This Megan McArdle op-ed deepens the conversation around Jacob Savage’s Compact essay by moving the argument from observation to structural validation, and by shifting the venue from a niche, heterodox outlet to a central pillar of the establishment press.
Jacob Savage’s essay appeared in Compact, a magazine explicitly designed for heterodox and anti-liberal thought. By citing Savage in the Washington Post, McArdle validates his data for the ruling center-left audience.
The Shift: Savage’s argument was an “outside” critique; McArdle’s is an “inside” admission. She explicitly labels the discrimination an “open secret” that “everyone in media, academia and entertainment knew,” moving the claim from “right-wing conspiracy theory” to “acknowledged institutional reality.”
Savage focused heavily on the shock of the decline (the numerator)—e.g., white men dropping to 12% of junior screenwriters. Critics could dismiss this by claiming the pool of qualified white men had simply shrunk.
McArdle’s Addition: She provides the denominator to prove the disparity. She notes that in 2022, young white males still made up ~25% of college graduates.
The Discrepancy: If the hiring pool is 25% white male, but the hiring rate is 12%, the variance is too large to be explained by merit or random distribution. This mathematically isolates discrimination as the only remaining variable.
McArdle adds a sociological dimension that explains why the discrimination became so acute so quickly.
The Problem: Institutions wanted their total demographics to “look like America” immediately.
The Math: Because a workforce spans ~40 years, you cannot change the total demographic profile in 4 years without massive discrimination at the entry level.
The Insight: To offset the “too white” older cohorts (Boomers/Gen X), the intake of young white men (Millennials/Zoomers) had to be suppressed far below their actual population share. This frames the issue as an intergenerational wealth transfer: young white men paying the “tax” for the hiring practices of the 1980s.
McArdle argues that the backlash (the rise of the Alt-Right or anti-DEI sentiment) is driven not just by the discrimination, but by the dishonesty surrounding it.
The “Honest” Argument: She notes that elites could have made a Schmittian argument: “We must discriminate against you to correct historical wrongs. It is unfair to you personally, but necessary for the group.”
The “Gaslighting” Reality: Instead, institutions denied the discrimination was happening and labeled the young men complaining as “mediocre” or “entitled.” McArdle identifies this denial—the refusal to admit the “state of exception”—as the primary accelerant of cultural resentment.
McArdle reinforces Savage’s narrative by citing specific data points that highlight the sheer scale of the shift.
She points to a massive drop in the entertainment industry, noting that the share of white male junior screenwriters fell from 48 percent to just 12 percent over the last decade. A similar collapse is evident in elite academia, where the percentage of white men in tenure-track humanities positions at Harvard declined from 39 percent to 18 percent.
She observes that young white males still comprise roughly 25 percent of recent college graduates, establishing a “meritocratic baseline” which suggests the 12 percent hiring rate is a statistical anomaly rather than a reflection of the talent pool. Finally, she dispels the notion that this is merely a result of natural population changes; while the white share of the population did drop from 84 percent in 1965 to 62 percent today, the rapidity of the hiring shifts far outpaced this gradual demographic decline.
If you are tracking the intellectual evolution of the “Dissident Right” or the “Groyper” movement, McArdle’s piece is a critical signal. It suggests that the “hiring penalty” for white men is becoming an acceptable topic of discussion in polite society. When the center (WaPo) admits the fringe (Compact) was right about the data, the political energy often shifts from “proving the conspiracy” to “demanding retribution”—a dynamic that likely fuels the very populism McArdle warns about.
Christopher Caldwell’s thesis in The Age of Entitlement provides the perfect structural framework to understand the specific “intergenerational gaslighting” McArdle describes.
While McArdle treats this as a policy “overcorrection,” Caldwell would likely view it as the inevitable, mathematical conclusion of the “rival constitution” established in the 1960s.
Here is how McArdle’s specific observation aligns with Caldwell’s broader theory of the “adversarial culture.”
Caldwell argues that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created a form of moral debt. To buy social peace and correct historical wrongs, the state created a “second constitution” centered on equity that superseded the first constitution centered on liberty.
For decades, the cost of this debt was obscured by a booming economy and a massive white demographic majority. Boomers could advocate for diversity without personally losing their spots in the hierarchy.
McArdle’s data shows that the bill has finally come due. The “gaslighting” she identifies is essentially the older generation (who incurred the debt) refusing to acknowledge that they have passed the payment obligation entirely onto their grandsons. Caldwell would argue this isn’t an accident; it is how the “adversarial culture” survives—by finding new pockets of “privilege” (in this case, young white men) to liquidate in order to maintain the moral solvency of the regime.
Caldwell draws heavily on Carl Schmitt (a mutual interest of ours) to argue that civil rights law functions as a permanent “state of exception,” where normal rules of association and merit are suspended to achieve a specific political outcome.
McArdle observes that institutions refused to admit they were discriminating, instead calling it “holistic review” or “looking like America.” This aligns perfectly with Caldwell’s view that the “adversarial culture” relies on a fundamental dishonesty.
If the regime admitted, “We are suspending the rights of young white men to achieve racial balance,” it would clarify the friend/enemy distinction, potentially sparking the very conflict the regime seeks to manage. The “gaslighting”—calling the displaced men “mediocre” or “entitled”—is a rhetorical tool to disguise the state of exception as merely the workings of a fair market.
Caldwell argues that the post-1964 regime encourages minority groups to cultivate “thick,” politically potent identities while demanding the majority (white Americans) maintain a “thin,” purely individualistic identity.
McArdle’s op-ed highlights the collision of these two forces. The young white men were operating under the “thin” rules (expecting to be judged as individuals), while the institutions were operating under “thick” rules (judging them as a demographic block).
The “infuriating wrinkle” McArdle notes—that these men are mocked for noticing the game is rigged—is what Caldwell describes as the trap of the adversarial culture. To notice the “thick” penalty is to be accused of “white identity politics,” which is the ultimate taboo. Thus, they must suffer the group penalty while being forced to speak only in the language of individualism.
In the context of your interest in the debate between Nathan Cofnas (who argues meritocracy will eventually triumph) and Kevin MacDonald (who argues group evolutionary strategy drives politics), Caldwell and McArdle effectively hand the win to MacDonald here.
McArdle’s admission that “demographics don’t change that fast” proves that merit was not the driving factor. The 12% hiring rate was not a result of a sudden drop in white male IQ or capability; it was a result of a group-based selection strategy by the institutions. Caldwell would say this confirms that we are not living in a meritocracy, but in a system of managing rival group claims, where one group (young white men) has no standing to make a claim.
