Many people on the American Right are becoming vociferous enemies of formal education, especially graduate and post-graduate degrees. And yet, multiple studies and simple real-life experience shows that the path to success in America is closely correlated with one’s academic and professional credentials. The stolen election of 2020 was only made possible by the fact that too few American populists are represented among the American elites, i.e. the people who actually count the votes or, more precisely, tell others how to count them. 

Since the dawn of civilization and today more than ever, the path to agency, influence, and power lies via the acquisition of these much-maligned letters preceding or following one’s name. No country in history, and certainly not America, has ever been run by its uneducated working classes, with the notable and disastrous exception of the Soviet Union. Tellingly, the people who rile the most against formal education are either those who are well-educated or those who possess certain talents that are rare in the population at large.