“Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.”
okay. firstly? the correct grammar is "fewer" philosophers. #sigh
now, that being said, the groups "welders" and "philosophers" are not mutually exclusive. you can be both. it's not like you have to choose one or the other.
furthermore, we could certainly handle more welders AND more philosophers.
a quick google of "need welder" results in dozens of thousands of job listings. welding is a learned skill and welder training is not as common as it used to be, so combine the fact of less training, or, to put it another way, fewer training opportunities -- combine that with the job openings, some significant number of which languish unfilled for literally years, and anyone would conclude that we could use more welders. but welding is a hard sell. welding isn't fun or glamorous. welding is the hot and dirty work of using fire to join pieces of metal in the manufacture of physical structures. it's not attractive, unless you consider jennifer grey in flashdance. now, that's an attractive welder.
a quick google for "need philosopher" doesn't reveal openings. instead, it reveals a metric shit-ton of well thought out articles refuting rubios's words. there are humorous rebuttals, serious rebuttals, footnoted rebuttals, spontaneous rebuttals. that's what philosophers do. i mean, they don't rebut per se, but they consider meanings and manufacture structures to put meaning in context. sometimes they manufacture out of thin air, sometimes they support the structure with other structures.
so. see what i am doing here? welders manufacture structures and philosophers manufacture structures. one is physical, one is mental.
can we do without physical structures? buildings? cars? no.
can we do without mental structures? logic? religion? no.
so.
what was ol' marco up to? well. he WAS in milwaukee, a town of physical manufacturing. he WAS in a high pressure situation, trying to make an impression, a lasting impression, trying to differentiate himself from the others on the stage. what he was doing was trying to connect with the audience in front of him, to garner applause (approval), and with the perceived larger audience of his campaign, to garner approval.
why would throwing shade on philosophers and throwing props to welders accomplish this? not sure... not sure...frankly, i'd associate neither welders nor philosophers with conservative politics. maybe if he'd been up east in the veritable hotbed of philosophy, maybe then he'd have switched it up. who knows.
who knows why anyone does anything, ever?
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