Thanks for sharing this. The piece makes an urgent point that needs to be appropriately acknowledged. It falls in the vein of arguments I've come to term as "relational poverty" or "relational inequality" arguments (what Popper is presented as terming "moral inequality" in the piece) that most social science research I've come across has failed to or is ill-equipped to account for. I do recall Amartya Sen making a definition of poverty along these grounds (in the sense of dignity, or lack thereof, in what one perceives as their social environment) some years back but haven't been able to trace it down since or see if any further work was done on it. (If someone reading this happens to know more about such work, I'd appreciate being directed towards it).

The point made about Trump expressing a liking for poorly educated folk is also noteworthy. Even if the more sensible in the political class come to acknowledge the paradox we face, the matter of articulating and expressing it appropriately arises. Currently, as the author notes, the "college for all" approach doesn't appear to be resonating electorally (that said, there are a number of confounding factors one could put forth) but rather is serving as a reminder to the once robust (perhaps this is romantic nostalgia) working- and lower-middle-classes of their lowered social standing and relational dignity.

Update: I have found a presentation of the relativistic perspective on poverty by Sen (1983). Apologies for the earlier bit, that was laziness on my part. Worth a read.

https://are.berkeley.edu/courses/ARE251/fall2008/Papers/sen8...