What characterized WWII and postwar Anglo-American society that made the word "meritocracy" appropriate? That talent (as measured by heavily genetic IQ) and technical skill, rather than hereditary privilege or some other mechanism, led to status and wealth. 
Supposed discrimination can be used to reverse a judgment even if said "racial bias" is harmless and did not actually impact the decision. 
Students taught all of the "critical social justice" (CSJ) concepts were in fact more likely to agree with them; among those taught "America is built on stolen land" 73% agreed. 
The author was initially devastated, but eventually relieved at this discovery as partly explaining his father's awful lifetime behavior (living in black slums, beating his wife and kids, torturing dogs, never getting a stable job, dropping out of Harvard twice). 
"Globalist Americans are just trying to turn China into a cheap labor sweatshop" was a conspiracy theory promulgated by the last remnants of the Western laborist left (think anti-WTO riots) in the early 2000s, to reconcile "this is hurting Western workers and unions" with hating nationalism by arguing the REAL victims of outsourcing were workers around the world. Never based in reality.
Mexico not growing much since 1990 isn't because it "knows its place," it's because Mexico, being a New World country, escaped the Malthusian trap centuries prior and thus already had high living standards [comparable to China today] befitting its human capital.
Mexicans are most responsible for the racial transformation and hence dumbing down of America; for roughly 30 years (until 2008) hundreds of thousands crossed the border annually (mostly illegally, about 1/2 of total immigration) and they also had exceptionally high TFR.
Boomercons love the idea that immigrants are uber-patriotic and grateful, and some are (I personally don't expect gratitude, this is America, don't need boot-licking, but non-hostility is essential and among the politicized segment usually missing), but this is not the norm. 
When broadcasting licenses change, citizens can challenge the racial bona fides of their hiring policy, allowing black activists to extort money and jobs through threat of lawsuit. 
Police, firefighting, sanitation work, federal civil service. All public fields throwing out tests because blacks scored lower. These fields don't have market competition, so eliminating these tends to make them very dysfunctional. 
There's a market failure here wherein firms don't invest in training because a trained worker can then easily leave, instead electing to only hire people who can already do the job (hence all the "entry level: 5 years experience required" postings). 
Note: all of these arguments are common in economics literature, just not typically presented to the public or used in the static models used to argue for free-trade agreements. Also note that these are actually args against *deindustrialization* not free trade per se.
In the same way that a country that receives immense quantities of free food is not likely to have a great agricultural sector, skilled immigration causes 'skill shortages' by reducing the incentive for natives to acquire said skills.
Then, between 2000 and 2007 US manufacturing employment really did collapse, across all subsectors, far more than in any other major economy. The number of manufacturing establishments also fell. 
They use this power poorly. For example, the EEOC requires employers hire criminals on the grounds that African-Americans are more likely to be criminals, therefore not hiring criminals is racist. 
api.omarshehata.me/substack-proxy…
The underclass was a new phenomenon in 1986, only really appearing in the 60s. Its existence rebuked both Civil Rights and the Great Society. In the US, mostly a black thing (and Hispanic, but that was just starting), but white underclasses exist (eg Britain). 
The slave trade was not dying in America; instead imports continued to rise until it was banned in 1808. US became the largest reservoir of slaves in the New World because of high rates of natural increase. Slaves were best suited (vs free labor) to sugar and cotton. 
