The media was too quick to move on from a recent MAGA civil war over H-1B visas, which allow companies to hire highly skilled foreign workers to fill specialty occupations. We’re not done yet. This is just the beginning of an argument that is likely to last all through President-elect Donald Trump’s final term in office.

As will the stench of racism directed at workers from India, where the high-tech visas are in high demand. Why the racism? Simple. Because opposition to immigration was never really about being “illegal” or “not speaking English.” It was always about keeping out foreigners with brown skin.

When the media turned the page, we were just getting to the good part. Things were getting nasty as the tech bros and the pitchfork brigade traded personal insults. The former wants to maximize corporate profits, while the latter is content to magnify civic outrage. It’s clear that two sides hate each other.

In one camp, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — who are slated to run the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency — defend H-1B visas as a fact of life that allows companies to attract top talent in a hypercompetitive global economy. Musk — an immigrant who was born in South Africa — posted on his social media site, X: “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.” Ramaswamy also took to X to lament the status quo: “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence.”

In the other camp, Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer insist the H-1B visa program is “abused” by companies that undercut the wages of U.S. workers who deserve those jobs. They say they’re going to bat for recent graduates of U.S. colleges and universities who would be forced to work for subpar wages if they could get a job at all. Radio host Charlie Kirk, another critic of H-1B visas, likens them to “indentured servitude.” Kirk sees the program as a plot to “depress wages and replace American workers.”

Interestingly, the “American worker first” crowd never entertains the notion that young workers are expecting to be paid too much, and so they’re effectively pricing themselves out of the market. Life is about competition. Americans who can’t compete with high-tech workers from India, China, Brazil, Pakistan or anywhere else need to complain less and work harder. They should also stop acting entitled to every job that this country produces just because they were lucky enough to be born here — through no effort on their part, I might add.

We shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that some Americans, a tribe that mastered the art of entitlement, also feel entitled to American jobs. Too bad life doesn’t work that way. If a company wants to sell its products around the world — and most major corporations certainly fit that bill — then that company has to draw its workforce from all around the world. No company can afford to be so provincial that it turns its back on a global talent pool and limits its prospective employees to the U.S. workforce.

Besides, whatever happened to merit? You remember the concept. Conservatives love to talk about merit when whining about efforts to foster DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). Now they want to create a new affirmative action program where Americans get preferential treatment in the contest for American jobs. Don’t these folks have any hard and firm principles at all?

Lastly, it’s also comically poetic that Trump — who did more than any president in U.S. history to pit Americans against one another — should now be given the task of uniting a divided Republican Party. The president-elect has been all over the map on the issue of H-1B. In 2020, near the end of his first term, Trump temporarily suspended the issuance of new visas and barred hundreds of thousands of foreigners from seeking employment in the United States, part of his larger crackdown on immigration.

Recently, however, Trump sided with Musk and Ramaswamy.

Ruben Navarrette’s email is ruben@rubennavarrette.com