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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

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Senator Kerry Roberts from Tennessee literally said we should get rid of higher education. This is his quote, "If there's one thing that we can do to save America today, it's to get rid of our institutions of higher education right now and cut the liberal breeding ground off!"

Kerry Roberts has a degree in accounting, an applied science (mathematics).

I have. Occasionally one of them will screw up and say the quiet part out loud. Just last week for instance:

https://apnews.com/ba22eace0ec2414794c6722c5bfb5baf

Edit: and additionally, a lot of the majors they cry about have pretty good job prospects. Like gender studies or racial studies have good jobs. Some in HR, some in more self starting careers in community outreach and organization. Conservatives just don't like the politics implicit in those majors so they pretend that they're a drain on society without digging into the data.

It was a joke, do you really think he believed this? He graduated from Lipscomb.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/10/tennes...

"It was just a joke bro" is rarely a joke. You say it was just a joke when it's so abhorrent that it gets messaged past the audience it was meant for. It certainly didn't sound like a joke in context, and it's something that large parts of his base believes because of all the demonization of higher education as a republican talking point for decades.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a policy position that he doesn't actually believe but is willing to push because it polls well with his constituency.

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