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This isn't just wrong, it's antagonistically wrong. You do not understand what intelligence is. You do not understand what identity or progressivism is either. By your own epistemology, I don't even have to back this up with any kind of serious reasoning or source, I can just state and restate it, likening it to some pop-culture concepts (in an admittedly artful way).
But since I have a better and clearer method of thought, I'll explain. Intelligence is not whether you can hustle or are observationally aware, or can speak many languages. A meercat can be observationally aware. Intelligence is the capacity for abstraction, logic, planning, critical thinking and so on. It's precisely and ironically what you're doing and what the median East African is not doing. Even if you go by Taleb's 'intelligence is about making money rather than passing tests' concept, we can be confident that East Africa is not a particularly intelligent place. If East Africans are so smart, why aren't they living like kings on a programming salary (as many motte posters do)? Why aren't people sifting through Africa for cheap programming talent, as is done in India or Eastern Europe?
Societies composed of intelligent people have enormous amounts of machinery to do their work for them. Societies composed of unintelligent people murder their children in witchcraft rituals to this very day: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-02/witchcraft-child-sacrifice-uganda-victims/11248026
As for 'fascism is progressive', not in any useful way. Would a fascist agree with a liberal that 'there is a role for politics in improving society'? Yes, of course. But the ideas they support are totally different, based on different values and goals, with a wildly different understanding of what improving society looks like.
Furthermore, when most people say progressive, they mean the blue-haired they/them, not the SS officer. Calling fascists progressive introduces unnecessary confusion and anger. Even more confusion is added by reactionaries, who are in some ways progressive (in wanting a radical change to society) and other ways reactionary, wanting to go back. We should classify political beliefs by their goal, not in their desire to change things.
Finally, everyone is progressive from some point of view. Say you're against child sacrifice to appease the spirits and want some kind of political action to prevent it. You're seeking a progressive stance in certain parts of Uganda! Every institution we have today was progressive once. Even you are a progressive, you just want a different direction and mode of travel to other people. Do you see how the meaning you have assigned the word becomes worthless and shallow?
Identity politics is similar. It exists. It is political. America or China might well be an 'imagined community' full of people who feel solidarity with eachother, yet they are still enormously powerful entities. People will rally around the flag, a piece of fabric with some ink on it. People will fight and die for their identity. It can't get much more real than that! You can't just smear it as being bullshit when identity rules the world, forms the world, is the substance that social structures are made of.
I liked most of your post, but this I totally disagree with. Progressives basically agree with fascists on tactics, and delude themselves in some ways to convince themselves they don't also agree on policy. The only real difference is a who/whom not on what prescriptions are to be once you figure out who is the baddie. Its always centralized power with plausible deniability when everything goes pear shaped.
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