to suggest that all of these people - myself included - are stuck in neutral, or even reverse, because they're uneducated is simply wrong. it's the kind of thing harper would say, sure, but it's easily debunked by data.
to the rural bumpkin, all them city folk are just a bunch of liberal elitists - and that's fine for conservative voters, who then vote for conservative elites (trump merely being the most absurd example) who think exactly that, as harper did - that if you don't succeed in life, you're just uneducated.
and, of course, this imaginary liberal elite, to the extent it exists, would say the same thing - that it knows better than the unwashed masses, who would easily climb their way up if they'd only go to school.
lost in all of this nonsense being peddled by both elitist factions is that we live in a system where people are intended to fail. this is a hierarchy - people must exist at the bottom of it. and, it's not the people born into the top. it follows that, for the vast majority of people, there's really no way out of poverty, and this is by design. grasping this is fundamental, but few get it - as proletariat, we even blame each other for "failing" in a system that is designed so that nobody wins.
the average "middle class" person nowadays is raised relatively well off, takes on massive amounts of debt to get an education and ends up working in the service sector, in the end. these are educated, urban and mostly white people that are going to feel resentment at what they correctly perceive is an unfair system of nepotism and preference, not an egalitarian system of merit. and, those that buy into it will often reject merit on it's face in favour of affirmative action, and code words like "diversity".
it puts us into a rough spot, because we want a system that's equal, but we realize that the pendulum has swung rather far, and left us out. and, we have nothing to do about it, and nobody to vote for - or not really, anyways. it's a constantly shitty calculation for a lesser evil. and, we always lose, in the end.