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Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

Oct 6

Whatever happened to American governance? The US used to pride itself on merit-based selection in federal hiring. Government wasn't always seen as the incompetent monstrosity it is today

🧵on how the war on incompetence was originally won, and how civil rights changed everything

Over the course of 19th century, government hiring was based on patronage. Whoever won elections would hire their supporters.

The reputation of the government was so low, it was said that in a congressional report that jobs went to only adventurers, incompetents, and scoundrels.

After President Garfield was killed by a disappointed office seeker in 1881, Congress finally had enough.

It passed the Civil Service Reform Act, which required competitive examinations in hiring and banned drunks from office. By 1900, it covered nearly half the gov workforce.

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Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

Sep 26

New form of equality is here. The year after BLM, 94% of over 300,000 S&P100 jobs went to non-whites.

Wow, blacks and Hispanics really knocking it out of the park with “less senior” roles.

If you’re a white guy trying to get your foot in the door, good luck.

Check out Nike. They’re shedding white employees like they’re lepers.

Read 7 tweets

Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

Sep 24

I write about whether cancel culture has peaked. The phrase itself is from a monoculture that not longer exists.

We see a great bifurcation. On the right, it's almost impossible to get canceled for being un-PC. Left-wing institutions are as bad as ever.🧵 richardhanania.com/p/how-to-not-g…

Up until about a decade ago, elite institutions had an ability to cancel people even on the right. This was done through a handful of conservative gatekeepers that granted legitimacy. This was killed by greater polarization and social media and other new market forces.

15 years ago, right wingers would talk about how National Review personally hurt them. A young person reading today would probably be completely puzzled by this. Who cares about one magazine? It was a tiny intellectual and media ecosystem that could easily exclude people.

Read 11 tweets

Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

Sep 15

New York City just released a report titled "Crime and Enforcement Activity in New York City" for 2022. It tracks the identities of victims, suspects, and arrestees. Here are some of the highlights.

For context, NYC is about 32% white, 29% Hispanic, 23% black, and 14% Asian🧵

Let's start with "Misdemeanor Criminal Mischief." Here, the numbers are relatively even given what we'll see below. Black are only 50% of suspects and a smaller portion of arrestees.

In the area of murder, blacks are 63.8% of suspects, 57.8% of arrestees. Whites are only 2.9% of suspects. Interestingly, Asians commit murder at a higher rate than whites in NYC, a pattern we'll see in other crimes. I would guess this has something to do with age distributions

Read 15 tweets

Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

Sep 15

From 1936-1939, the federal government interviewed 2,300 ex-slaves in 17 states.

2/3 were over 80. By 1936, it had been 71 years since emancipation, so most had been young when they became free.

🧵on what was found, and how historians have used the interviews.

What’s most shocking to modern ears is the fact that many remembered slavery fondly. In the words of one interviewee: “Right now, I loves my marster an' his wife in de grave. Dey raised me an' showed me kindness all dey lives. I was proud of dem."

Another talked about having plenty to eat, including sausages, beef, and possum, and enough clothes to wear.

Read 21 tweets

Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

Jul 31

People talk about bureaucracy and the slowdown in scientific and medical progress. Here's the story of one important piece of that reality: the HIPAA privacy rule, and the damage that it has caused, along with the concept of privacy more generally.🧵richardhanania.com/p/privacy-vers…

In 1996, President Clinton signed HIPAA. It required healthcare providers to make sure they safeguard "protected health information."

The government then created around 700 pages of dense legalese to figure out what that meant. Keeping up became a full-time job.

Most medical researchers says this significantly added to their burdens. One study that was ongoing during the Privacy Rule debate went from recruiting 12 pregnant women per week to 2-6.

The University of California lost the free access to the cancer registry it used to have.

Read 11 tweets

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