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First, let’s note that there is a difference between educated and intelligent.
Now, let’s discuss what education looks like. You are taught science. You are taught economics. You are taught history. Maybe you’re even taught sociology or ethics.
The more education you get, the more diverse your social circle likely gets. Let me explain what that means. If you grow up in a rural town in a red state, you may not know anyone who isn’t straight, white, and protestant. Now, if you leave your hometown to go to a community college, the hometown folk you still run with become fewer, and you make new friends from other places. Even if you don’t befriend a minority yourself, the chances are you’ll befriend someone who grew up in a town with more diversity. If you go to a four-year college, you’ll almost certainly need to have meaningful contact with some minorities. And if you go on to pursue a master's or doctorate, you’re going to an even bigger city and exposed to more and more people who aren’t like you both in and out of the classroom.
So now let’s put those things together. More exposure to other races, religions, and cultures is an antidote for xenophobia. The more you interact with people who aren’t like you, the more you realize they aren’t that strange and they aren’t that scary. Most blacks aren’t criminals. Most Hispanics aren’t here illegally. Most Muslims aren’t terrorists. Most homosexuals aren’t going to try to rape or recruit you. Suddenly, the idea that these people are being marginalized becomes offensive to you, and you find yourself in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study economics, you quickly realize that if you put money in the hands of the poor it will end up in the hands of the rich by nightfall, but if you put more money into the hands of the rich, it just stays there. If you study business, you’ll learn there is no strategy of “if your taxes go down, use that extra net profit to hire more people to do the same work you were doing with fewer people.” You’ll learn that jobs are created by an increased need for workers, not an increase in profits and that the best way to create jobs is to create more opportunities to work. For example, if a McDonald’s doubles its sales volume, they need more cashiers and more cooks. If a McDonald’s doubles its profits without doubling its sales volume, then they won’t hire more people. So if you want McDonald’s to hire more people, send them more customers. That means more people with disposable income. The rich already have disposable income so they won’t buy more McSandwiches just because they got a tax break. But if a poor person can suddenly afford to eat out once a week when he couldn’t before, he will. And once you understand this, suddenly you find yourself in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study science, then you may learn things like how greenhouse gases work, how windmills work, and how solar panels work. If you start to understand that as the population increases, we consume more energy and deplete fossil fuels at a faster and faster rate, then you quickly realize that we need to rely more and more renewable energy sources to prevent rising energy prices. And suddenly you find yourself in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study things like sociology and ethics, then you start to learn things like the chief causes of crime (spoiler: its poverty), the top reason women get abortions (spoiler: its poverty), and how pulling people out of poverty actually costs less than leaving them there. You learn that capital punishment actually increases the murder rate. You learn that incarcerating people for petty crimes just leads to more poverty and more crimes. And suddenly you’re in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study history, you learn things like how Republican Herbert Hoover took office with a Republican majority in the Senate and the House and we wound up with the Great Depression. And you’ll learn that Democrat FDR took office with a Democratic majority in the Senate and the House and pulled us out of the Great Depression. You’ll learn that the next time Republicans controlled the Senate, House, and White House was in 2001, and that we immediately had the worst terrorist attack in US history, started two wars with countries that didn’t attack us, and had the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Then Obama took office with a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress and ended the recession and started the longest bull market in American history. Then Trump took office with a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress, and immediately doubled the deficit, flatlined the economy, mishandled a pandemic, and we lost millions of jobs and a half million lives, and wound up in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Again. [Edit: then Biden became President with a Democrat majority in both chambers, and we experienced the fastest economic recovery in history with record job growth, record new business startups, record cuts to the deficit, record consumer spending, record corporate profits, the best GDP growth in forty years, and the Dow literally set a record for most records set in a year.] And suddenly voting Republican doesn’t seem like that good of an idea.
This is in short why Republicans push for people to go to a trade school and get blue-collar jobs. Because if you learn a trade without learning anything else, you’re more likely to keep voting Republican. This is not to disparage trade schools or blue-collar jobs. We absolutely need them. If you’re passionate about plumbing or truck driving, go learn it. If you know you’re not college material (which doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not smart enough for college), then absolutely learn a trade. I’m talking about how kids with brilliant minds for medicine are being pushed to become electricians because it’s cheaper than medical school when what we should be doing is making medical school affordable for people with that aptitude. And the reason we don’t is that the Republican Party doesn’t want middle-class people studying economics and sociology.
Now, let’s discuss what education looks like. You are taught science. You are taught economics. You are taught history. Maybe you’re even taught sociology or ethics.
The more education you get, the more diverse your social circle likely gets. Let me explain what that means. If you grow up in a rural town in a red state, you may not know anyone who isn’t straight, white, and protestant. Now, if you leave your hometown to go to a community college, the hometown folk you still run with become fewer, and you make new friends from other places. Even if you don’t befriend a minority yourself, the chances are you’ll befriend someone who grew up in a town with more diversity. If you go to a four-year college, you’ll almost certainly need to have meaningful contact with some minorities. And if you go on to pursue a master's or doctorate, you’re going to an even bigger city and exposed to more and more people who aren’t like you both in and out of the classroom.
So now let’s put those things together. More exposure to other races, religions, and cultures is an antidote for xenophobia. The more you interact with people who aren’t like you, the more you realize they aren’t that strange and they aren’t that scary. Most blacks aren’t criminals. Most Hispanics aren’t here illegally. Most Muslims aren’t terrorists. Most homosexuals aren’t going to try to rape or recruit you. Suddenly, the idea that these people are being marginalized becomes offensive to you, and you find yourself in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study economics, you quickly realize that if you put money in the hands of the poor it will end up in the hands of the rich by nightfall, but if you put more money into the hands of the rich, it just stays there. If you study business, you’ll learn there is no strategy of “if your taxes go down, use that extra net profit to hire more people to do the same work you were doing with fewer people.” You’ll learn that jobs are created by an increased need for workers, not an increase in profits and that the best way to create jobs is to create more opportunities to work. For example, if a McDonald’s doubles its sales volume, they need more cashiers and more cooks. If a McDonald’s doubles its profits without doubling its sales volume, then they won’t hire more people. So if you want McDonald’s to hire more people, send them more customers. That means more people with disposable income. The rich already have disposable income so they won’t buy more McSandwiches just because they got a tax break. But if a poor person can suddenly afford to eat out once a week when he couldn’t before, he will. And once you understand this, suddenly you find yourself in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study science, then you may learn things like how greenhouse gases work, how windmills work, and how solar panels work. If you start to understand that as the population increases, we consume more energy and deplete fossil fuels at a faster and faster rate, then you quickly realize that we need to rely more and more renewable energy sources to prevent rising energy prices. And suddenly you find yourself in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study things like sociology and ethics, then you start to learn things like the chief causes of crime (spoiler: its poverty), the top reason women get abortions (spoiler: its poverty), and how pulling people out of poverty actually costs less than leaving them there. You learn that capital punishment actually increases the murder rate. You learn that incarcerating people for petty crimes just leads to more poverty and more crimes. And suddenly you’re in conflict with the Republican Party.
If you study history, you learn things like how Republican Herbert Hoover took office with a Republican majority in the Senate and the House and we wound up with the Great Depression. And you’ll learn that Democrat FDR took office with a Democratic majority in the Senate and the House and pulled us out of the Great Depression. You’ll learn that the next time Republicans controlled the Senate, House, and White House was in 2001, and that we immediately had the worst terrorist attack in US history, started two wars with countries that didn’t attack us, and had the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Then Obama took office with a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress and ended the recession and started the longest bull market in American history. Then Trump took office with a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress, and immediately doubled the deficit, flatlined the economy, mishandled a pandemic, and we lost millions of jobs and a half million lives, and wound up in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Again. [Edit: then Biden became President with a Democrat majority in both chambers, and we experienced the fastest economic recovery in history with record job growth, record new business startups, record cuts to the deficit, record consumer spending, record corporate profits, the best GDP growth in forty years, and the Dow literally set a record for most records set in a year.] And suddenly voting Republican doesn’t seem like that good of an idea.
This is in short why Republicans push for people to go to a trade school and get blue-collar jobs. Because if you learn a trade without learning anything else, you’re more likely to keep voting Republican. This is not to disparage trade schools or blue-collar jobs. We absolutely need them. If you’re passionate about plumbing or truck driving, go learn it. If you know you’re not college material (which doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not smart enough for college), then absolutely learn a trade. I’m talking about how kids with brilliant minds for medicine are being pushed to become electricians because it’s cheaper than medical school when what we should be doing is making medical school affordable for people with that aptitude. And the reason we don’t is that the Republican Party doesn’t want middle-class people studying economics and sociology.
