“I Love the Poorly Educated”: Intellectual Elitism, Working-Class Resentment, and the Left’s Growing Disconnect

By Richard Graves, MA American History - 9 July 2025

“We won with young, we won with old, we won with highly educated, we won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated”

In 2016, Donald Trump stood before a cheering crowd and declared, “We won with young, we won with old, we won with highly educated, we won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated” (CNN, 2016). While many in the media and political elite scoffed at this moment, it revealed something profound: the Right had tapped into a growing resentment among working-class White Americans—especially those without college degrees—who had come to feel alienated, condescended to, and discarded by the very party that once claimed to be their champion.

The phrase “uneducated White voter” or “poorly educated White voter” has often been deployed by progressives and liberal commentators with a thinly veiled disdain. Though intended to identify a voting bloc defined by the absence of higher education credentials, it functions more often as a euphemism for “stupid” or “ignorant.” It implies that these voters simply do not understand their own best interests. Worse, it carries the assumption that if they did, they would naturally vote Democrat. This linguistic sleight of hand not only reveals a pervasive intellectual elitism, it also demonstrates just how out of touch the Democratic Party has become with a significant segment of the American working class.

This tension reflects a deeper socioeconomic and political divide within the White working-class electorate. Kitschelt and Rehm (2019) identify two distinct groups within this demographic: the low-educated, high-income group, typically small business owners and skilled tradesmen who oppose progressive economic policy but favor socially conservative positions, and the low-educated, low-income group, composed of clerical and blue-collar workers who support redistributive economic policies but often reject progressive cultural values (p. 430). Despite economic differences, these two groups are united by a common cultural disposition—distrust of elite institutions, frustration with liberal condescension, and an affinity for politicians who speak to their lived realities rather than at them.

This cultural affinity is amplified by proximity. Both groups often live in the same towns, attend the same churches, and send their children to the same schools. The working poor may see the self-made businessman as a model of success, while the small business owner sees in the laborer the grit and perseverance they once embodied. What binds them is not ideology, but narrative. And in that narrative, college degrees—particularly in liberal arts or social sciences—symbolize not advancement, but alienation.

When professors, journalists, and media commentators who speak in the language of intersectionality and critical theory condescend to these voters, they don’t just alienate them—they radicalize them. The perception that liberal elites “look down” on them becomes more than just suspicion; it becomes gospel. Every tone-deaf remark about “uneducated voters,” every flippant reference to “deplorables,” further confirms what they’ve come to believe: the Left doesn’t want their vote, and worse, doesn’t value their voice (Stevenson, 2019).

This resentment is not purely reactionary. It is often exacerbated by race-conscious framing that pits working-class Whites against historically marginalized groups. Social programs are sometimes presented in terms that suggest redistribution from Whites to others, stoking racial anxiety and making solidarity nearly impossible. In this context, even those White working-class voters who might otherwise support progressive economic policy reject it—not on principle, but out of perceived betrayal.

The problem deepens when the Democratic response to electoral underperformance among voters of color mirrors the same elitist assumptions. Take, for example, the 2024 polling data showing Vice President Kamala Harris receiving 78% support among Black men—a noticeable decline from previous cycles (King, Weisman, & Igielnik, 2024). Rather than investigate why some Black men might feel politically homeless, Democratic commentators resorted to accusations of ignorance, misogyny, and internalized racism. This reflex mirrors the contempt once reserved for working-class White voters and suggests that the party’s reliance on identity politics has begun to undermine its ability to listen.

In truth, labeling voters as “uneducated” does more than stigmatize—it obscures. It obscures economic precarity. It obscures social displacement. It obscures the dignity of labor, and the reality that knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence are not always measured by academic credentialing. It also feeds a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more voters feel scorned by liberal elites, the more they rally around figures like Trump—not because they believe in his policies, but because he speaks to them rather than about them.

Trump’s 2016 campaign revealed that speaking plainly, even crudely, could be politically powerful when the alternative was elite condescension. His phrase, “I love the poorly educated,” resonated because it felt like affirmation in a political culture defined by judgment. And while many pundits dismissed it as another gaffe, it was, in fact, one of the most politically strategic things he said. He saw a group that others ignored, insulted, or tried to socially reengineer—and he simply acknowledged them (CNN, 2016; Stevenson, 2019).

In the end, the use of terms like “uneducated voters” says less about the people being described and more about those doing the describing. It reflects a paternalistic impulse on the Left that presumes to know what is best for others while failing to actually listen to them. Until that changes, the Democrats will continue to bleed working-class support—across race, gender, and geography—while the Right, no matter how vacuous its policies, will continue to exploit the vacuum left behind.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Works Cited:

Bositis, D. (2012). Blacks and the 2012 elections: A preliminary analysis. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

CNN. (2016, February 24). Donald Trumpy: “‘I love the poorly educated’.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9F6EAMPky4

King, M., Weisman, J., & Igielnik, R. (2024, October 12). Black voters drift from Democrats, imperiling Harris’s bid, poll shows. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/us/politics/poll-black-voters-harris-trump.html

Kitschelt, H. P., & Rehm, P. (2019). Secular partisan realignment in the United States: The socioeconomic reconfiguration of White partisan support since the New Deal era. Politics & Society, 47(3), 425–479. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329219850911

Stevenson, P. W. (2019, February 24). Donald Trump loves the ‘poorly educated’ — and just about everyone else in Nevada. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/24/donald-trump-loves-the-poorly-educated-and-just-about-everyone-else-in-nevada/?utm_term=.96b73354ca23