215: The Over-Educated

One of the more widely used descriptions of Trump supporters used by the in-the-tank-for-Hillary national media is, "less educated white voters."  The clear inferences that the media wants one to take from this are:  First, less educated means dumber.  Second, less educated white voters are different from less educated black, brown and yellow voters.  Third, if a less educated white voter got a college degree, he or she would be smarter and suddenly become a Hillary suppporter.

Leaving aside the media's racial profiling, I think the most telling observation here is that the media equates formal education with the ability and intelligence to make an informed decision about a candidate for national office.  I have many friends and acquaintances with four year and/or advanced degrees who voted for BO twice, and will certainly vote for Hillary.  Most of these folks will blindly accept as truth any snarky comment made on NPR or MSNBC.  But they will not take the time to read and consider a well researched and reasoned article if it is in the WSJ.  These people are over educated, and the product of an insular environment that excludes any information that does not comport with their conventional "wisdom."  The Federal Reserve System Open Market Committee is a perfect microcosm of this kind of over education run rampant.  A group of PhDs trying to convince themselves (and everyone else) that their Committee, and ONLY THEIR COMMITTEE, can direct an economy of three hundred million people by raising interest rates by one quarter of one percent per year.

But I digress.  Back to the less educated white voters.  The Deplorables, as Hillary calls them.  I suppose at the media cocktail parties, less educated white voters is abbreviated to "white trash."  These voters tend not to be beneficiaries of government largess.  They receive Social Security and Medicare, but then they have paid into those programs for a lifetime.  They do not receive preferential treatment for education or employment.  They work hard,  They save money for retirement.  They pay their taxes.  And what do they get in return?  They get eight years of BO telling them they should be ashamed of their country, and the prospect of seeing the next eight years of runaway government expansion presided over by a congenital liar.  No wonder we have Donald Trump.