Jonathan V. Last
Appearances
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
That's the other thing. Once they're with you, they're basically indentured servants. And so it is no surprise that the Elon Musks of the world want more of these people. They want to lower their labor costs and not have to worry about guys who are going to go and pick up and go for a better job someplace else because they're tethered there because of their visa status. And that's bad.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And what I mean, I think Laura Loom is right, because what I want most in the world is I want Elon Musk to have to hire for SpaceX and Tesla and Twitter entirely from the audience of the Madison Square Garden MAGA event. I mean, look, there's 30,000 people there. Surely he can find some really top-notch devs and engineering talent there who are just true American patriots.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Is he saying that these mouth-breathing Cletus types are idiots?
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Is that what he's saying?
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I'm sorry. So here's the thing. This is a big country. There's 330 million people in this country. And the H-1B numbers, I think, are the order of magnitude.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Yeah. It's like low six figures, you know, or maybe not even high five figures a year. You can find them. And if you can't, do you know what businesses are supposed to do? They're supposed to pay taxes. The government can use the taxes to create a skilled labor force. Skilled labor forces don't just appear. They're not sui generis. You have to spend money on infrastructure.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
You have to spend money on education. You have to have a social support network to go into disadvantaged communities and find bright people and build pathways to have them elevated and realize their potential. But of course, these guys don't want to do any of that. They want no part of paying for the infrastructure of a government that actually runs a society and creates human capital.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
They just want the human capital so they can make money. And for them, the H-1B visa program is a way of short-circuiting all obligations to the society in which they luxuriate and operate and make so much money. And I, you know, like, fuck that. JBL sent out this rant. Pay your taxes. It was pro Karl Marx and Laura Loomer.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
This is also like the Obama critique. Remember, this is like, you know, you didn't build that, which is always right, right? I mean, you have a business selling widgets. Well, your business depends on the fact that there's a police force to enforce the rule of law and a government which isn't going to govern by fiat, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Your business depends on the entire society functioning, and that's why you pay taxes. And instead, these guys want to pay fewer taxes or no taxes at all, and they want their labor to just magically appear and even better if that magically appearing labor will be cut right and can't leave. Here's my view on this.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
So I actually think they're going to get away with it. So can I just, I want to propose something, and then you guys tell me if I'm wrong. The founder class, the Elans and Viveks and Andresens of the world, they don't want unfettered immigration. They only want immigration that helps them. They are indifferent to all other immigration, like agricultural, seasonal workers.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Who the fuck cares, right? They certainly don't want normal immigration. That's bad. They don't want people coming in for asylum. They want immigration that helps make them money. And they now have a president who seems to now want to give that to him. People forget Trump was against H-1B visas.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
He said they were bad the first time he issued an executive order in June 2020, sort of putting a halt on them. And then he came out like, you know, a week ago and said, oh, I've always thought they were great. It is unclear if he actually understood what anybody was talking about. It seems like he was talking about H2B, not H1B.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Right, because those are the ones he used. I think Elon gets what he wants. They get to have H1B. And the MAGA base, like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon will get upset, but they aren't the base. Those are the elites. They are MAGA elites. The base are the actual voters. And I don't think the voters are going to give two shits about this because it is only like 85,000 people.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And so long as Trump is doing something else to make them happy and to excite them, they're not going to hold a grudge over this. And so they're all going to get away with it. Sarah?
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Yeah, I totally agree with that. But I could also flip the telescope around. I mean, Trump has the power. Trump is the one who gets to person or unperson people. I think that's still true. He couldn't entirely unperson Elon, but he could unperson him. And the other thing is, at this point, he could take a lot of people out of Twitter. Twitter's already hemorrhaged users.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I think if Donald was unhappy with Musk, he could tell a lot of people, now that he's got his nose under the tent on Twitter, he could say, yeah, this platform is woke now. You gotta come over to me with truth. And if the MAGA social media actually fractured, because right now it isn't really fractured, they're all on Twitter,
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And they're like, you know, five people on Truth Social and five people on Parler maybe or whatever. Getter. Getter, right. I think that could hurt Musk because the only thing Twitter has going for it right now is mass. And if the mass on it is significantly eaten into at a stroke, then the network effects on it completely unravel. And Musk is now running this.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
The thing that Musk cares about most in the entire world becomes like nothing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
No, we can do this. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Can I just point out how weird it is that we are in this? Will he won't he be a lame duck period? Because that is what's going on. Like people are like, yeah, he's a lame duck. He's right. Right. Isn't he? He's a lame duck, isn't he? And that is what is driving all of this stuff. And I'm so glad you said this, Eric, because you said this like a week ago and it was like a light bulb in my head.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And the perceived like, well, wait a minute, maybe he could just keep being president introduces a level of uncertainty which unsettles all of everybody's calculations. And it is insane that we exist in a world where there is any question that about whether or not he could run for a third term. But that's the world we live in.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And I know that George and everybody's like, oh, no, the 22nd Amendment is ironclad. No, it fucking isn't. I am sorry it isn't. The 22nd Amendment is what five Supreme Court justices say it is. Period. The end.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And part of this is an admission that Don jr. isn't really up to it because that's the other.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Yeah, I don't do personal ones, but I have a big professional one.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I find the idea of making a specific point of introducing change in your life just because it's the New Year's to be... insipid and toxic. And that when you want to change something or do something differently, you should just do it. Doesn't matter when.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
No, because the Lenten one is penitential.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I don't understand the question. This is for the Catholic podcast. My professional was that I'm not going to chase bait. And this is, you know, I worry that Trump and MAGA are like, you know, it's like they're sitting up on the porch with a tennis ball and they throw the tennis ball because they want the dog to go chase it. And they do this all the time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
That's what Greenland and making Canada the 51st state and the Panama Canal is. They're just trying to get people off the porch to go and run around and bark and chase because they want people to talk about that. And in print, I'm not going to do that. I hope. I'm going to try not to. I won't say that for podcasts and YouTube because I think you can't ignore these things entirely.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Like you do you do have to register that they're taking place. But for me, print is the primary product and where I spend most of my energies and try to do my deepest thinking. And so I'm not going to I'm not going to chase bait anymore. We've all talked about this before. I am skeptical about the mass deportation thing. Maybe it'll happen, but I'm not setting my hair on fire until it does.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Because it's not clear to me that this is going to be anything more than the wall, right? I mean, the wall, which we built 437 miles of or something.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I think it's primarily bait. I think it's primarily bait. And I'm not saying don't cover it. Again, I'm not saying don't cover it. My personal thing is that in the product that I work hardest on, I'm going to try not to give oxygen to that stuff, which is different than saying nobody should cover it. That's not what I'm saying. With these things, they're, you know, they can originate as bait.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And then, you know, like throwing a pebble into a pond, there can be ripples that actually have real effects. The Panama Canal and Greenland, maybe they could have real effects. You know, Heather Cox Richardson, one of my writing crushes, talks about how she thinks the Greenland thing is actually part of an attempt to break NATO. And if true, then that would be a very big deal.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
But I want to see it. If he's serious about Greenland, then he should either go put troops in Greenland without the Danes agreeing to it or being informed about it. Don't sit there and, you know, like whisper to me about how tough you're going to be. Go ahead. Go. Greenland's right there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Go send a frigate over there and put a battalion in with drones and all the things that you say you think we need. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Because that's all you're doing is yapping, Mr. President. That's basically my view. But the difference is Ukraine, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
So he has reiterated that the Ukraine war will be over 20 days from now because he's going to have Ukraine all sorted out within 24 hours. That is also bait, I think. But that has serious, for real, real-world consequences, whether he does it or not. And so that, I think, is worth taking more seriously. So I guess I'm trying to make some distinctions here. You look not sold all the way.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
All Trump endorsements are conditional. If it's clear that Johnson can't survive, then Trump is going to withdraw his endorsement and endorse someone else. I mean, I don't take this as settling anything. And I think it's like an attempt to try to get Johnson to do the thing he wants, which is to get rid of the debt ceiling before he takes office. And that's it. Honestly...
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Yeah. I would say part of my thing, though, is that I would like to be in the position of goading these fuckers into doing the terrible things they pretend they are going to do. Because what I don't want... And yet what I fear we're going to get is a world in which they only do the terrible things that are going to make it easier to perpetuate power.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
But all the stuff that is what their base wanted, they won't do it. And the base won't care. And the reason the base won't care is because the libs will have been triggered by the tweets or something like that. And so that's why, you know, like mass deportations. Great. Let's see them. I don't see any federal forces on the streets of North Carolina down by the Tyson's plant. Why not?
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
We should see more of that, right? Are you going to annex Greenland? Great. Let's see it. Let's see you do it. Oh, you don't have the stones to do it. Everybody said, oh, we don't want the autocracy. We just want the policies. And we won't get those policies. We'll only get the autocracy. That's one of my concerns. Sorry.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And if they wind up being not peaceful, then we can object to them. As I guess what I'm saying. Yeah. Right. But don't, don't give them cover of like setting your hair on fire about the mass deportations before there are preemptively mad. That only serves to help preemptively mad though. Yeah, I get that. But I, I guess I'm saying we shouldn't be preemptively mad.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I'm not saying that I would take the over on three speakers in 2025, but I'd be tempted. I'll tell you this. If it was two and a hook, if it was a 2.5 speakers as the line, I would take the over, not the under. I think Sarah's call is absolutely in play.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
We should be preemptively skeptical. And if, if he goes through with it, then we can be mad.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Yeah, well, I mean, these are STEM engineer PhD types whose jobs are being taken by the H-1B visas, I assume. So these are, you know, these are real top level, you know, A++ developer types who would have a great paying job at Oracle or whatnot if it weren't for some Indian guy on an H-1B visa taking their job.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
unemployment has been 4% for four years. Oh my God.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I just want to clarify what Sarah means here. The reason we, we want to get big is, is because I think we're going to be needed as a counterweight over the next four years because a bunch of traditional media places are going to stop being counterweights. I mean, I'm worried about the Post, frankly, and I love the Post as an institution, and I'm concerned about it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I'm concerned about Time Magazine. I'm really concerned about cable news TV and network TV. I don't know if you guys saw in Semaphore, the woman who runs NBC News was like, oh, yeah, the most important story we ran was about how people in Nebraska would drive two hours round trip just to save $2 on a loaf of bread because inflation hit them so hard. I'm just like, you fucking idiot.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
And it's like us in the Atlantic, you know, and like NPR. There are very few places that are really dug into doing things the right way and not being cowed. And because of that, we need to increase our throw weight, I think. I think we need everybody's help to do that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I got to say, Tim, I was listening to you and Bill yesterday. And if a single Democrat decides to help bail out the Republicans on this, I will lose my mind.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Yeah, you know what is real? Politics. Politics is real. And, you know, to be the only party that believes in policy is like putting yourself hostage to the worst villain in the world. And this is the, you got to shoot the hostage. You know, as as Keanu Reeves learns in speed and in this case, the hostage at the debt ceiling and do not do not give a single vote to help bail Republicans.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
You've already done it once. How'd that work out for you with the the CR? Right. Did Democrats get anything for that? Did you see a big uptick in approval for congressional Democrats? I didn't. I saw an uptick in approval for Donald Trump.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Vivek wasn't... I mean, when Vivek is talking about that, the quarterback... Guy, football captain, team, the people he's criticizing their culture are MAGA culture. The science fair winners who go to college and then take professional white collar jobs, those are Democratic voters now. It is a weird thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Did you sit down with your children and say, boys, boys, we need to talk about H-1B visas? Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Still most of Silicon Valley. Not at the founder level anymore, maybe.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
Illegally.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
It was never on an H-1B. Elon says he was there on an H-1B. No, but Elon's lying about himself. That's the point that's important to understand here.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
JBL. The worst person in the world just made a good point.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
So look, here's the thing. She's right. She's right top to bottom on it. I think it's important to make a distinction here. And this is where we actually do have to get a little Thomas Piketty.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
I mean, I don't know. I've always said Piketty. Okay, whatever.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
There's a difference in Silicon Valley between the founder class and the worker class, right? And... You know, Elon and Vivek are founder class guys. I mean, Vivek isn't really. Vivek didn't do anything to make his money. But Elon did. He did a scam.
The Bulwark Podcast
Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last: We Are Sticking With the Mission
But they rely on a worker class of just like, you know, network engineers and coders and developers. And those people are always kept in the back of the house and they're disposable. And what this is really about is the founder class wanting access to cheap labor. Right. That's all it is. So you get to pay H-1B visa type workers something like 70 cents on the dollar and they can't leave.