> Do any of these people railing against affirmative action really think that Native/African/Hispanic Americans should be locked in a self-reinforcing cycle of declining educational and economic outcomes?

Of course not, and it's a terrible strawman argument to frame this as a simple dichotomy of "agree with positive discrimination" or "condemn black people to poverty for ever"

There are many roads to try and resolve this, personally I think it should be bottom up. Instead of the easy political points of enforcing a few quotas on universities and companies.