The War on Thinking Is Tearing the United States Apart

“Not yet hanged.”

That was the caption printed under Albert Einstein’s photo in a 1933 issue of Die Judenfrage (The Jewish Question), a Nazi propaganda magazine devoted to demonizing Jewish people. The phrase “The Jewish Question” wasn’t just a title; it was a slogan the Nazi regime used to frame the very existence of Jewish people as a threat to be dealt with. Versions of it appeared in books, speeches, and newspapers across Germany. But this time it was personal. A public and direct death wish, printed under the image of one of the greatest minds in human history.

By the time that issue was published, Einstein had already seen what was coming. He had left Germany in December 1932 with his wife, Elsa, for what was supposed to be a winter lecture tour in the United States. But when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Einstein never returned. Within weeks, Hitler had already started to consolidate power. By April, the Nazi regime passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, expelling Jews and political dissidents from universities, government jobs, and schools. Teachers, professors, and scientists were removed not for misconduct or failure, but for being Jewish, or for being loyal to truth over propaganda. Einstein formally resigned from the Prussian Academy of Sciences in March, making headlines across Europe. His house in Germany was raided. His citizenship was revoked. And by October, he arrived permanently in the U.S. to join the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

But in the months between his citizenship being revoked and arriving back in the United States, Einstein wandered stateless. He spent time in Belgium, living in relative seclusion, before visiting England, where he spoke with fellow intellectuals who urged him to stay. But maybe Einstein understood something they didn’t yet see, that this wasn’t just Germany’s crisis. It was a sickness that would spread far beyond its borders. And he knew he needed to get to the one place he believed would still welcome his family, and his mind. The United States of America. It’s been said that he didn’t leave Germany simply for safety. He left because science, freedom, and open thought were no longer welcome there.

Tonight, I wondered what Albert Einstein would think about the country he fled to for safety. The country that once welcomed him for his brilliance now treats intelligence like a threat. He saw what happens when regimes fear educated minds and reward obedient ones. And I don’t think he’d recognize us. Because everything he escaped, we’re letting happen here.

With the rise of Trumpism and the MAGA movement, America has been locked in a desperate fight against the rise of anti-intellectualism. Because here in the United States, the war on intellect didn’t begin with books being burned or professors fleeing. It started with a relentless campaign to erode trust in facts, to dismantle expertise, and to turn knowledge itself into something suspicious. With scientists mocked and cable news hosts calling doctors “Big Pharma Shills,” and their audiences cheered them on. With MAHA mamas booing experts and lawmakers mocking people who spent their lives studying the very things we need them to know. Little by little, we were taught to see knowledge as arrogance. To treat education as a red flag. To believe that expertise is biased, and that ignorance is common sense and should be trusted more than any evidence-based recommendations. We’ve been taught to laugh at the idea that someone who studied medicine for a decade might know more than a guy who “did his own research” on Facebook.

Let me be clear: I don’t believe you have to go to college to be valuable or contribute. I’ve never told my daughters they had to be college-educated to make a difference in the world. Countless brilliant people are building this country with their hands, their tools, their trade, their intelligence, and their entrepreneurial spirit, and that matters just as much. But when a society starts treating all expertise with suspicion, when doctors are called frauds, teachers are branded as dangerous, scientists are dismissed as political, and credentials are spun as corruption, what’s really being attacked is trust itself. And that’s the point. Erode enough trust, and nothing feels solid. No one feels credible. And the loudest voice in the room becomes the only one people hear.

And the reason there’s such a strong push for anti-intellectualism right now is simple: it’s a necessary tool of authoritarian power. Fascist regimes can’t function in societies filled with critical thinkers. They don’t survive when people ask questions, examine facts, or challenge what they’re told. So they discredit the thinkers first. They attack scientists, professors, doctors, historians, and journalists, not because those people are wrong, but because they know too much, studied too much, and carry evidence instead of conspiracy theories. And evidence is a threat to any movement that runs on lies. When a regime discredits every outside source of expertise, it leaves itself as the only source of truth. That’s how control takes hold. Not through better arguments. Not through logic. But through confusion, fear, and forced dependence.

Because if you’re trying to build a regime based on obedience, you can’t afford to have a nation full of people who know how to think for themselves. You can’t have science, because science teaches people to challenge assumptions and test ideas. You can’t have history, because history reminds us what happens when people give up their rights, and it helps us recognize when those same patterns start to repeat. You can’t have educators, because they arm the next generation with the tools to resist. All of it becomes dangerous in a system built on lies.

So you flood the system with disinformation. You twist reality. You accuse experts of being corrupt. You make people afraid to trust anyone but you. And when that confusion sets in, when people no longer know who to believe, they become easier to control. They look to the loudest voice in the room, not the wisest. They mistake confidence for competence. And the entire country starts running on propaganda instead of truth.

That’s what anti-intellectualism is. And it’s exactly what Einstein faced nearly a hundred years ago, a regime that feared knowledge and punished those who carried it. And just like then, we’ve started driving out the educated in mass. We no longer value what people know. We only value what they can pay.

And now, in place of intellect, we demand gold. This week, Trump proudly bragged that wealthy immigrants are lining up to buy American citizenship, not because they bring ideas or knowledge or need refuge, but because they can afford to pay. It’s a sales pitch. And it makes one thing painfully clear: he doesn’t want citizens. He wants clients. People who owe him, who will trade their loyalty for access, and carry their Trump-branded gold cards like offerings to a king. This isn’t a merit-based system. It’s a loyalty club for the rich. It’s about surrounding himself with people who will never question him, because they know what they could lose if they ever fall out of his favor. It’s not about building a country. It’s about building a throne. And the message to the rest of us is just as clear: if you’re not rich, obedient, or useful, you don’t belong here.

But even loyalty has its limits. A new NBC News poll just revealed that Trump’s grip on his MAGA base isn’t as unshakable as it once seemed. The cracks are there. The number of Republicans who still identify primarily with the MAGA label is shrinking. And even among those who still do, the intensity is fading. At the start of the year, 78 percent of MAGA Republicans said they strongly approved of Trump. That number has now dropped to 70 percent. Among traditional Republicans, the drop is even steeper, from 38 percent to just 35 percent. A wide gulf is emerging, and even Trump’s most loyal base is thinning at the edges. As NBC’s Kristen Welker noted, “This is really one to watch, because historically the MAGA base has been unmovable.” But now, even that may be changing. And that matters, not because it means he’s losing power today, but because it proves something else: not everyone is buying what he’s selling anymore. People are exhausted. Confused. Some are still afraid to say it out loud, but they’re starting to see what’s really happening. The man who once cast himself as the only voice worth listening to is starting to sound less like a prophet and more like a con man.

And in the middle of all this turmoil and violence we’re living through, I took a moment to be reminded that there are still more good people in the world than we sometimes see. I woke up in the early hours of this morning to the news of an absolutely horrific attack on the Jewish community at Bondi Beach in Australia. Among the chaos and grief unfolding, one story stood out: a reportedly Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed, unarmed, didn’t run from the danger. He ran toward it. He tackled one of the shooters to the ground, wrestled the gun away, and saved an untold number of lives. A Muslim man saved Jewish people. And if we cut through all the noise, all the fear, all the headlines, all the lies we’re fed by those more invested in their own power and profit, what we see is simple: the violent extremists, the ones who pick up guns and take innocent lives, are the immediate threat. But they do not act alone. They are fed, emboldened, and protected by another kind of extremist, the propagandists who demonize entire religions, the politicians who thrive on division, and the leaders who need us to hate each other so they can keep control. They are the few, not the many. And they are the ones causing the real damage in this world, not our neighbors.

I know so many are hurting right now. I’m holding you in my heart tonight, with a hope for gentler days ahead, and the strength to keep walking toward them, together.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can help keep this work going by subscribing to my Substack; there’s a free option, or you can become a paid subscriber for just $5 a month. Paid subscriptions help me reach more people, cover more ground, and keep telling the truth about what’s happening to our country.