Democrats don't understand what it means to be educated

Sonny Hostin may have unveiled the real reason why the Democrats lost the election, but she had it all wrong. She recently said on "The View," that "What we did not have is white women, who voted about 52% for Donald Trump – uneducated white women is my understanding." 

One of the realities of why the Democrats lost this election in the landslide is thinking they have a monopoly on defining what being "educated" means in America today and here’s the reality of what this word means in America today.  Let’s examine this.

The Latin root of the word educate is "ex-ducere": to lead out of. The idea is that the educational process leads you out of your former self into a new self: more knowledgeable, more skilled, wiser, and more experienced. Nowhere in this definition does it say that if you get a diploma, especially a college diploma, that you are more educated. But the democrats have increasingly defined the notion of being educated in America to be inextricably linked with getting a four-year college education. Mind you, that America has plenty of educated derelicts and plenty of kids who graduate college without a clue what they want to do and end up being a Starbucks’ barista while they figure it out.

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What does being educated really mean? There are four buckets.

Formal Education

Reading, writing and arithmetic, some would say. Getting a formal education involves following a curriculum designed to impart knowledge, develop skills and instill values across various disciplines. Formal education equips individuals with foundational academic and professional competencies and some would argue college is more important to learn how to ‘adult’ on your own than the actual courses themselves. Formal education serves as a pathway for personal growth and career opportunities for many.

Street Smarts

Street smarts are about practical intelligence and survival skills honed through real-world experience. This form of smarts involves quick thinking, resourcefulness and the ability to navigate challenging or unfamiliar environments. Street-smart individuals excel in making snap judgments, solving problems on the go and handling difficult situations. They may lack academic credentials but often have strong instincts and the ability to read people and situations accurately. Street smarts are particularly useful in unpredictable, high-pressure scenarios.

There are many entrepreneurs in America who never graduated college and many who didn’t graduate high school, yet they have built multi-million dollar businesses, creating jobs, giving back to their communities and helping the tax base. Their education in some ways may be much more pragmatic some would argue vs. getting a college diploma.

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Social intelligence

Social smarts focus on interpersonal skills and understanding human behavior. People with social smarts excel in communication, empathy and building relationships. They are adept at reading social cues, resolving conflicts and fostering teamwork. Social smarts are essential in roles requiring collaboration, leadership and influence. Unlike book or street smarts, social intelligence bridges cognitive and emotional domains, making it crucial in both professional and personal settings.

Adversity Quotient

This is fourth area of education many people never talk about in America. It’s in part why Donald Trump won the election, because he excels in overcoming adversity. Adversity Quotient (AQ) refers to an individual’s ability to face, endure and overcome challenges or difficult situations. It measures how well someone responds to adversity, including their resilience, adaptability and capacity to persevere in tough circumstances. This type of education is a learned skill and one that we would often define with the term ‘develops character.’

All of this makes you wonder, has the Democratic Party become one that is largely and disproportionately steered by liberal college-educated people? And what’s the consequence we saw in this election with this demographic shift?

The liberal and progressive college-educated dominance over the Democratic Party agenda alienated at least some socially conservative working-class nonwhites, thereby driving a small but electorally consequential subset of them into the arms of Republican Party candidates and into the arms of winning this election. Buyer beware, being educated in America isn’t defined by a diploma.

Ted Jenkin is CEO and co-founder of Oxygen Financial and president of Exit Stage Left Advisors.