Proudly Illiterate? Hardly. Uneducated White Man? Guilty As Charged

I read an article the other day written by Garrison Keillor entitled “Trump Voters Will Not Like What Happens Next.” For those unfamiliar with the name, Garrison Keillor is an author, humorist, radio performer and the creator of the NPR show “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Mr. Keillor explained how Donald Trump voters were all “proudly illiterate.” Apparently he conforms to the liberal media opinion, misguided as it is, that Trump was elected by “uneducated white men.”

To say that President-elect Trump was elected by mostly blue collar workers would be accurate. To call those blue collar workers illiterate and uneducated is a gross and offensive mis-generalization of the American people in general. I know that because I'm included in that group.

To Garrison Keillor I am illiterate. Since I'm writing this article in fairly legible and hopefully intelligent English, I think I'm proving him wrong.

To the left-wing media I'm uneducated. And by their academia standards they are correct. I did not complete any more than a partial year in college. But in my lifetime I've been a paramedic, certified in emergency medicine and advanced cardiac life support. If the left-wing media believes that doesn't take education I invite them to try it.

I spent my career working in federal prisons, starting as a correctional officer and working my way up to the rank of Captain. As a Captain I was the head of the entire security department. No small feat for an uneducated illiterate. For two years I was even a management training instructor. Imagine such an uneducated illiterate teaching management training to other managers.

It seems many on the left feel that if one is not an academic he or she just doesn't live up to proper standards. But just for a moment imagine a world without blue collar workers.

In a world full of academics only, who would build your homes? The architect (the academic) would design it but who would put it together?

Who would fix the problem when the electricity went out, or when you had a broken water main?

Who would make your vehicle run properly again after it breaks down, or even tow your car to a mechanic?

Oh wait. In an all academic world there would be no mechanics to which it could be towed.

Who would grow the food that you buy in the grocery stores? Who would transport it from the farms to the processing plants and to the stores? Who would stock the shelves and run the cash registers? You can bet it wouldn't be academics with impressive degrees.

Are all of these blue collar workers I've mentioned “proudly illiterate?”

In case anyone forgot – the definition of illiterate is “someone who cannot read or write.” To say Mr. Keillor is exaggerating is an understatement. What's worse is he's blatantly insulting half of the population of the United States because he's unhappy with the election results.

For the record, college educated Americans voted 59% to 41% for Hillary Clinton. Do you understand that, Mr. Keillor? Forty-one percent of the academia voted for Trump. So rather than uneducated are they simply ignorant?

You, Mr. Keillor, would appear to be the ignorant one. You have no clue who elected Donald Trump (it wasn't just uneducated white men) nor will you, in your “holier than thou” world, ever understand why it happened.