And just to be clear, right off the bat, that’s not “G,” as in Gangster, but as in GOP. OK, perhaps the distinction is fuzzier than most would consider ideal.
I ran across a couple of memes in the past
several months that jumped out at me as fodder for a blog post. One re-surfaced today, and not being in the
mood to write about another unarmed African American catching a bullet from an
overzealous law enforcement officer (Arlington, Texas), or the fact that Donald
Trump continues to simultaneously flout the rules and flummox his GOP
opponents, or that Hillary Clinton has reversed field, and is releasing her
e-mail server, or the on-going chess match between President Obama and Congress
on the issue of the Iran Deal, I decided I’d take a stab at what I consider at
least tangential circumstantial evidence that Republicans are not just
anti-intellectual, also but anti-higher education.
Let me begin with Exhibit A. Consider these bona fides of Arizona’s most
recent former Governor:
22nd
Governor of Arizona
18th
Secretary of State – Arizona
Member of Maricopa County
Board of Supervisors (Where Phoenix is located)
Arizona State Senate
Arizona House of
Representatives
Allow me to add Exhibit B. Also consider the bona fides of Utah’s
current Governor:
17th
Governor of Utah
Chairman
of the National Governors Association
Lieutenant
Governor of Utah
Finally, permit me to include Exhibit C. To the items above, consider the bona fides
of the Governor of Wisconsin:
45th
Governor of Wisconsin
5th
Milwaukee County Executive
Member
of the Wisconsin State Assembly
So let’s keep this real. On the face of it, any one of those three
sets of credentials is impressive on its face.
Any man or woman who manages to rise to position of Chief Executive
Officer of any State’s Government (Governor) has demonstrated substantial
political chops. Nothing I write after
this point will change that fact.
However, the one thing that connects the dots
between these three impressive politicians is pretty stunning, at least to
me. One thing none of these
well-connected, politically astute, successful men and one woman possesses is
an earned college degree.
·
Jan Brewer, the most recent
former Governor of Arizona is an alumna of Glendale Community College. She did not earn a degree.
·
The Honorable Gary Herbert is
the Governor of Utah. A Mormon, he is an
alumnus of Brigham Young University. He
did not graduate.
·
The Honorable Scott Walker is
the current Governor of Wisconsin. He is
an alumnus of Marquette University. He
left before graduating.
Obviously, all three of these individuals were
able to find and secure gainful employment, and to forge a path to steady and
continuous career advancement. They are
living breathing manifestations of the American Dream (Coincidentally, the one
Donald Trump declared dead). I salute
them.
However…Governor Walker has decided to take his
talents to the next lever. Moreover, he
has defined the White House as the address of his next promotion. While I do not expect him to achieve his
desired goal, I am mindful that he is in the discussion. I’m not sure whether to be drawn to my
natural inclination to be amused the Super Seventeen, and his placement within
the group, or to default to despair due to the potential that a major Party
would actually consider elevating someone to the highest office in the land who
does not at a minimum possess a college degree.
Before anyone deigns to school me, I understand
even college attendance is not a Constitutional requirement. The baseline for qualifying to become
President, aside from securing the requisite votes follows:
Qualifications for the
Office of President
Age and Citizenship requirements - US
Constitution, Article II, Section 1
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at
the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office
of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not
have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a
resident within the United States.
Term limit amendment - US
Constitution, Amendment XXII, Section 1 - ratified February 27, 1951
No person shall be elected to the
office of the President more than twice,
and no person who has held the
office of President, or acted as President,
for more than two years of a term to
which some other person was elected
President shall be elected to the
office of the President more than once.
As you can see, from a
Constitutional perspective, this is not a matter of concern. However, in the 227 years since the U.S.
Constitution was ratified, a lot has changed.
For example, we now have automobiles, trains, and airplanes, not to
mention rockets that make space travel possible. It’s fair to say the bar has been raised.
If Governor Walker
were to ascend to the Presidency, he would be the first President in more than
60 years without at least a bachelor’s degree.
In fact, of America’s 44 Presidents, only 25% didn’t graduate from
college, and that number is heavily weighted toward the pre-20th
Century years. Actually, there was only
one, Harry Truman, from the 20th Century, and he essentially
inherited the job, rising to the office after the death of President
Roosevelt. He withdrew from Spalding’s
Commercial College in Missouri.
The last non-college
graduate President to be elected to the Presidency in his first term was
William McKinley…in 1897. President
McKinley had previously left Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, after one year.
Presidential historian
H.W. Brands, of the University of Texas, said, unless you’re someone like Bill
Gates or Steve Jobs (both college dropouts), not having a college degree would
be “a serious handicap” in running for President. He went on to say:
Nowadays
a college degree has become the entry credential to nearly all jobs requiring
any skill at all. A candidate lacking
one would have some heavy explaining to do.”
The other former
Presidents without a college degree were:
·
George Washington
·
Andrew Jackson
·
Martin Van Buren
·
William Henry Harrison
·
Zachary Taylor
·
Millard Fillmore
·
Abraham Lincoln
·
Andrew Jackson
·
Grover Cleveland
The meme that drew me to this subject basically
asserted that former Governor Sarah Palin has a better education than Governor
Scott Walker. Without comparing the
collegiate rankings of the University of Idaho and Marquette University, the point
was that Mrs. Palin, despite her frequent shallow appearance during the 2008
Presidential campaign, actually managed to secure a college degree. Governor Walker, not so much. On some level, even the possibility that
Governor Walker could be Governor Palin redux, should be a scary proposition.
Alas, the inescapable nugget to which I am
attempting to draw your attention is, this anti-education theme appears to be a
pervasive element of the way Republicans see the world. Republican-led State legislatures have voted
to take much of the history out of American History classes. Policymakers in Georgia, Texas, South
Carolina, North
Carolina and Colorado have agitated to scrap or doctor the AP
course, citing its “liberal bias” and supposed focus on U.S. “blemishes.” Those blemishes include things such as
discussions on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and even the fact that Barack
Obama was elected President of the United States. Blemishes…really?
To with,
electing Governors without college degrees, and possibly, even a President, in
the 21st Century, no less, is in my view evidence of a clear and
dangerous fact-phobia; anti-intellectualism at its unfettered worst. My most fervent desire is that American
patriots will rise up and defeat this backward thinking madness. However, clearly, there is an element of our
society who thinks differently. If that
segment is left to its own devices, we will devolve to… “No Degree, No Problem: It’sa Straight Up G-Thang!”
I’m done; holla back!
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