Meritocrats vs. Ethnocrats

A seemingly innocent tweet by anti-DEI stalwart Christopher F. Rufo has ignited a Twitter firestorm, not by his usual or predictable detractors, but by his supporters or those on the right attacking him as out of touch or a hypocrite, as evidenced by his tweet being heavily ‘ratioed’:

Others were dragged into the conflagration:

I see this as a conflict between meritocrats vs. ethnocrats. Meritocrats hold merit as being the sole criterion for success in an ideal society, whereas ethnocrats place more value on heritage or historical context. Same for differences between ingroup vs. outgroup loyalty or preferences. Ethnocrats tend to be more clannish in this respect: ingroup-favoritism takes precedent over quantifiers or signifiers of merit. Whereas ethnocrats agree with meritocrats about HBD in so far as crime stats or educational achievement are concerned, regarding labor this becomes murkier, when HBD conflicts with such ingroup favoritism.

From 2022-2024, ethnocrats and meritocrats were united as the woke underwent decline and fell out of favor due to scandal (e.g. the Claudine Gay plagiarism incident, which saw her resignation as president of Harvard). This consequently saw the surge of such center-right/left anti-woke accounts such as Bill Ackman, whose tweets attacking his alma mater for succumbing to wokeness often went hugely viral and saw him instantly rise to pundit stardom. Similar brand accounts gained massive followings by being center-right or left in most respects, but also railing against wokeness and DEI.

But by December 2024 and early 2025, with the woke no longer as relevant or powerful, the ethnocrats and meritocrats had begun to turn on each other. First with the H-1b visa debate in December, and now this. Despite being anti-woke and anti-DEI, they otherwise share a fundamentally different worldview. As discussed earlier, ethnocrats can be considered the woke-right today. The key difference, imho, has to do with responsibility or accountability. I think it can be distilled to the question, “How much is society to blame for differences of individual outcomes?”

Meritocrats tend to be more more successful on an individual level, such as good-paying jobs and higher social status, both online and ‘in real life’. Think Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, but also highly-influential pundits such as Noah Smith on the center-left. This status can breed resentment among those at the bottom of the hierarchy. Their views are not that fringe, although at times polarizing. I have labeled some of these people as the norm-core right, being that they are normies in most respects (e.g. good jobs and careers), but tend to be ‘hard core’ about other things (e.g. race and crime stats, HBD, rejecting wokeness, social Darwinism, etc.) that would be considered uncouth in politically correct society.

Meritocrats are outnumbered by ethnocrats and are not as effective at meme warfare or collective action. Meritocrats are also more defensive and averse to conflict overall. But when provoked, often win, being that they tend to be better-educated and cite facts and data to compensate for being outnumbered. What they lack in numbers they make up for in credentials. In the above exchange between Trace vs. BAP, the latter despite his verbal deftness misfired by mischaracterizing the former as a “dull piledriving leftist geriatric who’s just arrived on the internet,” when Trace is objectively none of those things. Hyperbole works best when there is some semblance of truth behind it.

On net, meritocrats’ arguments are stronger or more correct. I agree that the US economy is not collapsing. However, this is complicated by their support for immigration. It’s one thing to valorize work, but in the same breath, support policy that hurts workers. Home affordability, or the lack thereof, is another issue. Both sides raise good points: homes were indeed much cheaper half a century ago, but boomers also had far fewer financing options and wages were considerably lower even on an inflation-adjusted basis.

There is also much more variability today of individual outcomes, from the VC-class on one extreme to Uber drivers on the other. For ambitious high-IQ people, times have never been better in terms of opportunities and inflated wages for the professional-class, but this leaves behind those who are neither smart or ambitious–the ‘mediocre middle‘. IQ plays a huge role, whether we wish to accept this or not, in predicting individual outcomes. A more prosperous society amplifies such innate differences. Those who can learn faster can avail themselves of more opportunities.

Regarding the labor debate, ethnocrats overlook that America is obscenely rich. There was some inflation point where America suddenly became super-wealthy, maybe it was post-Covid or in the mid 2010s, and this led to a surge of various low-skilled labor-intensive industries. Upper-middle-class and above neighborhoods have become 24-7 construction zones due to endless home remodeling and landscaping. Streets are full of pickup trucks and other service vehicles, with mounds of plant debris dotting the streets and a symphony of sorts of leaf flowers humming in the background. To the meritocrats this is seen as economic progress and a good thing, but I can also understand how it’s an eyesore or nuisance to others. There is possibly and aesthetic element that meritocrats are overly inclined to ignore.

But this apparent scarcity of labor is juxtaposed with increasing barriers to work as discussed earlier, such as increased screening. Like almost every social issue, “it’s complicated” or “it depends” best sums it up. If such issues were not complicated, they would not be so heavily debated. Things that are self-evident do not need to be debated.

Overall, being told to try harder or to suck it up and accept one’s inferiority in a wealthier but highly unequal society, is understandably an unappealing proposition to many. Unless there is another major woke scandal as a distraction, I don’t see any reconciliation between these factions. Social media as a medium of information exchange favors content that elicits a reaction first and foremost, and any attempt at the understanding of issues at depth or nuance is deprioritized, if given any consideration at all.