A History of the Present

🧵1/6: For nearly all of human history, the world made sense at the scale of a face, a voice, a shared meal. Then our systems grew faster than our biology. This essay traces how abstraction, acceleration, and scale reshaped civilization—and how institutions built to serve humans slowly became forces humans now struggle to understand, govern, or escape. The future is still open. But the margin for error is thinning.

Civilizations rarely collapse all at once; they fail when the systems that once made sense no longer fit the humans living inside them.

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open.substack.com/pub/theintelle… 2/6: It has become common to describe the present as a moment of crisis. The word appears everywhere—attached to democracy, climate, technology, and war—until it begins to lose its force. What distinguishes this moment is not simply the number of problems we face, but the way so many of them appear to be failing at once.

Institutions that once absorbed stress now amplify it. Technologies designed to increase efficiency generate instability. Systems built for growth strain under their own scale. What feels like chaos is often something more specific: institutions now operating at a scale humans were never built to navigate.

What is at stake is not whether the world will change—it always has—but whether the systems shaping daily life remain legible, governable, and aligned with human needs.

For most of our existence, that misalignment did not exist.

For the vast majority of the roughly 300,000 years that anatomically modern humans have existed, people lived in small, interdependent groups.

Social life was intimate and legible. Survival depended on cooperation, shared memory, and trust reinforced through daily interaction. Technology changed slowly. Knowledge accumulated locally. Life was often dangerous and materially constrained, but it was socially dense.

Meaning was not abstract or optional; it emerged naturally from belonging, contribution, and mutual reliance.

That long equilibrium shaped the human nervous system. We evolved to read faces, track social cues, respond to immediate threats, and calibrate behavior within small communities. We are not built for constant global awareness, anonymous competition, or systems that operate faster than human comprehension.

open.substack.com/pub/theintelle…

The January 6 President

January 6 was not the end of a crisis—it was the moment America chose to postpone accountability. Five years later, the cost of that delay is no longer theoretical. It is political reality, and it is still unfolding.

🧵1/6: January 6, 2021 now belongs to a short list of American dates whose meaning no longer requires explanation. December 7, 1941. September 11, 2001. These were moments when the country learned—suddenly and irrevocably—that what it assumed to be permanent was not. January 6 belongs among them.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-january-… 2/6: It was the day a sitting president, having lost an election and failed in court, turned against the constitutional order itself. Five years later, the most unsettling fact is not that it happened. It is that the man who caused it was never decisively stopped—and must now be understood by what he tried to destroy.

President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election. That fact has never been in serious dispute. He and his allies challenged the result repeatedly, across states and jurisdictions. Those challenges failed—often quickly, often unanimously, and often for lack of evidence. Judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats rejected the claims. State officials certified the results. The legal system functioned as designed.

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

A Republic In Name Only: How Republics End Without Officially Dying

“A republic has a longer life and a greater stability than a principality, because it can adapt itself better to the diversity of circumstances.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), Discourses on Livy, Book III, Chapter 9
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🧵1/7: When President Donald Trump shared images purporting to show Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in U.S. custody, the moment carried a warning larger than the image itself. It suggested a form of power that no longer waits for law, deliberation, or institutional consent to act.

History offers a name for this condition.

Republics do not always collapse when authority escapes their institutions. Sometimes they endure—courts speaking, legislatures meeting, elections proceeding—long after the rule of law has become ceremonial, and power has learned to operate beyond it.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/a-republic-i… 2/7: When President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social images purporting to show Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, in U.S. custody—eyes and ears covered, the scene framed as a completed capture—they functioned less as information than as proof. They did not explain a process, establish jurisdiction, or argue a case. They presented domination as already accomplished.

Whatever their factual or procedural status, their purpose was unmistakable: not to persuade, but to render authority legible by staging power as a visible fact.

What mattered was not accuracy but effectiveness. The image was not governance on display, but power performing itself. Its audience was domestic. Its message was simple and old: authority works, enemies can be subdued, and strength can be condensed into a single, graspable scene. Complexity disappeared. What remained was the assurance of capacity: we did this; we could do it again.

This instinct—to convert domination into visibility—is not a modern invention. It is a political technology that predates mass media and survives every change in communications infrastructure. Wherever republics hollow without collapsing, authority learns to announce itself not through deliberation or law, but through scenes that present outcomes as settled before any institution is asked to speak.

Rome understood this logic long before algorithms or feeds. It learned that domination no longer requires persuasion once it can be seen, and that a single image of subjugation can do the work of a thousand arguments. The ancient world had no screens, but it had crowds—and Rome knew how to feed them.

When Julius Caesar defeated the Gauls, he paraded their leader, Vercingetorix, through Rome in chains before executing him as the culminating note of a triumph. It is difficult, from a modern distance, to reconstruct what that meant to a Roman crowd. It was not a policy debate. It was not even an argument. It was proof. A conquered man made visible is a conquered future made believable.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/a-republic-i…

January 3, 2026, and the End of the Rules-Based Illusion

🧵1/4: President Donald Trump’s decision to take Venezuela’s leader into U.S. custody lands amid what Poland’s prime minister has described as a pre-war era.

As Ukraine grinds on and Taiwan braces for coercive pressures, the return of spheres of influence and nineteenth-century balance-of-power diplomacy revives the logic that once carried Europe—and then the world—into catastrophe.
open.substack.com/pub/theintelle… 2/4: This morning, January 3, 2026, the world became more dangerous—and less governed by the rule of law.

President Donald Trump ordered the United States to take Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s sitting leader, into U.S. custody. According to international reporting, Maduro and his wife are expected to face criminal charges in federal court.

For many observers, the reaction was immediate approval.

Maduro presided over the destruction of one of Latin America’s most resource-rich countries, ruled with open contempt for democratic norms, and ruined the lives of millions of Venezuelans. The moral indictment against him is overwhelming. Supporters argue that extraordinary regimes require extraordinary measures, and that accountability long denied can justify exceptional action.

What is not morally simple is what this act now means.

Maduro remains the sovereign leader of a recognized state. Sovereignty is not a moral endorsement; it is a structural constraint—the rule that has historically limited how power is exercised across borders.

When sovereignty holds, diplomacy is possible, deterrence is legible, and escalation can be contained. When it erodes, power begins to justify itself.

When such systems fail, it is not great powers that absorb the immediate costs, but smaller states and civilian populations whose legal protections are the first to erode.

When the world’s most powerful state takes the leader of another state into custody unilaterally—without multilateral process, without clear congressional authorization, and with no public indication of prior consultation with allies—the lesson absorbed elsewhere is not about justice. It is about permission: about what is now possible.

The timing matters. Trump’s decision lands amid what Poland’s prime minister has publicly described as a pre-war era. Ukraine continues as a grinding conflict in which external powers test weapons, doctrines, and resolve, while Taiwan faces mounting military pressure from a China increasingly willing to demonstrate force. Across Europe and Asia, allied leaders have publicly acknowledged the need to adjust to a more unpredictable American role.

In this context, the return of spheres of influence and nineteenth-century balance-of-power diplomacy revives the logic that once carried Europe—and then the world—into catastrophe. It is the revival of Concert of Europe logic: a system in which great powers bargain over spheres, small states are treated as variables, and stability is enforced through coercion rather than law.

This did not begin today.

…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/january-3-20…

The Great Betrayal: How a U.S. Envoy Helped Russia Shape a Plan Against an American Ally

Steve Witkoff’s guidance to Vladimir Putin’s top adviser reveals a foreign-policy process captured by private channels, Russian influence, and the abandonment of an ally at war.

A U.S. envoy coached a senior Russian official on how to influence an American president into embracing a plan that advantaged an aggressor and weakened an ally fighting for its survival as a sovereign state.
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🧵1/4: A betrayal rarely arrives as a dramatic gesture. It accumulates through process—through choices that elevate an adversary’s interests while diminishing those of an ally, through private conversations that displace public commitments, through the quiet reordering of whose voice is heard first and whose is heard last. What occurred in October 2025 was neither an ideological shift nor a sudden rupture. It was something more deliberate: the migration of American power away from an ally fighting for survival and toward the autocrat attacking it.

On October 14, as Bloomberg reported, Steve Witkoff, the newly appointed special envoy, placed a five-minute call to Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s senior foreign-policy adviser. He did not present an American position or outline U.S. red lines.

Instead, he coached Ushakov with an ease that would have been notable even in peacetime. According to the Bloomberg recording, Witkoff offered no deterrent message.

Rather, he advised a senior Russian official on how best to flatter and influence an American president whose sensitivity to praise has been extensively documented in U.S. and foreign reporting.

He urged Ushakov to schedule the call before President Volodymyr Zelensky’s October 17 White House visit, ensuring that Moscow—not Kyiv—would reach President Donald Trump first. He proposed beginning with congratulations on the Gaza agreement, describing Trump as a “man of peace,” presenting Russia as cooperative, and invoking the “20-point” Gaza plan as a model. He even encouraged Putin to reference earlier “Steve and Yuri” conversations to signal rapport.

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…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-great-be… 2/4: This guidance did not come from Moscow’s political operatives. It came from a U.S. envoy—advice that helped an adversary prepare for a conversation with the American president at a moment when Ukraine depended on U.S. backing for its survival.

In American diplomacy, envoys do not serve as communications consultants to foreign leaders, especially not to adversaries engaged in active war. AFSA guidance, State Department protocol, and the White House’s “One Voice” doctrine all define envoys as extensions of the Secretary of State, charged with advancing U.S. policy rather than refining an adversary’s messaging.

Yet a U.S. envoy prepared a Kremlin adviser for a call with the American president before America’s ally had even been heard. In alliance politics, sequencing is not ceremonial; it determines influence.

The first speaker sets the frame; the second must work within it. By advising Russia on timing, tone, and approach—by helping an adversary craft a calibrated appeal to a president whose reaction to praise is a matter of public record—Witkoff granted Moscow advantages alliances normally reserve for partners. Ukraine—under attack and reliant on American military and intelligence support—entered the conversation only after the adversary had already shaped its outline.

This inversion was not procedural noise. It was, in operational terms, a form of betrayal: an American envoy equipping an adversary to shape his own president’s perceptions while the ally under attack received no comparable preparation in a moment that cannot be replayed—the initial framing that guides all subsequent decisions.

Two days later, as Bloomberg documented, Putin followed the guidance closely. He opened his two-and-a-half-hour call with Trump using the congratulatory tone, Gaza framing, and conciliatory posture Witkoff had outlined. The overlap between the coaching and Putin’s talking points was unmistakable in the recorded evidence.

Within days, Axios and Bloomberg reported that Witkoff met in Miami with Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and long identified by the Senate Intelligence Committee as a Kremlin-linked backchannel to Trump-aligned networks. By month’s end, Axios reported that Dmitriev and Ushakov were discussing how far Russia should press its “maximum” terms.

This was not coincidence. It was structure.

Dmitriev is a Kremlin-designated backchannel operator; Ushakov is Putin’s top foreign-policy aide. Both participated before Ukraine saw anything resembling a plan. The pattern was unmistakable: the adversary brought into the room early, the ally relegated to reacting after the framework had already taken shape.

The result was a shift in negotiating power toward the aggressor—before the victim state had been invited to the table.

Ukraine eventually received a 28-point peace proposal—unsigned, unattributed, and far from what Kyiv expected from a major ally. AP and Axios reported that the language displayed hallmarks of Russian bureaucratic drafting: legalistic verbs, administrative cadence, and syntactic patterns associated with Russian state memoranda rather than American diplomatic documents. Ukrainian officials recognized these features immediately. The text did not resemble something produced in Washington. It resembled something shaped in Moscow.

The damage lay not only in authorship, but in form.

A peace proposal is a trust-bearing document: an ally offers it to safeguard another’s sovereignty. Here, Ukraine received a plan labeled as American—expected from the country supplying its weapons and intelligence—only to discover linguistic traces of the state invading it.

This was not a minor irregularity. It was a procedural breach: Ukraine received, under an American banner, the conceptual architecture of the aggressor—a plan demanding concessions and long-term constraints that originated not in Washington but in consultations with the invading state. Few signals could more deeply erode confidence than a document bearing an ally’s label and an adversary’s fingerprints.

This is why the proposal alarmed Ukraine and Europe. It was not only the terms. It was the realization that the voice inside the document did not sound like Washington’s.

When Ukraine examined the plan, it found demands that, according to AP, Axios, The Guardian, and Politico Europe, would formalize Russian territorial gains without requiring Russia to withdraw or disarm.

The proposal required Ukraine to recognize Russia’s control over Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk; withdraw from additional territory Russia had not taken by force; accept frozen front lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia; renounce NATO membership; and limit its troop levels and long-range weapons. Russia, meanwhile, faced no reciprocal force caps, no withdrawal, and would receive phased sanctions relief.

These provisions were not theoretical. They would have redrawn Europe’s map, weakened Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself, and rewarded Russia’s invasion in concrete terms. They would codify gains achieved by force while constraining only the victim.

Perhaps most revealing were the proposed “security guarantees.” AP reported that they were non-binding, dependent on the political choices of future U.S. administrations, and voidable if Ukraine used certain U.S. weapons. Ukraine was being asked to trade territory and sovereignty for assurances the United States could reverse easily.

The historical record—Helsinki in 2018, the 2019 Ukraine aid pause, public statements suggesting NATO allies deemed “delinquent” might be left vulnerable, and the 2025 suspension of military and intelligence support—shaped how Kyiv evaluated those guarantees. These events, reported by CBS, PBS, AP, UPI, and the Senate Intelligence Committee, formed the context through which small states assess reliability.

When AP reported that U.S. officials warned Ukraine its intelligence support might be affected if it refused to engage with the plan, the structure clarified. Pressure flowed only toward the state under attack.

Ukraine—dependent on U.S. intelligence for air defense and targeting—was told its essential tools might be limited if it resisted a framework that advantaged the invader. Russia faced no equivalent pressure. The process resembled not negotiation but the management of Ukrainian concessions, shaped in part by early Russian input.

This dynamic aligned with longstanding Western intelligence assessments: Russia sought not only territory but enduring leverage over Ukraine. Any settlement leaving Ukraine militarily inferior or barred from NATO would invite renewed assault. Those assessments, reiterated by NATO, the European Commission, and multiple Western intelligence chiefs from 2022 to 2025, warned that a weakened Ukraine and discretionary guarantees would create conditions for future aggression—not prevent it.

European partners reacted quickly. The Guardian reported that EU leaders deemed the plan a “non-starter.” Several noted the irregularity of learning about it through press leaks rather than coordinated briefings. Allies were treated not as participants but as recipients of a nearly finished document—observers rather than stakeholders in a process that affected their security.

Ukrainian officials recognized the pattern immediately. As The Guardian and AP reported, they described the proposal as “capitulation,” “absurd,” and incompatible with sovereignty.

One adviser repeated a line held since the invasion’s first hours: “Sovereignty is not negotiable. Survival is not negotiable.” These assessments were not rhetorical; they reflected the lived experience of a country repeatedly forced to endure decisions made beyond its borders.

Historical analogies can mislead, which is why precision matters.

Munich is often invoked reflexively, but the 2025 process bears little resemblance to Chamberlain’s world. Britain entered the crisis militarily unprepared, guided by incomplete intelligence, and constrained by constitutional machinery that governed its diplomacy. Chamberlain acted within that system—defending his policy before Parliament, accepting its verdict when support collapsed, and transferring power peacefully. In a 1939 letter, he wrote, “I act as the Constitution prescribes, and I shall abide by it,” a line reflecting both his temperament and the institutional limits within which he operated.

The United States in 2025 faced none of those guardrails. Several key actions surrounding the Ukraine proposal unfolded outside the diplomatic and interagency channels meant to protect American foreign policy—under a president who had been impeached twice, first for pressuring Ukraine to advance his domestic political interests and later for encouraging a mob to disrupt the transfer of power; who was subsequently convicted in New York on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in a scheme prosecutors argued—and the jury agreed—was intended to influence the 2016 election by concealing a sexual encounter with adult film actor Stormy Daniels; and who repeatedly challenged core elements of the constitutional order.

He was also the first U.S. president ever found liable for sexual abuse and for defaming the woman who reported that abuse, in civil trials decided by two New York juries.

Those challenges included publicly encouraging his supporters to disrupt Congress’s certification of electoral votes on January 6, 2021—an assault in which more than 140 police officers were injured, several subsequent deaths were later attributed to the attack, and rioters vandalized the Capitol, including smearing human feces in hallways and offices; refusing to accept certified electoral results; proposing that parts of the Constitution be “terminated”; and publicly deriding Daniels—including in a 2018 tweet in which he called her “horseface.”

None of this resembled the constitutional discipline within which Chamberlain operated. It reflected a political environment in which the safeguards normally governing American foreign-policy decision-making had been weakened or bypassed altogether.
…eintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/the-great-be…

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.
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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…

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…

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-…

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…

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…

Black Saturday: The Day the United States Ceased to Be a Constitutional Democracy

The Moment Democracy Ceased to Function

🧵1/10: Saturday, March 15, 2025, may have seemed unremarkable to most Americans.

But in time, history will remember it as Black Saturday—the moment the United States ceased to function as a constitutional democracy.

For the first time in modern American history, a sitting president openly defied a direct federal court order—and nothing happened. No intervention. No enforcement. No consequences.

A legal ruling was issued, and the White House simply ignored it.

The White House’s Decision: Power Over Law

Inside the White House, the decision was not about law—it was about power.

A federal judge ruled against the administration. The debate inside Trump’s team was not whether the ruling was legal, but whether they could get away with ignoring it. They decided they could. And they were right.

This was not a clash between equal branches of government. It was the moment the judiciary was exposed as powerless.

The courts do not have an army. They rely on compliance.

But a court that cannot enforce its rulings is not a court—it is a suggestion box.

And a presidency that can ignore the courts without consequence is no longer constrained by law—it is an untouchable executive.

Trump did not declare the end of judicial authority in a speech.

He demonstrated it in practice.

This is how democratic systems collapse—not with a single act, but with the normalization of defiance, the expectation that a ruling can simply be brushed aside.
theintellectualist.com/black-saturday… How the System Failed to Stop Him

2/10: This moment did not happen in isolation. It happened because every prior attempt to hold Trump accountable has failed.

The system tried—and at every turn, it proved incapable of stopping him.

Impeachment failed—twice.

Criminal cases stalled.

The Supreme Court refused to rule on his disqualification.

Congress never moved to check his power.

At each step, Trump tested the system—and the system flinched.

He learned that laws are only as strong as the institutions willing to enforce them.

And so, when faced with a court ruling, he did what he had been conditioned to do—he ignored it. And nothing happened.

The Supreme Court’s Role in Making the Presidency Untouchable

The judiciary was already weakened by years of erosion, but in 2024, the Supreme Court itself ensured that when this moment arrived, there would be no legal recourse left.

In a landmark ruling, the Court expanded presidential immunity to such an extent that the office of the presidency is now functionally above the law.

A president can commit crimes while in office and face no immediate accountability.

And now, with Black Saturday, Trump has proven that he can ignore court rulings entirely without consequence.

This is not the separation of powers.

It is the absorption of power into a single branch. The courts were supposed to be the last line of defense. Instead, they have been reduced to issuing rulings the executive can freely ignore.

theintellectualist.com/black-saturday…

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.
youtube.com/watch?v=ShqC31… 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.
youtube.com/watch?v=ShqC31…

Trump Defies Second Court Order — Black Saturday Crisis Escalates

Black Saturday: The Day Democracy Ceased to Function

🧵1/9: Saturday, March 15th, 2025, may have seemed unremarkable to most Americans.

But history will remember it as Black Saturday—the day the United States ceased to function as a constitutional democracy.

A federal judge issued a lawful court order.

The President refused to comply.

No appeal. No enforcement. No institutional response.

The judiciary was defied—and nothing happened.

This was no routine conflict.

It was a constitutional orphaning—a power vacuum exposed in real time.

For the first time in modern history, a sitting president ignored a federal ruling without consequence.

The presidency, unbound by consequence, slipped outside the law.

Trump didn’t announce the end of the Constitution.
He demonstrated it.

Quietly.

Deliberately.
theintellectualist.com/black-saturday… The Rubicon Was Crossed—And Nothing Stopped It

2/9: This wasn’t erosion.
It was erasure.
The moment metastasized.
The judiciary became a suggestion box.
The system didn’t resist—it adapted.
Not to law, but to power.

Black Saturday wasn’t just an isolated incident. It was a line crossed with no return.

theintellectualist.com/black-saturday…

Bob Woodward on Donald Trump: “It looks like he wants to destroy the economy.”

A Warning from Watergate: Woodward Returns

🧵1/11: On March 28, 2025, Bob Woodward sat down with The Washington Post’s Colby Itkowitz for his first major interview since Donald Trump’s second inauguration.

It was more than a retrospective.

It was a warning.

A quiet alarm from the man who helped bring down Nixon, now sounding the signal again—this time, not over a break-in, but over the deliberate unraveling of an economy.

Woodward has written books on ten presidents. He’s interviewed Trump extensively. But in this conversation, he didn’t hedge.

When asked what Trump’s end goal appears to be, Woodward answered plainly:

“It looks like he wants to destroy the economy.”

theintellectualist.com/bob-woodward-t… Doctrine of Destruction: Trump’s Economic Endgame

2/11: To understand why a president might do that, you have to understand what he’s trying to build in its place.

During Trump’s first term, in January 2018, he summoned his economic advisors to the Oval Office.

He wanted tariffs—aggressive ones.

His chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn, warned him that tariffs would backfire. They’d raise prices on American consumers.

They’d jeopardize the very stock market gains Trump often boasted about. They’d risk triggering retaliation from allies.

Trump didn’t flinch.

He dismissed Cohn, called him a “globalist,” and told him to sit on the couch—like a subordinate being punished.

That word, globalist, wasn’t random.

In far-right discourse, it’s a term saturated with anti-Semitic overtones—used to cast Jewish figures as manipulators of finance and internationalism.

Cohn, a Jewish man and former president of Goldman Sachs, wasn’t just being ignored.

He was being marked. It wasn’t a policy debate.

It was a purge.

theintellectualist.com/bob-woodward-t…

Trump to Unveil Largest Tax Increase in World History

A Hidden Tax Bomb, Not Passed—But Imposed

🧵1/10: What if the biggest tax hike in U.S. history wasn’t passed by Congress—but snuck in through a tariff?

That’s exactly what President Trump is planning, according to economic columnist Matthew Lynn, writing for The Telegraph on March 31, 2025.

Liberation Day: A $600 Billion Fiscal Earthquake

The initiative is called Liberation Day.

It’s expected to be unveiled this week, and it could impose tariffs so sweeping that they’d generate an estimated $600 billion a year in revenue.

That’s not a side policy—it’s a fiscal earthquake.

To put that in perspective, it would exceed all corporate tax revenue in the United States and instantly become the third largest source of federal funding, behind only income taxes and payroll taxes.
youtube.com/watch?v=kvdfyn… Navarro’s Pitch: A Massive Tax Shift Without a Vote

2/10: Trump loyalist Peter Navarro pitched the plan on Fox News, saying the goal is to tax imports—particularly foreign cars and manufactured goods—in a way that “brings jobs back.”

But Navarro also admitted that the federal government could collect $600 billion a year through this new tariff structure.

If that happens, it would amount to a 15% increase in total U.S. tax revenue, without a single act of Congress.

How Trump Can Do This Alone

How is this possible?

Because under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the president has unilateral authority to impose tariffs.

That means this $600 billion tax could materialize without a single Congressional vote.

It’s a stunning shift in the structure of American taxation—executive fiat replacing legislative deliberation.

youtube.com/watch?v=kvdfyn…

To Help Trump Defy the Constitution, a GOP Senator Proposes Ending Judicial Independence

When the Judge Serves the Ruler

🧵 1/10: What happens when the judge serves the ruler?

That question haunted the Founders. They had seen what power could do to justice—and what justice must do to constrain power. That’s why they built a system where the law stands above the leader, not beneath him.

Imagine if a president lost in court—not because of bias, but because the law and the facts weren’t on their side.

A federal judge rules that the president’s actions are unconstitutional or unlawful.

Checks and balances working exactly as designed.

Now imagine that president simply creates a new court—one that agrees with him.

A custom court. A bench dressed to obey.

That isn’t reform.

That’s absolute power, rubber-stamped and notarized.

So ask yourself: What happens when the courts are no longer independent—but installed?

When the robes answer not to law, but to loyalty?

youtu.be/Stodp_iUn6U The Proposal

2/10: On March 25, 2025, Ashley Moody, a Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, proposed exactly that.

Appearing on Fox News, she suggested that the federal government should create “specialty courts” to bypass federal judges who issue rulings unfavorable to President Donald Trump.

Some defenders argue this is a fix for judicial bias—a counter to so-called “liberal” courts.

But reform operates within the system.

This proposal operates above it.

Reform seeks to uphold the rule of law.

This replaces it.

And this comes as the administration Moody defends openly defies court orders, purges civil servants, and rewrites institutional norms in real time.

Moody, a former federal prosecutor and Attorney General of Florida, framed it as reform.

But in truth, it was an attempt to sidestep judicial independence altogether.

Her proposal isn’t reform.

It’s an attempt to selectively silence the courts—using tools that history, and the very Framers whom people like Moody claim to venerate, explicitly condemned.

It echoes the kind of system the Founders studied, feared, and rejected.

The Star Chamber

The Founders knew what happens when rulers shape courts to serve their will.

In pre-democratic England—before the 1689 Bill of Rights—prerogative courts operated under direct royal authority.

Unlike common law courts, they had no juries, followed no standard legal procedures, and weren’t accountable to the public.

They held secret hearings and punished dissent without due process.

They didn’t exist to deliver justice—they existed to enforce the monarch’s will.

The most infamous of these was the Star Chamber. It answered directly to the crown. It bypassed juries, ignored legal protections, and became a tool for silencing opposition.

Its original mission was noble—punishing powerful nobles who intimidated the courts.

But once the king controlled it, it became something darker: law in appearance, repression in practice.

Its abolition in 1641 wasn’t just legal housekeeping.

It was a declaration: liberty cannot exist where power controls judgment.

The Disappeared: Trump’s Mass Deportation Machine and the Shadow Prison in El Salvador

A Knock at the Door, Then Nothing

🧵1/10: Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your brother is gone.

Not missing—disappeared.

No phone call. No charges. No lawyer.

And days later, a message appears—he’s been deported to a country he’s never been to, locked in a concrete hell designed for gang leaders and killers.

That’s not a story from Argentina’s Dirty War or Stalin’s gulags.

It happened in the United States—in 2025.

And it’s still happening, as you read this.

This is the story of The Disappeared—238 Venezuelan men secretly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s most notorious prison, CECOT—a facility condemned by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch for crimes against human dignity.
youtube.com/watch?v=pJIGxn… Not Criminals—Targets of Vulnerability

2/10: They weren’t taken because they were criminals.

They were taken because they were vulnerable—asylum seekers, migrants, dissidents—fleeing persecution, hoping for protection under American law.

Instead, they were swept up under a statute from 1798—the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime relic once used by John Adams to jail immigrants.

The Trump administration revived it and reinterpreted it to enable a deportation machine without trial, judge, or oversight.

This wasn’t a crackdown on MS-13.

Most had no criminal records.

Some were flagged only for tattoos—like Jefferson José Laya Freites, deported because of a lion on his forearm. It was assumed to be gang-related. It was actually a tribute to his Christian faith.

Or Arturo Suárez Trejo, a Venezuelan singer living in Houston, legally awaiting an asylum hearing. One morning, ICE agents came to his door.

“He’s being transferred to finish processing,” they told his daughter.

He never came home.

His family later identified him in a prison photo—head shaved, shackled, kneeling in the white uniform of El Salvador’s mega-prison.
youtube.com/watch?v=pJIGxn…

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

🧵1/13: 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.
youtu.be/ShqC3146Shw?si… 2/13: 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.
youtu.be/ShqC3146Shw?si…

Trump’s War on Lawyers Leaves His Critics Defenseless

When the Law Stands Down

🧵1/9: Some stories reveal injustice. Others show how justice itself disappears.

In a March 25, 2025 report published by The Washington Post, journalist Michael Birnbaum reveals that major U.S. law firms are now refusing to represent opponents of President Donald Trump, as the administration escalates retaliatory actions that many legal scholars warn are reshaping the American justice system itself.

Weaponizing the Legal Profession

President Donald Trump is no longer just targeting political adversaries—he’s targeting their lawyers.

Through executive orders, punitive sanctions, and quiet threats, the administration is redrawing the boundaries of professional risk.

Once-proud firms that challenged Trump’s first-term agenda are retreating, fearing loss of federal access, clients, and economic survival.

“The law firms have to behave themselves,” Trump declared.

“They behave very badly, very wrongly.”

His message is clear: resistance has consequences. And America’s legal firewall is starting to crack.
theintellectualist.com/trump-legal-cr… The Chilling Effect in Action

2/9: The tactics are surgically coercive.

Targeted law firms are barred from federal buildings.

Their attorneys stripped of security clearances.

Executive orders direct federal agencies to sever all contracts with any business that employs them.

The chilling effect is deliberate—and immediate.

Former Biden officials now facing litigation say they can’t find lawyers.

One had five firms withdraw, including a pro bono partner who backed out the day after Trump signed an order against Perkins Coie.

“The partner was livid,” the former official said, “but said leadership wouldn’t take the risk.”

When the law firms tasked with defending liberty retreat, what remains to defend the Constitution?

Compliance vs. Consequence

The harm is financial, reputational—and constitutional.

Perkins Coie estimated losses of 25% of its revenue after the order.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued a restraining order and expressed deep alarm:

“It sends little chills down my spine.”

In response, the Justice Department tried to remove her from the case, accusing her court of bias.

Another firm—Paul Weiss—chose compliance over confrontation.

After a closed-door meeting at the White House, it agreed to donate $40 million in legal work aligned with Trump’s policy goals.

The executive order against it was promptly rescinded.

Resistance brings punishment.

Compliance brings reprieve.
theintellectualist.com/trump-legal-cr…

The Disappeared: Trump’s Mass Deportation Machine and the Shadow Prison in El Salvador

A Knock at the Door, Then Nothing

🧵1/10: Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your brother is gone.

Not missing—disappeared.

No phone call. No charges. No lawyer.

And days later, a message appears—he’s been deported to a country he’s never been to, locked in a concrete hell designed for gang leaders and killers.

That’s not a story from Argentina’s Dirty War or Stalin’s gulags.

It happened in the United States—in 2025.

And it’s still happening, as you read this.

This is the story of The Disappeared—238 Venezuelan men secretly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s most notorious prison, CECOT—a facility condemned by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch for crimes against human dignity.
theintellectualist.com/the-disappeare… Not Criminals—Targets of Vulnerability

2/10: They weren’t taken because they were criminals.

They were taken because they were vulnerable—asylum seekers, migrants, dissidents—fleeing persecution, hoping for protection under American law.

Instead, they were swept up under a statute from 1798—the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime relic once used by John Adams to jail immigrants.

The Trump administration revived it and reinterpreted it to enable a deportation machine without trial, judge, or oversight.

This wasn’t a crackdown on MS-13.

Most had no criminal records.

Some were flagged only for tattoos—like Jefferson José Laya Freites, deported because of a lion on his forearm. It was assumed to be gang-related. It was actually a tribute to his Christian faith.

Or Arturo Suárez Trejo, a Venezuelan singer living in Houston, legally awaiting an asylum hearing. One morning, ICE agents came to his door.

“He’s being transferred to finish processing,” they told his daughter.

He never came home.

His family later identified him in a prison photo—head shaved, shackled, kneeling in the white uniform of El Salvador’s mega-prison.
theintellectualist.com/the-disappeare…