Republicans Are Becoming Less Educated

[Judi Lynn]

Nerds to the left.
By Kali Holloway / AlterNet March 31, 2018, 11:48 AM GMT

There are several key attributes that define the Republican Party in its modern incarnation: its overwhelming whiteness; its self-reported religiosity; its slavish devotion to a man who boasts he could shoot supporters and not lose a single vote, thus proving his point. Moving forward, that list should probably also include as a distinguishing factor the fact that the party is less educated than its Democrat political rivals, and growing increasingly more so.

That’s according to a study released earlier this month by the Pew Research Center. The polling organization now finds “the widest educational gap in partisan identification and leaning seen at any point in more than two decades” between Republicans and Democrats. In 1994, the majority of U.S. residents with four-year college degrees leaned or identified as Republican, at 54 percent; just 39 percent of college graduates leaned or identified as Democrats. As of 2017, those numbers have switched exactly, with the majority of college degree holders now leaning Dem-ward.

Voters with post-graduate degrees are even more likely to cast their votes for Democratic politicians, Pew finds. Sixty-three percent of postgraduates identify as Dems or Dem-leaning, while just 31 percent describe themselves as Republican or GOP leaning. That’s a huge difference from back in the mid-1990s, when postgraduates were almost equally likely to opt for either party, with 45 percent supporting Republicans and 47 percent backing Democrats.

While Dem ranks have filled with more educated voters, Republicans saw increased support by those whose highest education attainment level is a high school diploma or less. “Among those with no more than a high school education, 47 percent affiliate with the GOP or lean Republican, while 45 percent identify as Democrats or lean Democratic,” Pew researchers write in their report. That’s a shift from the late 1990s and early aughts, when a plurality of those without college degrees voted Democratic, 47 to 42 percent.

More:
https://www.alternet.org/education/republicans-are-becoming-less-educated

[lapfog_1]

1. "Republicans Are Becoming Less Educated"

That is really hard to believe... given my impression of the previous level of their education.

[hedda_foil]

2. Don't miss this part!

-- snip --

The cumulative effect of so much literal big, dumb posturing is a pervasive culture of animosity toward not just education, but sites of learning themselves. Institutions of higher learning are among the primary targets of Republican ire in the “culture wars,” with conservatives imagining universities as liberal indoctrination factories staffed by Marxists who transform impressionable white youth into Communist feminazi agents of their own racial extinction. Last year, Pew researchers discovered that “a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58 percent) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45 percent last year.” The same poll found 72 percent of those who identify or lean Democrat believe colleges are a positive impact on society. Similarly, a 2017 Gallup survey found that just one-third of Republicans and GOP leaning voters have “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in colleges.” Conversely, a majority, 56 percent, of Democrats gave higher education a thumbs up. Republicans and Democrats who expressed no-confidence votes in colleges did so for vastly different reasons: GOPers complained campuses are “too liberal and political,” while Dems said “colleges are too expensive, are not well-run or have deteriorating quality, or that college graduates aren't able to find jobs.”

-- snip --

[yurbud]

3. Right wing talk radio has said higher ed isn't necessary for decades.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. hypocrisy and idiocracy

The Repugs in Congress have college degrees but they know educating voters would get them un-elected -- you have to be ignorant of history to vote for GOP. Public education will remain under attack unless and until we take control.

Morons Are Governing America

[YOHABLO]

5. A well rounded education for RWrs no longer includes the humanities.