It's one thing to value merit over politics -- I'd expect nothing less from my peers in the bay. However, it's an entirely different matter to value merit over long term strategic objectives, and from what I can tell, an alarming number of commenters here are bereft of any understanding of the long term implications of not striving to increase the potential engineering talent pool.
We in the US are in a situation where:
1) talent is scarce
2) companies, startups more specifically, are now less willing to hire international talent for fear of visa/etc. risks in the current age,
3) politics are disincentivizing efforts to broaden the talent pool via obvious means -- such as by reintroducing and motivating women to participate.
The end result of this isn't going to be job security for existing participants in the tech industry here in the US. It's going to be the flight of entrepreneurs to talent centers where talent can be acquired more reasonably, and right now, that's starting to look less and less like the United States given the above.
Shoot, even YC is broadening beyond these geographical and political boundaries through tools like Startup School.
If your goal's to keep our tech industry in the US from becoming a laggard, it's in your interest to encourage the system to strategically start motivating and representing the population space more accurately. Otherwise, the talent drought will just drive ideas overseas.
(I apologize to any overseas readers reading my comment. I hope you understand.)
TL;DR: very few people here are thinking about this from a long term strategic angle; it seems like everyone's just concerned about their own jobs.