As a group/movement/ideology in the USA, the conservative right has been promoting a culture of anti-intellectualism since at least the 1940s, which helps explain why the country has fallen to leftist intellectuals over the course of a cultural revolution that began in the 1950s, bore fruit for the Left in the 1960s and 1970s, and is continuing, largely unchallenged on an ideological level, to this day.
Of the 55 delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention...
35 were lawyers, judges, or had legal education.
13 were merchants, businessmen, or ship-owners.
6 were significant land speculators.
11 were significant speculators of securities.
12 owned or managed slave plantations or large farms worked by slaves.
9 received most of their income from public office.
3 were retired.
2 were scientists.
3 were physicians.
1 was a university president.
1 was an ordained minister.
3 others had studied theology in an academic setting but were not formally ordained.]
The most common occupations were law, business, and slave-owning.
I didn't see "ditch digger" or blacksmith on the list, not that those occupations are not important or somehow unnecessary, but the blue collar mentality of, "I has bulging biceps and do real work, you nerd no have real skillz" doesn't build a nation or result in the formation of a government.
Obviously the numbers are higher than 55, which means it isn't mutually exclusive. It is possible to be a retired lawyer who is also a slave-owner, or a lawyer who studied theology and is also a land speculator, or a physician who is also a ship-owner who studied law.
There are generally two responses/reactions I get when I divulge I am a lawyer, either everybody in the room immediately assumes I am the smartest guy in the room and they defer to me on all matters [which isn't really warranted] or they get a knee-jerk reflexive reaction of what I would call "blue collar rage" and they feel the need to "put me in my place" by insisting I have no real skills and cannot "do real work." Those two reactions summarize the sad state of affairs of the society, because neither reaction is warranted.
Most of the lawyers I know were doing things other than law before they became lawyers, some were enlisted military personnel before they went to undergrad on the GI bill and then law school (one of my friends/colleagues was 0311 for 8 years before becoming a lawyer], some did agricultural work and went into law to handle the legal aspects of their family ranch, but they all did something prior to law; so yes they do have "real skills" to do "real work." Likewise, we're seldom the smartest on every single possible topic under the Sun, but in a society where few people have a classical education as the foundation of their education, the words of a classically educated man should tend to carry more weight than people who brag about their lack of formal education and who would be unlikely to be able to spell the names of Cicero, Cassius Dio, Tacitus, Plutarch, Livy, and Polybius, let alone discuss who they were and why their ideas matter.
The American Right thinks that Ben Shapiro is an intellectual, Rush Limbaugh was an intellectual, and other "commentators, critiques, cynics, and talking heads" constitute intellectuals and philosophers in the realm of advancing theoretical thought.
If all that was posted was, "Come attend a week-long conference of 35 lawyers and judges, a university president, 2 scientists, and 3 physicians" most modern "conservatives" would snicker and make some snide remark about "a bunch of losers who can't do real work, no thanks!"
