Jordi Wild on the VOX vote and the myth of the educated voter

Jordi Wild and the VOX vote: the myth of the uneducated voter

An old tweet has resurfaced, bringing back the same old trap. Content creator Jordi Wild argued that not everyone who votes for VOX is a fascist, but that the party "has done a better job of selling its story" and capturing "the populist and less educated vote that is angry with everything and about everything". The quote has some history behind it: the message itself dates back to 2019, and since then the diagnosis has aged poorly.

The first objection is not political but a matter of form. Calling people uneducated from an account with a megaphone is the classic "everyone is an idiot except me", that national sport in which the one handing out smart badges is usually first in line. The second objection is one of substance: a vote does not qualify you. People vote according to what pinches their shoe, not according to the official gazette they have read.

The "populist vote" as a catch-all category

The framing was born lame because it compared the VOX vote with that of Podemos to conclude that both were barbershop populism, while whitewashing his own. The problem is that the drawer has run out of bottom: some argue that today VOX fishes more in working-class neighbourhoods than in offices with a diploma hanging on the wall, and that Podemos has relocated to the niche of subsidies and master's degrees. The voter the label described in 2019 no longer matches, according to these voices, the one the label points to in 2024.

Some claim the populist vote is the least educated one because it tells you what you want to hear, and that is where they place Podemos with its tale of "the caste". The argument is circular: if they promise you what you desire, you are gullible; if they promise you what you do not desire, you are mature. Nobody explains why credulity is measured by the direction of the vote and not by the CV of the person casting it.

From "posh Cayetanos" to "yokels": the label that shifts as convenient

The evolution of the insult is the most revealing fact of the whole affair. First it was said that VOX voters were posh kids from private schools and expensive universities. Later, that they were exactly the opposite. Both descriptions cannot be true at once, and yet both circulated with the same confidence. The label does not describe the voter: it describes the discomfort of the one throwing it.

The mirror works both ways. It has also been pointed out that a PSOE voter may be a public-sector clerk who has never set foot in a private company: formal education, zero street smarts. And that stupidity knows no party acronyms. The conclusion is uncomfortable for everyone: the educational bias is not the property of any single ballot.

What the data says and what it does not

The only verifiable facts are that the tweet is dated 2019 and that its author has not repeated the diagnosis with the same force since. Whether he changed his mind or simply stopped commenting is something the message does not clarify. The "less educated" label is still alive in public conversation, but it has lost the consensus that once sustained it.

One prediction remains, with reservations: as long as the debate is framed in terms of who is smarter, the analysis will not move an inch. The day votes are measured by what pinches the shoe rather than by the voter's diploma, someone will have to explain why ballot boxes do not behave like offices.