The war this time (in which H1-B visas are a flashpoint)

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Many feared that the recent presidential election would lead to a civil war. In fact it already has but, praise the Lord, not a shooting war but rather a clash of symbols.

The Fort Sumter of that conflict is now under rhetorical bombardment. It’s a fight over H-1B visas. On one side of the attack are the high-tech moguls whose generals are two billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, closer to Trump than his necktie and perhaps as changeable, and on the other side the MAGA millions, whose votes have elected Trump twice.

It is a class war. It is a war between a new elite based on educational credentials and everyone else, often called the left-behinds. What divides the two classes is a single belief: that testing proves who the smartest people are, and that they therefore must govern the rest, regardless of majority opinion. The new elite depends on experts, and the left-behinds on experience. This is the great schism of our time and is a much better clue to the new class identity than diplomas or income.

The new elite, feeling itself ablest but outnumbered, has with genuinely good intentions injured the structure and procedures of our democracy in order to limit the impact of majority rule. Most critically it has switched the job of selecting candidates from broad-based political parties to primary elections decided by fewer and less moderate voters than the party regulars of the past. The result has been acrimony and deadlock, refusal to compromise and the consequent division of our country into implacably hostile camps. Experience vs. experts.

And now, even before inauguration, striking like a meteor between the two camps, comes the issue of visas. H-1B visas. Visas for those with diplomas.

There is no question that the U.S. needs more engineers, scientists, doctors and other highly educated workers to preserve and expand our technological primacy. The world is filled with such savants, many of them anxious to join the American workforce. Jobs await them. So what’s the problem?

Aha. Immigration has been getting a bad name lately. It is said to have decided the last election.

This is wrong: An open border is not the same issue as legal immigration. But that distinction was overlooked by so many commentators that now even the subject of visas may be toxic.

But the election being over, businesses feel freer to pursue their legitimate needs for highly skilled employees. Those needs can be met in part by granting H-1B visas, which permit foreign nationals with bachelor’s degrees or higher in specific subjects to be employed in America for a period of time that may be extended.

The business community supports importing workers with H-1B visas. So does President Trump. So do, very loudly, the two close advisers he’s asked to cut government waste — Musk and Ramaswamy. Both feel strongly that America itself cannot provide the skilled workers it needs because it does not value them. They feel that American culture is flawed in this regard.

Ramaswamy wrote recently that “a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

In today’s climate this is throwing red meat at red voters. The MAGA movement’s core value is distrust of the educated elite. High on the list as well is nationalism. Therefore, many in Congress are hostile or opposed to H-1B visas.

But the business community has a strong case in support of those visas. Specialized jobs at good pay go unfilled for lack of qualified applicants. H-1B visas are a reasonable response to a real need.

Even so, it is hard to overstate the explosive potential of the visa debate. Fort Sumter could lead to Gettysburg. Advocates of the visa think they are dealing with a simple economic issue, but visas are a cultural issue as well, and the class war now raging is more a cultural war than anything else.

Trump knows this very well. It’s why he spent so much on campaigns evoking his opponent’s support of transgender rights. He will find the pursuit of foreign workers a harder sell with his base. MAGA voters yearn for a largely homegrown work force. Moreover, at the very heart of their discontent is abhorrence of an educated elite they feel has captured the national culture, as well as reaping disproportionate workplace rewards. Voter reaction to these perceptions has elected Trump twice. This matters as much as slavery or succession in our previous civil war. It isn’t like re-electing a compliant and genial speaker of the House — a phone call from Trump may not be enough.

So if Musk and Ramaswamy want to enlarge our workforce with visas to college grads from other countries, they should recognize the real nature of the battle. It is counterproductive to sneer at prom queens and athletes, who do not imperil our economy and when scorned provoke the wrath already so decisive.

The visa program is needed. But it must not be sold by implying that those with diplomas are better people than those without. That notion has already come close to destroying our political system. And of course it isn’t true. The Statue of Liberty beckons all. The poem at its base asks the world for “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Because we knew, then, that the cure to wretchedness was freedom and opportunity. And this led, not incidentally, to more diplomas than anywhere else on earth, and skills vastly amplified through immigrant zeal.

It is likely that if Trump cannot dissuade his base on this matter he will join it. When the war is about culture it is hard to know which side will win. This is a very strong argument for our national culture reflecting values widely shared. This requires fixing broken political rules, and moving in from the fringes, and tolerance by both sides, and leadership willing and able to help bring all that about.

David Lebedoff is a Minneapolis attorney and author of several books, including “The Uncivil War.”