Happy Wednesday, Show Mo Facts supporters! Just a reminder for Missouri residents, today is the last day to register to vote! Click here to register or check your registration. In today’s blog post, we’ll evaluate and fact-check an advertisement posted to Twitter by Eric Schmitt. Technically, Eric Schmitt week was supposed to end last week, but we can’t help ourselves!
This ad is titled ‘Limousine Liberal’ and shows an actor, portraying Trudy Busch Valentine, riding around in a limo in D.C., and drinking champagne.
Claim: “My dad worked 7 days a week, midnight shift at Anheuser-Busch, my blue-collar roots run deep”
Fact: Although impressive that Eric’s father was so hard working, Eric himself has NEVER had a blue-collar job like he wants voters to believe. Schmitt has only ever worked as a lawyer, and then as his current job, as a politician. Schmitt graduated from a prestigious private Catholic school in St. Louis in 1993, DeSmet Jesuit High School, where right after he got a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Truman State University in 1997. He then immediately went to Saint Louis University School of Law, where he earned his Juris Doctor in 2000. SLU Law is a very prestigious Catholic university.
Nothing screams, “entitled and privileged” more than multiple instances of private education. It appears that Eric’s parents worked very hard in order to give him a great education and life, but Schmitt himself has never had any type of blue-collar job, although his father and grandfather might have, Schmitt, prefers to work in the white-collar environment.
This graph from Education Next shows that from 1968-2013, which would have included the time Schmitt went to his private Catholic high school, middle-income families' enrollment decreased.
It’s unlikely that Schmitt’s family would be low-income, due to their ability to send him to private high school, then college, and then to also go to law school. (note: he did receive a scholarship for SLU law, but it is not public how much that scholarship was) Even though Schmitt’s dad was working the night shift at the brewery, his family was still high-income. Schmitt has never faced struggles as a typical Missourian does.
In 2020, Missouri’s median household income is $57,290, while in Bridgerton, Missouri, Schmitt’s hometown, the median household income is $61,207. This trend is not new, as Bridgerton’s median household income has always been higher than the state average. Schmitt’s family might not have been extremely high class, but they have never struggled.
As of 2022, 12.7% of Missouri residents are living in poverty. Schmitt claims to relate to the average Missourian, but he just doesn’t. Additionally, only 13.67% of Missourians went to private school, which means he doesn’t relate to the 86% who went to public school or received some other type of K-12 education.
Schmitt is absolutely framing his life to appeal more to the average Missourian, using his family as a tactic when he has very little experience in blue-collar work.
Additionally, Schmitt’s ad poses the idea that Trudy Busch Valentine is just an heiress. Although she is the next heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, she did work as a nurse for a long period of time. She graduated from Saint Louis University, the same place where Schmitt got his law degree, with a nursing degree in 1980, and she worked at the Salvation Army Residence for Children, where she cared for vulnerable and homeless kids. Merriam-Webster actually says nurses are blue-collar workers, meaning Trudy Busch Valentine would have more experience being a blue-collar worker than Schmitt.
Overall, we’d rate this ad as HIGH on our Pants on Fire O-Meter. Schmitt’s attempt to deceive voters by claiming to have blue-collar roots is comical, not to mention attacking his competition when she has actually had a job besides sitting at a desk.
Thank you for reading Show Mo Facts! Be sure to follow us on Twitter as well as like and comment on this post. Also, send us any ads that you see and would like us to cover through our Contact page. If you’d like to check out another blog from our class, we recommend Gateway To Facts. They are fact-checking the MO DNC. Find them here!
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