I have worked in adult basic education for a heck of a long time. I have met a lot of people who have achieved much with little traditional schooling. When I say uneducated, I am not talking about formal education, rather about voters who educate themselves on the issues. Perhaps I should have said informed. Far too many people make their voting decisions based on buck-a-beer and gravy train slogans, $20 bills handed out and drain the swamp rhetoric, which the Ford brothers know only too well and use to their advantage. They know that their base isn’t going to read or listen past the headlines and slogans.
Also......I've met many an educated person who I would consider stupid.
As for being informed or not, I don't even think that's necessarily it either. Many people were well enough informed and thought their non-plan was a good idea for their own reasons.
It's true, though, that many people don't know how things work, but then, these aren't necessarily confined to voting for our current government's ilk. Liberal and NDP voters can also be stupid boors.
The PCs don't have a lock on intellectually stunted voters. To think otherwise is arrogant and ignorant.
I think
@PinkLucy made some pretty good distinctions there.
I don't think that conflicts w/most of what
@MTown is saying either.
I would add, its possible to be educated, and informed, but narrow-minded, myopic, short-sighted or just plain selfish.
That said, many of those latter traits are more common or exacerbated by low levels of information and/or education (formal or informal).
While these negative traits can and do apply to some voters of virtually every party and across the political spectrum, it certainly would be my personal experience that they are somewhat more common
on the political right at the moment, and among those who support brazen populism in particular.
This is reflected in detailed polling data, but also what one can see simply by looking at electoral results across the province; that areas with a higher proportion of university graduates elected far fewer Conservatives
than those with a lower average level of educational attainment.
Again, I'm speaking of Doug Ford's particular brand of Conservatives here, rather than any historical/classical sense of the word.
I don't think there is anything magical in this, it tends to be tied how much one has seen of the world as the more people you meet and places you go the more (most people) develop empathy and understanding for 'the other'.
That experience exists for many folks lacking formal education too; but in our province it tends to be more associated with higher-income earners (who can afford to travel and have different experiences) and that in turn is associated with higher levels of
formal education in many cases.
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Now let me throw in a final note which is that progressives can do a disservice to the cause when they simply demean or dismiss those who voted differently or think differently, whatever the cause.
The reality is that those voters will be with us again in 4 years, and in order to lure about a 1/4 of them over to a more progressive choice, or motivate some of those who didn't vote, the centre-left must be able to speak their language.
That's both substance and tone.
There must be a recognition of what grates on certain people and why; and how to sell what we might view as better ideas to those same folks by presenting them in a way that resonates.
Because people, for instance, prefer a simple-sounding message, does not necessarily mean they are stupid. It could be an allergy to conventional political speak which can sometimes be more convoluted than nuanced.
