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Here is the other question: is it elitist to be intellectual? No!
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True, and I like the distinction you draw. But there is a difference between what a word means and how it's being used and perceived. In some cases I'm hearing it used in the current political contest with a looser connotation than what its dictionary definition would allow. I think, too, of Oscar Wylde, a member of the upper class in his society who delighted in exposing his peers as less than noble.
To me, the key point of this thread was in the quote from Way of the Mind:
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An intellectual isn’t necessarily someone more intelligent or with more knowledge than the norm. It just means that the person highly values the mind, thinking, and the pursuit of knowledge.
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Both fundamentalist Christians and Muslims consider knowledge a dangerous thing (which it is, to them). As they try to exercise more influence on our society, their "values" blend into our national values. One of their "values" is their disdain for education and intelligence. So it's necessary to invent a moral advantage to ignorance. It doesn't have any evolutionary advantage, only a philosophical one.
One of the reasons I think Marx and Wylde got away with criticizing their own class, in fact were admired by many of the peers for doing so, was that they lived in a time when intelligence was appreciated, even if it was a natural intelligence and not one developed by years in university. I, and those quoted in the OP, don't believe that same context exists today.