The difference between my comment and yours is that the meritocracy trap is a real thing that has been the subject of scholarly works. Also, I speak not from a place of disappointments, but rather from a place of great privilege. I am extremely lucky to be where I am (and yes, I worked hard for it too).
Nobody claimed this directly, but when you boil down most progressive policies to their naked objective, it comes down to redistribution in one form or another, taking from the rich and lifting everyone (most noticeably lifting the poor).
Most objections to progressive policies boil down to the idea that the more fortunate people deserve what they have, and that redistribution would make less fortunate people not work as hard. In other words, the world is unfair because of "hand-wavy general incentives".
I am aware that second paragraph was not a great steel-man, and there are many variants and nuances of these positions, but generally the implicit assumption is that we have good (I did not say perfect) vertical mobility, when in reality this is not usually the case.
> believing where they are due to well executed systemic conspiracies rather than their mistakes, missteps, or a simple lack of motivation or ability
the implication certainly is that if you don't make mistakes, missteps, work hard and have talent - in other words if you are full of merit - you'll assuredly end up in a good place