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I am really not sure I understand your argument. First, you say that you define competency not "in regards to passing good legislation, but literal competency as politicians" but you immediate example is LBJ, because of the legislation he passed. Your next example is Nixon, but because he got himself elected. An important skill for a politician, certainly, but where is your evidence that politicians were any better at that than now?
Then you talk about MLK and Stokely Charmichael, who were if course nongovernmental officials. And what, exactly did Stokely Carmichael accomplish, other than alienating a huge chunk of would-be supporters (spectacularly poor politics)? And, of course, he moved to Ghana in 1968, so he was a major political figure for about 4 years, tops (his first mention in the NYT was in 1964, and he didn't become head of SNCC until 1966).
Later, you say, "Unless we get a Nixon or LBJ, I really don't see any huge changes in how this country is governed" but neither LBJ nor Nixon made huge changes in how the country is governed. You certainty provide no evidence that they did.
LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act
An article on how it changed how the country is governed:
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
That is some pretty weak tea, even if one accepts his rather dubious causal claims. I am not sure that anything he talks about really constitutes "how we are governed," except in the broadest possible way. And, it is clear that if the changes he discusses were indeed caused by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they were unintended consequences thereof; it is hence a stretch to give credit therefor to the political skills of LBJ.
I would also have more confidence in that piece if he got simple facts right; Griggs v. Duke Power did not hold that intelligence tests can not be used in hiring; but rather that they cannot be used unless "they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance." And, per the EEOC, intelligence tests can indeed be used for hiring, and there seem to be companies that make a living providing such tests.
From your EEOC link:
This effectively makes it illegal to use IQ tests since by their very nature they will discriminate based on race.
“Oh but you just have to justify the test under the law!” Great! Give me just one example of a company successfully doing so, after being sued. Remember. The process is the punishment, therefore sometimes the is can be technically allowed in practicality they are illegal - which is how leftist lawfare works
As I noted, companies sell intelligence tests for that very purpose. Someone must be buying them. If you have evidence that the law means something different than what it says, please provide it.
Regardless, note that Hanania did not say that the effect of Griggs was to forbid the use of intelligence test. He said that the case held that, which is wrong.
Non Americans
Ten seconds of Googling will demonstrate that that does not seemt to be the case.
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This argument also supports the contention that the entire cryptocurrency industry wasn't actually breaking the law up until the point that the SEC stepped in and started messing around - "Look, there are multiple companies selling unregistered securities and running unlicensed financial exchanges. Someone must be buying them and using them." There are absolutely companies that make a living doing things which are technically illegal in the hope that nobody notices - and given the enforcement mechanism required for this (a black person suing after not being hired for a job due to this test), you could keep going for years before hitting a case that blows up the company.
You are completely missing the point. Using IQ tests where there is a legitimate business reason therefor s perfectly legal. OP's claim is that it is "practicality . . . illegal" and hence that no one uses them. But, apparently, companies do use them. So, OP is wrong, as is Hanania.
Whether crytpo companies got away with illegal activities until the SEC stepped in is irrelevant. That is literally the opposite of OP's claim.
Ironic that you accuse me of missing the point when you don't seem to have understood either the original argument or my response. The standard of "legitimate business reason" is definitionally impossible for an IQ test, and an IQ test will also create the kind of disparate impact which means it needs to pass and meet that impossible standard (if it is an actual IQ test).
You claimed that companies sell and buy intelligence tests for "that very purpose", with the obvious implication being that this is evidence that such practices are not illegal. The reason that crypto companies violating the law in plain sight and carrying on with their illegal business for years before facing any kind of prosecution is relevant is that it is a direct rejoinder to your example.
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Hanania is on my "how was this guy ever taken seriously" list. I could halfway understand how there could be a Hananian school of thought, but he seems to be primarily popular with reactionary types talking your ear off about the Cathedral, and how politics is downstream from culture, and somehow the idea they like the most from this guy is that wokeness is the culture catching up to the Civil Rights Act. I cannot understand how people don't see the contradiction between these ideas.
I don't see the inconsistency. It seems entirely plausible to me that politics can be based off of cultural concerns, but those cultural concerns are themselves influenced by the institutional landscape which is itself shaped by past politics? Influence can flow in more than one direction, and through more than one mechanism.
Under that framing "[cultural phenomenon] is [act of law]" is at best hugely reductive, but in the specific case of the CRA I believe it's a contradiction. If the government was staffed with fanatical meritocrats there's nothing in the CRA that could prevent them from interpreting the law in a racially neutral way, and some pomo-AltRighters could probably interpret it to be anti-black or at least anti-jewish the same way it's being interpreted as anti-white today. If wokeness was the CRA none of that should be possible.
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