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Democrats don't understand what it means to be educated

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Sonny Hostin may have unveiled the real reason why the Democrats lost the election, but she had it all wrong. She recently said on "The View," that "What we did not have is white women, who voted about 52% for Donald Trump – uneducated white women is my understanding." 

What does being educated really mean? There are four buckets.

Formal Education

Reading, writing and arithmetic, some would say. Getting a formal education involves following a curriculum designed to impart knowledge, develop skills and instill values across various disciplines. Formal education equips individuals with foundational academic and professional competencies and some would argue college is more important to learn how to ‘adult’ on your own than the actual courses themselves. Formal education serves as a pathway for personal growth and career opportunities for many.

Street Smarts

There are many entrepreneurs in America who never graduated college and many who didn’t graduate high school, yet they have built multi-million dollar businesses, creating jobs, giving back to their communities and helping the tax base. Their education in some ways may be much more pragmatic some would argue vs. getting a college diploma.

Social intelligence

Social smarts focus on interpersonal skills and understanding human behavior. People with social smarts excel in communication, empathy and building relationships. They are adept at reading social cues, resolving conflicts and fostering teamwork. Social smarts are essential in roles requiring collaboration, leadership and influence. Unlike book or street smarts, social intelligence bridges cognitive and emotional domains, making it crucial in both professional and personal settings.

Adversity Quotient

This is fourth area of education many people never talk about in America. It’s in part why Donald Trump won the election, because he excels in overcoming adversity. Adversity Quotient (AQ) refers to an individual’s ability to face, endure and overcome challenges or difficult situations. It measures how well someone responds to adversity, including their resilience, adaptability and capacity to persevere in tough circumstances. This type of education is a learned skill and one that we would often define with the term ‘develops character.’

The liberal and progressive college-educated dominance over the Democratic Party agenda alienated at least some socially conservative working-class nonwhites, thereby driving a small but electorally consequential subset of them into the arms of Republican Party candidates and into the arms of winning this election. Buyer beware, being educated in America isn’t defined by a diploma.