# Do Americans lack the brain hardware necessary to run a democracy? (Part 2 of 2) Date: 2026-05-20 Previous Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/do-americans-lack-the-brain-hardware-necessary-to-run-a-democracy.part1.md --- #### The real cult is college education driven meritocracy In 2008, Charles Murray wrote: > A brick-and-mortar campus is increasingly obsolete. The physical infrastructure of the college used to make sense for three reasons. First, a good library was essential to higher learning, and only a college faculty and student body provided the economies of scale that made good libraries affordable. Second, scholarship flourishes through colleagueships, and the college campus made it possible to put scholars in physical proximity to each other. Third, the best teaching requires interaction between teachers and students, and physical proximity was the only way to get it. All three rationales for the brick-and-mortar campus are fading fast. Much of what Charles Murray believed about education was dead wrong and maybe racist. However the continued existence and increasing cost of the brick-and-mortar undergraduate campus is a bizarre feature of life 18 years later. Undergraduate education is obviously just a gated community intended to keep American class divides from collapsing. A system of free generalized education that refuses to cover a student’s last four years, cannot have any other purpose. The original purpose of a liberal arts education was to produce better citizens. Now, amazingly, we both make that education unattainable for many Americans while simultaneously complaining about bad citizens. The people outside the gate were never taught the citizenry skills and the people inside the gate easily succumb to fear of being exiled. The people inside the gate can never admit that their wealth inequality is undeserved — even to themselves. Plus the people in the dominant caste control the media and the educational system. There’s not going to be any readily available information on the nature of this cult. The oligarchy are all declared the “visionary architect of the nation’s future” (no [Steve Jobs](https://georgejziogas.medium.com/lets-stop-worshipping-steve-jobs-and-people-like-him-a99f2a7caa00) was not any better than the current crop). In an era of tax cuts and tax cut propaganda, the educational system is having its taxes increased with an up to 8 percent [endowment tax](https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/big-beautiful-bill-university-endowment-tax/?nc=1): > Education experts have warned that the massive diversion of funds to the U.S. Treasury may force affected institutions to raise tuition prices, cut financial aid programs, or both to offset budget shortfalls. [[1](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-university-endowment-tax-higher-education/), [2](https://edsource.org/updates/trumps-endowment-tax-will-hit-stanford-hard), [3](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/college-endowment-tax-is-leading-to-hiring-freezes-and-could-mean-cuts-in-financial-aid), [4](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/08/endowment-tax-big-beautiful-bill-impact-colleges.html)] The South African mafia — Elon Musk, Peter Thiel (lived there from ages 1 to 7), and David Sachs (White House AI and crypto czar — no confirmation hearing — Trump said that Sacks would safeguard free speech online), are building an even higher gate and contrary to what you might have heard South Africa was never desegregated. > The spatial and economic segregation enforced by the legacy of apartheid remains deeply entrenched, leaving the country heavily divided along racial lines. Segregation is what makes this cult a real cult where you are cut off from people on the outside and your personal freedom and financial security depend on adhering to cult rules. In evaluating if America is smart enough to run a democracy we have to look at whether our dominant caste is smart enough to be less dominant. We cannot rely on waiting for our oppressed to find their FDR because even FDR’s solution [didn’t knock down the gate](https://medium.com/the-polis/trump-is-giving-us-an-opportunity-we-cant-afford-to-waste-aa14002df108). #### Are college educated Americans capable of democracy? While Democrats do better in general with college educated and Republicans with not college educated the margins are only 5 to 10 percent until you get to postgraduate degrees: ![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/do-americans-lack-the-brain-hardware-necessary-to-run-a-democracy-29afb56516.png) Even with a postgraduate degree in 2025, 35% declared themselves supporting a political party run by a fascist?!? The most recent NPORS was conducted from Feb. 5 to June 18, 2025, among 5,022 U.S. adults — the fascism was on the table by then. In January 2025 Trump pardoned capitol rioters found guilty of federal offenses. He used military planes to ship off immigrants. He banned transgender service members. He started withdrawal from the World Health Organization. He rolled back most federal regulations. He illegally let Elon Musk form DOGE. He illegally began a government-wide pause on federal grants, loans, and financial assistance. Yet 35% of the postgraduate degree people PEW polled in Feb. — June were still supporting a party that was threatening (and still threatens) to end democracy. 35% of the people America had declared as having the best brains in the country and who occupy the lions share of the best careers were supporting a party run by a fascist pedophile president. Yet if you look at this through a zero sum lens those 35% are just voting their economic interests. Lower taxes for them plus a higher gate around education means less competition from the lower castes for their children. Nor are the 59% of postgraduate degree holders opposed to Trump necessarily against that higher gate. They might simply have calculated that the end of democracy isn’t a reasonable risk for that benefit. Again this is what running a caste system does — it affects all moral calculations and so a fascist pedophile president can swim along in the already muddy water.