The author is trying to push a consistent narrative throughout the article, and unfortunately this results in the omission of alternative explanations for the phenomena discussed. For example:
> Likewise, in a fascinating study on the collapse of the Soviet Union, researchers have found that university-educated people were two to three times more likely than high school graduates to say they supported the Communist Party. White-collar professional workers were likewise two to three times more supportive of communist ideology, relative to farm laborers and semi-skilled workers.
Alternative explanation: university-educated people and white-collar professional workers personally benefitted more from the Communist Party, so of course they supported the party more.
> Educational divides within the US today are consistent with these historical patterns. The Democratic political analyst David Shor has observed that, “Highly educated people tend to have more ideologically coherent and extreme views than working-class ones. We see this in issue polling and ideological self-identification. College-educated voters are way less likely to identify as moderate.”
Alternative explanation: highly educated people spend more time and effort thinking about politics, indeed are forced to spend more time and effort thinking about politics by their teachers and peers, so of course they have more highly developed views and stronger opinions about politics.
> Research by Caitlin Drummond and Baruch Fischhoff at Carnegie Mellon University found that people with more education, science education, and science literacy are more polarized in their views about scientific issues depending on their political identity. For example, the people who are most concerned about climate change? College-educated Democrats. The people who are least concerned? College-educated Republicans. In contrast, less educated Democrats and Republicans are not so different from one another in their views about climate change.
Alternative explanation: again as above with regard to politics, highly educated people are forcibly confronted with the issue of climate change and are forced to think about it, discuss it, and form opinions about much more than less educated people.
Let's do a poll to see which group has more highly polarized opinions about sports, for example.