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The Intellectualist

@highbrow_nobrow

Sep 6

Trump Seeks Control of 9/11 Memorial After Years of False Claims About Attacks

🧵1/5: Donald Trump is seeking federal control of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, a site built from the grief and labor of families, survivors, and New Yorkers. The move would strip authority from the nonprofit that has raised three-quarters of a billion dollars in private funds and operated the memorial since 2014.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

2/5: Trump frames it as a national honor, but his long record of false claims about 9/11 raises fears of politicization. Local leaders argue the memorial belongs to those who endured the attacks, not to Washington. At stake is whether Ground Zero remains a covenant of memory or becomes a conquest of narrative.

His own record underscores the concern.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

3/5: His own record underscores the concern.

On 9/11 itself, Trump went on television to boast that Trump Tower was now the “tallest” building in Lower Manhattan because the Twin Towers had just been destroyed. He later spread the long-debunked story that “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey had celebrated the attacks.
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Aug 19

The Bad Analogy: Why Comparing Donald Trump to Neville Chamberlain Flatters Trump and Stains Chamberlain.

1/9: Many compare President Donald Trump’s submission to President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation on Ukraine with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, but the analogy is wrong.

Prime Minister Chamberlain, though disastrously mistaken in pursuing appeasement, never sought to abolish Britain’s common law, its constitutional foundation, nor unleashed a mob against Parliament when he lost power to his Conservative colleague, Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

He remained loyal to the Crown, and no one ever credibly accused him of collaborating with Chancellor Hitler.

By contrast, President Trump betrayed allies and incited an assault on his own nation’s constitutional order.

Moreover, both the United States Senate Intelligence Committee and the Special Counsel Robert Mueller Report documented extensive contacts and Russia’s efforts at coordination with President Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-bad-anal…

I. The Analogy That Distorts

2/9: In political commentary, analogies are rarely neutral. They compress history into symbols, wielding past figures as shorthand for present judgment.

One of the most common in recent years is the claim that Donald Trump is a new Neville Chamberlain—the British prime minister whose policy of appeasement is remembered as the ultimate failure of leadership, enabling Adolf Hitler’s aggression and paving the road to world war.

At first glance, the analogy seems intuitive: both men are associated with weakness in the face of authoritarian menace.

But the comparison collapses under scrutiny. Chamberlain, for all his catastrophic misjudgment, acted in what he believed was Britain’s best interest.

Trump’s record shows no such civic good faith—the duty to place constitutional order and democratic institutions above self-interest.

To equate the two diminishes Chamberlain’s sincerity and flatters Trump with a stature he has never earned.

…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-bad-anal…

II. Chamberlain in Context: A Good-Faith Failure

3/9: Before his premiership, Chamberlain built a reputation for seriousness and service. As Minister of Health in the 1920s, he introduced twenty-one major bills—on housing reform, local government, and public health—that Parliament enacted into law (Hansard, 1923–1929).

He was known for immersing himself in committee work and parliamentary debates, reluctant even to miss sessions. His was the career of a diligent, if uncharismatic, public servant.

Appeasement arose from the conditions of its time. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and War Office returns, Britain lost about 673,000 Army soldiers in the First World War, rising to more than 900,000 deaths across the Empire, with over 1.6 million wounded.

In total, roughly 36 percent of all mobilized British and imperial forces became casualties.

The demographic toll fell most heavily on the young: men aged 15 to 24 suffered devastating rates of death and injury, and in some towns and battalions, local losses approached seven in ten. Precise figures vary, but the scale of devastation is beyond dispute.

These figures explain the public mood of the 1930s. Britain was not merely weary of war—it was demographically and psychologically broken by it. Chamberlain’s generation feared that another continental conflict would consume a second generation of youth, this time with even more devastating consequences.

Munich 1938, in which Chamberlain conceded the Sudetenland to Hitler, was celebrated by many Britons as the avoidance of catastrophe.

Within a year, that relief curdled into disillusionment as Germany pressed on to Poland. Historians still debate whether appeasement bought valuable time for rearmament or fatally emboldened Hitler.

Even critics concede that rearmament accelerated in those years, though they argue it came at a dangerous cost. What cannot be doubted is that Chamberlain believed—gravely but sincerely—that he was protecting his country.

That good faith, rooted in demographic trauma, forms a stark foil to Trump’s record, where grievance—not sacrifice—shaped every choice.

…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-bad-anal…

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Aug 5

Trump's New Work Rules Are Triggering a Rural Hunger Crisis

One grocer lost 40% of her SNAP sales overnight. For the families who disappeared, the food isn’t unaffordable — it’s unreachable.

“We Had Fewer Carts. More Silence.”

🧵1/10: In Monticello, Arkansas — population just under 9,000 — the shelves aren’t empty, but the aisles have fallen quiet. For Teresa Johnson, who has run Johnson’s Market for over 16 years, the change was sudden and unmistakable. “Week one, it was like a light switch,” she said. “We had fewer carts, fewer kids, more silence” The New York Times.

Her store once served nearly 400 SNAP-reliant households, many shopping multiple times a week. But since enforcement of the new work requirement began in early July, Johnson estimates a 38 to 42 percent drop in food stamp purchases — almost entirely from regulars she used to see weekly.

The shift wasn’t tied to seasonal change or economic growth. It stemmed directly from the revised SNAP work policy implemented under President Donald Trump’s second term, passed as part of the June debt ceiling compromise. The rule increased mandatory work hours from 20 to 30 per week for childless adults under 60, classifying those who do not meet the new standard as ineligible The New York Times.

While federal officials defended the change as a way to promote employment and personal responsibility, small-town grocers say the reality is a cascading retail crisis. “They’re rationing,” Johnson said. “Some are sending one family member with a list for everyone else” The New York Times.

Monticello has just one major grocery store — the one Johnson owns. The nearest full-service alternative is nearly 45 minutes away. With fuel prices high and transit options scarce, every lost customer represents not just a personal hardship, but the fraying of a town’s entire economic loop.

“This isn’t a city where folks can hop on a bus to Aldi,” she said. “This is where you see your neighbor, buy your dinner, and sometimes ask if anyone’s hiring.”

As July wore on, Johnson noticed more parents counting coins, more elders holding off on protein, and fewer families walking through her automatic doors. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” she added. “Not even during COVID.”
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/trumps-new-w…

SNAP Isn’t a Bonus — It’s the Business Model

2/10: For rural grocers like Teresa Johnson, SNAP isn’t a bonus — it’s the economic foundation. At Johnson’s Market, nearly 70 percent of all monthly transactions once involved SNAP Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. Since the July work rule changes took effect, Johnson says her revenue has dropped by more than a third The Guardian.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has long been portrayed by federal policymakers as a welfare safety net. But in rural economies, it’s something else entirely: a stabilizer for private business. “If I lose my SNAP customers, I don’t have customers,” Johnson said.

That collapse is already visible across the country. Rural store owners from Mississippi to Missouri are cutting hours, laying off staff, and slashing fresh inventory. Some have already posted closure signs The Guardian.

In these communities, SNAP doesn’t just help feed families — it keeps grocery infrastructure viable. A single SNAP household might spend $100 to $250 a month, most of it on staple goods with low margins. But multiplied across dozens or hundreds of households, that spending represents the volume necessary for small retailers to qualify for bulk purchasing rates and maintain access to perishable suppliers.

“When those EBT cards stop scanning,” Johnson said, “the dairy truck stops coming.”

Unlike suburban chains, independent rural grocers don’t have the buffer of private equity or diverse customer bases. They operate close to the line, often stocking inventory on 30-day credit. When SNAP-funded purchases dry up, the line collapses.

The new policy’s impact isn’t just about economics, Johnson says. It also reshapes her sense of community. “I’m not just losing sales,” she said. “I’m losing neighbors. I’m losing Sunday church conversations. I’m losing the everyday check-ins that hold a town together.”
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/trumps-new-w…

A Rule Change with No Cushion

3/10: The new SNAP rule didn’t arrive with a cushion — no bridge funding, no grace period, no public awareness campaign tailored for the rural South. “Most folks didn’t even know it was coming,” said Teresa Johnson. “They just showed up one day and their cards got denied” The New York Times.

Under the terms of the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed in June, the work requirement for able-bodied adults aged 18 to 59 without dependents was increased from 20 to 30 hours weekly. The new policy took effect on July 1, 2025. But in places like Drew County, Arkansas, the infrastructure to absorb that shock simply doesn’t exist.

Federal officials estimate hundreds of thousands of Americans may be disqualified in the initial wave. Rural counties — already short on job openings, child care, and transportation — are absorbing a disproportionate share of the fallout The New York Times.

Drew County has an unemployment rate nearly double the national average. Jobs are scarce, and many that exist don’t offer stable schedules. “If you have to work 30 hours to qualify for food,” Johnson said, “but your job only gives you 25, what are you supposed to do — quit and go hungry?”

This isn’t a theoretical concern. Johnson says several of her longtime customers worked part-time at the local mill or gas station — jobs that never guaranteed 30 hours. When they lost their benefits, they also cut back on shopping, sometimes dropping by only for rice, eggs, or ramen.

“There’s no glide path here,” said one regional advocate. “This is a cliff. You fall off or you hustle to hang on” The Guardian.

Many affected individuals are unable to complete benefit appeals or requalification steps due to limited access to broadband or in-person guidance. Johnson said she’s fielded questions from customers who received rejection letters they didn’t understand. Some tried to reapply online but couldn’t complete the process without internet at home. Others gave up entirely. “You can’t navigate a bureaucracy from a flip phone,” she said.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/trumps-new-w…

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Aug 2

The Descent of American Democracy Shows No Bottom

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

― James Baldwin (1924–1987)

🧵1/11: IN 1968, just three years after Bloody Sunday and one month after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Black Americans in many Southern states were finally able to vote without fear of firebombs or billy clubs.

That was less than a lifetime ago—yet in those same states today, voters stand in line for hours, face surgical voter ID laws, or find themselves quietly purged from the rolls.

The weapons have changed—paper instead of chains, laws instead of whips—but the impulse has not.

The United States oscillates between emancipation and exclusion, between the promise of liberty and the practice of control.

But this latest swing isn’t natural. It is being pulled—by courts, legislators, billionaires, and ideologues.

And unless we confront that pull directly, democracy itself may not return to center.

…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-descent-…

A Democracy Built on Exclusion

2/11: From its founding, the United States has been animated by a paradox: a republic committed to liberty and built on domination.

Nowhere was this contradiction more violently expressed than in the American South, where an economy of cotton and blood sustained a regime of total subjugation—economic, legal, and spiritual.

Enslaved Africans were denied not just freedom, but even personhood—defined legally as property and spiritually as cursed.

The U.S. Constitution, for all its democratic pretensions, contained no affirmative right to vote.

It still doesn’t.

Voting was left to the states, many of which ensured that political power would remain white, male, and landed. Exclusion, in other words, was not a regional deviation. It was an architectural choice.

After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments promised something closer to full citizenship for the formerly enslaved.

But rights enshrined in law required power to enforce them—and that power collapsed quickly.

In 1877, as part of the infamous Compromise to resolve a disputed presidential election, Northern leaders withdrew federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. In exchange for executive power, they surrendered the project of Black citizenship.

The Jim Crow order that followed was not a spontaneous backlash—it was a deliberate reassertion of racial control through literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and racial terror.

The old slaveocracy had simply adapted to new constraints. It no longer needed chains. It had paperwork.

For nearly a century, democracy in the South was a mirage. Not until the passage—and federal enforcement—of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 did meaningful Black enfranchisement begin. And even then, it was incomplete. The Jim Crow order had not collapsed; it had simply rebranded.

Today, across many of the same states, polling places in Black communities are shuttered, voters are purged from rolls through “exact match” policies, and ID laws surgically target demographics unlikely to vote Republican. This is not a Southern betrayal.

It is an American design flaw—rooted in the founding omission of a constitutional right to vote, and perfected through a century of practice. The form is democratic. The function remains exclusionary.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-descent-…

Sectionalism Reborn

3/11: Today, the legal landscape of the United States is once again fracturing along sectional lines.

In one state, abortion is a protected right; in another, it’s criminalized. In one, transgender youth can access affirming care; in another, their doctors face felony charges.

This isn’t federalism in action—it’s the fracture of a shared constitutional identity.

The ideal of “equal protection under law” no longer means what it once did.

Some states, like California or New York, are expanding civil liberties. Others, like Texas or Florida, are engineering legal regimes to restrict them.

Once again, as in the decades before the Civil War, the country is being pulled apart not only by policy differences, but by incompatible moral visions.

These disparities raise urgent questions about national coherence.

Why should states that expand rights be required to fund federal and state systems that entrench repression elsewhere—through tax dollars, military bases, or judicial appointments?

What does “shared governance” mean when core values no longer intersect, and equal citizenship depends on geography? The Constitution may still bind the states together in law, but the cultural contract is fraying. Sectional resentment is no longer rhetorical; it’s becoming systemic.

And unless it is directly confronted, it may erode not just federal cohesion, but the very idea of the Union itself.

…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-descent-…

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Jul 27

The Rise of Hitler: A History of How Democracy Fell in Germany and Its Parallels to Today

🧵1/11: His past was steeped in scandal—a felon, accused of treason and sedition, his actions and rhetoric frequently straddling the line of legality.

He was convicted for attempting to overthrow the government, yet this criminal history didn’t disqualify him.

It only made him more appealing to those who viewed the establishment as corrupt and broken. Instead of disqualifying him, his criminal record and charges became part of his defiant charm, painting him as an outsider willing to fight the system.

Every accusation, every charge of treason, only fueled his rise, showing his supporters that he could not be tamed and was the only one willing to challenge the powers that had held the nation in their grip.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

2/11: At first, they dismissed him. The elites, the media, the political class—they thought they could control him. They mocked him as a sideshow, a foolish provocateur, destined to be forgotten.

But in the wake of high inflation, economic instability, and a country that had lost its bearings, his words struck a chord with those who had been cast aside.

In an age of rising populism, economic dislocation, and a shrinking middle class, his rhetoric didn’t promise solutions—it promised retribution.

It wasn’t just blame he offered; it was a convenient, scapegoated enemy to rally against.

His was a message soaked in anger, dripping with resentment for anyone deemed an outsider.

Minorities, immigrants, political rivals—all of them were the root of the nation’s collapse. And in this narrative of vengeance, he found his power.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

3/11: It wasn’t just the forgotten and the downtrodden who rallied to him.

His support was a web of disenfranchised voters, alienated workers, and desperate communities—a rage that turned inward, then outward.

People who had once believed in the promise of democracy now saw him as their only hope, their only defender. He was the hammer to crush a system they believed had betrayed them.

They didn’t care what he stood for, as long as he was willing to destroy the things they hated. And with every provocation, every scandal, his following grew—spurred on by his audacity and his defiance.

The more they despised him, the more they were drawn to him, their loyalty strengthening with every wave of mockery that he deflected effortlessly.
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Jul 16

Trump Savages His Own Base Over Epstein Questions — While His Decades of Ties to the Predator Haunt Him

🧵1/8: Donald Trump, already an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon, has now turned his fury on his own supporters — for daring to ask questions about his long and sordid history with Jeffrey Epstein.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

Epstein Client List Demands

2/8: On July 16, amid growing calls from Republicans and MAGA influencers for transparency about Epstein’s client list, Trump lashed out at his base, calling them “weaklings” and accusing them of doing “the Democrats’ work” by continuing to press the issue.

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax," Trump declared on Truth Social. He went further in person, saying that Republicans questioning him were “stupid” and “foolish” and that he no longer wanted their support.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

Trump’s Friendship With Epstein

3/8: Yet the questions his supporters are asking are not without reason.

Trump’s friendship with Epstein goes back to the 1980s and 1990s.

They were close — so close that Epstein told journalist Michael Wolff he was Trump’s “closest friend for ten years,” according to The Yale Review. Together, the two prowled parties at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, “hunting women,” as Wolff put it.

Wolff recalled seeing a photograph, shown to him by Epstein, of Trump with two young topless women at a party — their ages unclear but “they looked young” — and noted that Trump had a stain on his pants, which he suggested could have been biological evidence of sexual activity.

Epstein himself said Trump “tried to seduce the wives of his friends” and was “a horrible human being” despite being “charming,” according to The Yale Review.

According to Michael Wolff, Trump’s friendship with Epstein reportedly ended after a dispute over Palm Beach real estate, but Epstein represented to Wolff that he continued speaking with Trump during his first White House term — a claim that startled even Wolff, who later shared excerpts of Epstein’s recordings with The Daily Beast.

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