About clever

The World Health Organisation is just another club of ‘clever people’ who want to bully and tell us what to do. Ignore. https://t.co/UM6IwirmY0

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) 9 November 2017

Now, I’m not one of those bleating, entitled lefties who thinks that every supporter of Trump and Brexit is by definition thick as a pound of economy mince, notwithstanding the Pennyslvanian supporter of The Orange Toddler who explained his choice thus: “When he speaks you can understand what he’s saying, you don’t have to look up the big words that he’s trying to use to confuse you.” But the antipathy towards education on the populist right almost goes without saying. It’s most forcibly expressed by those, like Trump and Farage, who have experienced high-quality, expensive schooling and clearly failed to benefit from it; I wonder, were they bullied for their inability to grasp the second law of thermodynamics, maybe forced to stand on a chair and conjugate Latin verbs in their vests and pants?

Whatever the deep-seated motivations of the leadership, though, it’s a statistical fact that the higher up the educational ladder you’ve travelled, the less likely you were to vote for Trump or Brexit. And as far as I can see, only in the Anglo-Saxon world can “clever” be used as a pejorative.