@TigerInWinter I too was struck but the consistent criticism of educated people by the commenters on the Fox News site.
I am a former professor at an elite university who finds the enforced political orthodoxy on campus troubling. Nonetheless, I suspect that a vast portion of the innovation and economic growth that this country has experience in the last 30 years or so to have been generated through the efforts of highly educated folks in many of those hubs. I live in the Boston area, where the major industries are higher education, health care, pharma, biotech, tech, finance along with tourism and maritime trade. All of the former require education. I also co-founded a startup company in Silicon Valley, where tech is obviously an extraordinary part of the local economy. I know nerds. I was once one. One of my kids is one – has started a hot startup in the Bay Area – and my daughter moved to the Bay Area with her BF, a senior software engineer at one of the major tech firms. My son used to have regular board game weekends at our house with some very bright nerdy kids. One of them now has a PhD in math from Yale and another from Michigan. My daughter used to dismiss these guys as nerds with smelly shoes. Guess what. Her BF was one of them (an occasional member of the group). Nerds are often missing certain social skills, which may be part of what the unhappy Fox News commenters reflect.
However, I found the following article that looks at the divergence in the economies of blue and red states over time: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/09/10/america-has-two-economies-and-theyre-diverging-fast//. I think it is pretty clear that industries that employ highly educated people have been performing better. I suspect that at least some of the “educated does not mean smart” comments come from a sense of jealousy at the better prospects of the educated folks. Even if they can’t figure out how to tie their shoes, if they create new products or make algorithms more efficient, they will likely be financially more successful than their less educated peers whose shoes are neatly tied.