MAGAs demand a dumber America
Dragging us down
Jeffrey Denny
Why do squirrels fuck all day?
Because they can, as the old joke goes.
This is the same reason why Trump is attacking higher education.
He can because his proudly uneducated MAGA base, who Trump loves as they love him, gets as much joy as fucking squirrels from hating colleges.
They snort that college indoctrinates students to become radical, anti-American ideologues. Freedom from college makes them smarter as free thinkers.
But is there a bit — or a lot — of sour grapes going on for MAGAs who couldn’t or didn’t go to college, for whatever respectable reasons? Instead of pitying them? Or should college-educated liberal elites resent them for making America MAGA?
We all resent someone for something. While I’m doing fine, I secretly resent fellow liberals driving $150,000 Range Rovers, living in $5 million homes, private jetting to summer in $2 million vacation homes, losing America to Trump, and spending their kids into Ivy colleges because I can’t afford all that.
In America, we’re all supposed to be equal. It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence, at least for men. This makes us resent Americans who are more equal, especially those who identify as men.
It’s the American Way to try to keep up with the Joneses. There are 1.5 million Americans with the last name Jones. That’s a lot of keeping up to do. No wonder we’re all so stressed and exhausted.
Billionaires have it the worst. While their billions make more millions than they could spend in 100 lifetimes, they need more billions to stay ahead of other billionaires.
The richest Jones, Jerry Jones, is worth about $17 billion. Paul Tudor Jones, a hedge fund manager, is worth only $8 billion. It chaps Paul Tudor’s hide that Jerry is doing better. Even though, with that kind of money, you could fuck all day like a squirrel if you had the nuts. Heck, with only $5 billion you could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and fuck a squirrel and still not lose any MAGA voters.
Meanwhile, most Americans, including MAGAs, are doing pretty well compared to the rest of humanity, which has a right to be resentful, as many are.
U.S. median income exceeds all 195 countries except for weirdos like Luxembourg, UAE, Norway, and Switzerland. Even our poorest are among the richest in the world.
Canada, while sniffing at America’s ugly commercialist capitalist greed, is sixth in global median income, just behind us. It didn’t hurt that we bought $400 billion of stuff from Canada last year, which helped Canada buy $275 billion of stuff from us.
But you get a sense Canada resents America because we make cooler stuff than maple syrup and fossil fuels. Like TV, 75% of which Canada imports from the US. But somehow it hasn’t indoctrinated Canadians to welcome our annexation.
Iwas lucky to go to college.
As a high school dropout who ran away from home to the Navy, I eventually took advantage of the GI Bill, veteran tuition relief, student loans, and wage jobs to somehow get my degree.
So I do resent liberal thought leaders who question the value of a college degree that helped make them thought leaders. Especially writers for elite publications who graduated with $400,000 Ivy League and little Ivy degrees, and who were legacies from wealthy, connected donor alums.
But I’m glad that, maybe thanks to my degree, I’m smart enough to know that college doesn’t necessarily make you smarter. Like guiding young people to avoid college. Or even guiding corporations (see McKinsey & Co.). Or guiding elections (see: 2024 Democratic campaign consultants who spent Kamala’s record $1 billion in fundraising).
But I also resent how MAGAs are goading Trump to destroy college for future generations.
It’s easy to hate Harvard or Columbia with their elite progressive students who righteously chant anti-Semitic hate like the regressive Unite the Right torch-bearers at the University of Virginia.
But remember the Nazi anti-Semitic “Blood and Soil” chants, MAGAs? And how your president called the anti-Semitics “good people”? And now you cheer his attacks on colleges for anti-Semitism? Get thee a neck brace — you might suffer hypocrisy whiplash.
Also, MAGAs, do your research.
America has nearly 4,000 colleges, many just as good or better than the Trump-targeted elites. On the US News ranking of 1,800 national colleges, state universities in Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and California rank among the top 30. Many top-100 leaders fly under the radar, including the Colorado School of Mines and Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, tied at #76
The vast majority of colleges in America are far cheaper and more accessible to the working class than the reviled elites. Many offer financial help to good high school students who take college seriously, work hard for their degrees, and use their education to live the American Dream and fuel it for others. Colleges focus far more on hardcore STEM theory than critical race theory.
And by the way, MAGAs, every Fox, OAN, or other right-wing opinionator doing Trump’s dirty work dumping on college went to college.
Colleges still carry out Jefferson’s original intent when he founded UVA: To provide knowledge and foster moral character and virtue. To advance personal growth and success, and give back what we’re given. To build a more just and prosperous society. And ensure an informed, enlightened citizenry that’s essential to a well-functioning democracy, the preservation of liberty, and defense against tyranny.
… Like Trump, born into wealth and privileged with an Ivy education (Penn, ‘68). And now, like the bad student he was, he bites the hand that fed him.
Don’t be fooled, MAGAs.
Even without college, you’re smarter than this. Education is not your enemy. Your resentment is.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
