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The new Trump administration has a generational opportunity to expunge anti-merit identity politics that have infected and disabled so many American institutions and to bring back merit. So do governors and legislators in the states where Republicans won mandates in this election, too.

For nearly a century following the Pendleton Act of 1883, our federal government used difficult tests to help fill departments; competence was a non-partisan goal. In the 20th century, leaders agreed that we need bright talent to win wars, advance in science, and achieve feats such as the moon landing. By the 1970s, less than 10% of test takers scored high enough on government PACE exams to qualify for senior leadership.

Those tests died in the late 1970s. Because of racial disparities in the results, activist courts ruled that even if tests were predictive of job performance, they were illegal because of the "disparate impact." Soon, the government was hiring people who would have failed these tests — less qualified people from all backgrounds. President Jimmy Carter's 1979-80 Democratically-controlled Congress also made it harder to hold government workers accountable. Since then, the bureaucracy has become dumber and dumber.

INCOMING SENATE DEM ELISSA SLOTKIN TORCHES IDENTITY POLITICS IN 2024 AUTOPSY: 'GO THE WAY OF THE DODO'

Over the last decade, the stupidity accelerated: a focus on identity politics meant that merit was actually an anti-priority. As the Biden administration tried to preserve in amber various forms of racial handouts and discrimination, and........

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