. This admin hasn’t even retaken the White House yet and it’s already a complete popcorn show

  20. Musk already said work 80hrs for no pay. And if paid work longer and sleep in office. 

    Weird people don’t want this unless escaping a worst “culture”.

  21. Billionaires complaining about how the low class isn’t making them enough money….

  22. My entire career in tech certainly doesn’t match up with his opinion. It’s been about a 50/50 split on whether the off shore engineers I work with are competent or just absolutely terrible. There are good and bad engineers everywhere.

  23. Donald Trump suddenly finds himself in a peculiar situation. Is he a populist? Or is he a Reagan republican?

  24. How to get an entire country to hate you in one easy step.

    I predict he’ll have to flee the US

  25. Is “dragged” some new slang?

    I read the headline and just imagined him being drug behind a car or horse on a rope like in Back to the Future III.

  26. Anyone wanna tell Vivek that democrats tend to hold more and higher level degrees than their republican counterparts?

  28. Bet Trump cult members are loving being told how dumb they are by a brown person.

  29. Two Unelected Foreigners Are Fighting To Take Away American Jobs At The Behest Of Republicans.

  30. “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,”

    Has he been in a coma since 1998?

  31. This dude never had to grind a day in his life. Grew up in old money town Ohio blessed with a great school system and came out a POS

  34. republicans always talking down anything America…

  35. I don’t know why everyone is upset by Vivek’s comments. Between home schooling, private Christian academies and vastly underfunded public education, Americans are generally poorly educated. Not all Americans but a lot of them. Trump and his billionaire buddies love the uneducated. They want their votes, they just don’t want to hire them.

  38. Republicans: “American workers suck! I know! Let’s defund education twice as hard, and remove any incentives for companies to pay their workers! That’ll fix everything!”

  39. Tech plutocrats Ramaswamy and Musk want cheap labor they can exploit. 

    The H1B visa gives an employer complete control over the employee. If the employee loses the job, they lose their visa and are sent back to their home country. This is why the oligarchs want the H1B visas. In the program employees can be coerced into working 100-hour weeks for below average pay.

    Further, Elon Musk runs Tesla as a nonunion shop in the United States. Musk also has ongoing well-publicized disputes with the unions in Germany and Sweden. Musk’s just a less interesting and less talented version of the 19th century robber barons who hired Pinkertons to fire upon the rank-and-file.

    Remember the Homestead Massacre. [Homestead Massacre – Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike)

    [https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/](https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/)

    [https://wasden.law/h1b-the-unseen-dangers-of-employer-fraud/](https://wasden.law/h1b-the-unseen-dangers-of-employer-fraud/)

  40. These assholes offshored so many tech jobs that actively discouraged kids from pursuing the same careers as their parents.

    Now they want to complain about not having enough talent,

  41. Yes Vivek, I’m sure the reason we don’t have more Americans working at Google is because they’re afraid of being called nerds, not because their shitty underfunded public schools never prepared them for college.

  42. In a classic broken clock being right twice a day scenario, he’s actually correct in his criticism of our culture’s anti-intellectualism. The culture not pushing the importance of intelligence and academic rigor isn’t helping us at all.

    MAGA, naturally, disagrees.

    Of course, he’s not going to do anything about it because funding schools takes away from his tax cuts and we can’t have that.

  43. Ramaswamy and Musk have the same view as The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns… workers are to be exploited. I suspect the majority of Americans are already growing tired of them along with Trump. I look forward to the midterms… and then an impeachment with conviction. I’m sure Trump will do something in 2 years to merit it.

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