James B. Greenberg, Professor Emeritus

Our options are narrowing and the costs are climbing, but while some of the damage done is irreversible, we can still do a lot to keep it from getting worse.

Climate Change, Models, and the Politics of Uncertainty Why climate models matter, why uncertainty is not our enemy, and why the real danger now comes from delay, not doubt.

Climate models were never crystal balls—they’re tools for understanding a world in flux. Five years ago uncertainty loomed large. Now the danger comes not from what we don’t know but from how fast change is outpacing politics. The science isn’t the problem. Delay is. #ClimateChange #PublicScience

Climate Delay as Policy How Power Turns Truth Into Inaction

The science is settled. The timeline is not. The new denialism isn’t disbelief—it’s delay.

#ClimateAction #ClimateDelay #FossilCapital #DiscoursesOfDelay #Policy #Power #Anthropocene

The Logic of Denial: Climate Change and the Preservation of Meaning How culture, faith, and fossil capital converged to turn scientific evidence into moral resistance.

Why do so many deny what they can already feel and see? Climate denial isn’t ignorance—it’s meaning preservation, a cultural defense against moral reckoning.
#ClimateChange #Denialism #Anthropology #PoliticalEcology #PublicAnthropology

The Century of Persuasion: How Madison Avenue Rewired the American Mind The Rise of Emotional Capitalism and the Fall of Public Reason

A century ago, Edward Bernays taught America how to sell with emotion. From Madison Ave to MAGA rallies, we’ve become fluent in persuasion and strangers to truth. The question now is what we’ve sold of ourselves.

#Propaganda #Democracy #Bernays #Advertising #Authoritarianism #MediaCulture

The Living and the Dead: An Anthropology of Power and Obedience Vampires, Zombies, and the Necrostate We’re Becoming

Between Halloween and the Day of the Dead, we flirt with the border between life and death. Our fascination with vampires and zombies reveals how power feeds, obedience spreads, and the living forget what it means to be alive.

#Anthropology #Necropolitics #Authoritarianism #DayOfTheDead #Democracy

The Illusion of Trump’s Asian Trade Deals The Spectacle of Strength and the Economic Fragility Beneath It

Trump’s Asian trade deals were hailed as triumphs, but behind the spectacle lies fragility. Allies play to his ego, not his strength—managing his volatility while rebuilding global trust without him.

#Trump #Trade #Economy #Asia #Authoritarianism #GlobalPolitics

Alice Barton (@alice22) “Dormant since 1992, the Nevada Test Site remains the nation’s only facility capable of full-scale nuclear detonations. Its very name—security site—carries an irony: for decades, the desert has served...

Born at the dawn of the atomic age, I grew up watching mushroom clouds on TV. A lifetime later, Trump’s order to restart nuclear testing revives the old theater of annihilation—where destruction itself becomes the language of power.

#NuclearSpectacle #Authoritarianism #ClimateJustice #StatePower

Constructing 1984: The Enemy Within and the Authoritarian Surveillance State How the “enemy within” frame is weaponizing surveillance, turning contracts and databases into tools of authoritarian control

When I first read Orwell’s 1984, it felt like science fiction. Today it reads like journalism. Big Brother isn’t fiction anymore—it’s Clearview AI, data brokers, and loyalty scoring dressed up as administration.

#Surveillance #Authoritarianism #Orwell #CivilLiberties #Democracy #PoliticalEconomy

When the Storm Speaks and the State Goes Silent Rising seas, silenced science, and the political economy of denial

Hurricane Melissa was not just another storm. While the seas rise, the state erases the evidence. Denial doesn’t stop the damage—it shifts the costs, silences the vulnerable, and turns disaster into political theater.

#ClimateCrisis #HurricaneMelissa #PoliticalEcology #ClimateDenial #Democracy

Trump’s War on Universities Ritual Erasure and the Attrition of Civic Infrastructure

Trump’s war on universities isn’t about budgets. It’s the authoritarian playbook—a ritual purge erasing inquiry, silencing memory, and hollowing the civic infrastructure of democracy.

#Trump #Universities #Authoritarianism #HigherEd #Anthropology #Pluralism #AcademicFreedom

The Weaponization of DEI: From Civil Rights to Cultural Erasure How Trump’s rollback of diversity and inclusion is less about policy than about rewriting belonging, legitimacy, and citizenship itself

DEI is being weaponized: inclusion recast as betrayal, equity as tyranny. This isn’t rollback of civil rights—it’s a rewriting of who belongs in America.

#DEI #Belonging #Exclusion #CivilRights #Authoritarianism

Trump’s Palace: Monumental Architecture and the Performance of Sovereignty Monuments as Power, Palaces as Sovereignty

On Oct 20, demolition began on the East Wing. Two days after No Kings Day, Trump answered protest with a palace. Architecture is no longer background—it is the script of power.

#NoKingsDay #Democracy #Authoritarianism #Architecture #Trump #History

One Nation Under God: The Deep Roots of White Christian Nationalism How religion, race, and power forged a sacred story of belonging that still shapes American politics

White Christian nationalism isn’t new. It’s a revival—rooted in conquest, slavery, and segregation—dressed up as patriotism and faith. The struggle isn’t only against policies, but against who counts as American.

#WhiteChristianNationalism #Democracy #History #CivilRights #ReligionAndPolitics

The Politics of Spectacle: Improvisational Dominance and the Erosion of Governance Improvisational dominance, ritual politics, and the dangerous intelligence of performance

Trump isn’t a puppet or a fool. His intelligence lies in spectacle, improvisation, and domination. That makes him more dangerous, not less.
#Trump #Authoritarianism #Spectacle #Democracy #Politics

One Nation, Many Realities How White Christian Nationalism Collapses America’s Plural Worlds into a Single Sacred Story

White Christian Nationalism collapses America’s plural worlds into one sacred story. Cultures are never fixed—our shared dynamism may be the best defense.
#Pluralism #Anthropology #Democracy #Culture #ReligionAndPolitics

Spectacle, Scatology, and the Authoritarian Mind Symbolic Warfare in the Age of Generative Media

Trump’s grotesque AI videos aren’t rants. They’re ritual acts of sovereignty, where humiliation becomes justice and spectacle becomes rule. To confront authoritarian power, we must first read the machinery of meaning. #Spectacle #Authoritarianism #SymbolicPower

The Volunteer: Trump, Putin, and the Theater of Affinity Trump’s admiration for Putin is not espionage but affinity—a ritualized theater of power that weakens institutions, corrodes alliances, and leaves the republic exposed.

Is Trump a Russian asset? That may be the wrong question. His open volunteering to the fraternity of autocrats—through flattery, spectacle, and sabotage—poses a deeper threat to democracy.

#Trump #Putin #Authoritarianism #Disinformation #NationalSecurity #Democracy

Trump’s Disastrous Foreign Policies How Trump’s mafia-style diplomacy, tariff wars, and gutted research budgets left America weaker, isolated, and more vulnerable abroad.

Trump’s America First policy, mafia-style diplomacy, and gutting of research budgets have left America weaker, more isolated, and open to rivals abroad.

#ForeignPolicy #AmericaFirst #Trump #Alliances #PoliticalEcology #SoftPower #TradeWars #NecronStateAbroad

The No Kings Day Protests Defiance, Civic Courage, and the Moral Ecology of Resistance in the Age of Authoritarian Drift

Citizens stood shoulder to shoulder against intimidation. The No Kings Day protests reveal the courage, solidarity, and moral clarity required to resist creeping authoritarianism.

#NoKingsDay #CivicCourage #Authoritarianism #DemocracyUnderThreat #Protest #Resistance #CommunitySolidarity #Freedom

Why Trump May Want a War with Venezuela From Cartels to Conflict: How a Manufactured Threat Serves Authoritarian Power

Trump’s war talk isn’t about cartels—it’s about power. Venezuela is the stage, but the real target is democracy at home.

#Authoritarianism #Venezuela #WarOnCartels #PoliticalEcology #Neocolonialism #Democracy

How the U.S. is turning mourning into a loyalty test and grief into grounds for exclusion How the Necrostate Punishes Dissent Through Visa Revocation

When grief becomes mandatory, it stops being personal and starts being political. The U.S. is punishing people not for what they do, but for how they feel. That’s the machinery of the necrostate.

#Authoritarianism #Necropolitics #Citizenship #FreeSpeech #GriefPolitics

Authoritarian Drift and the Normalization of Extremism How silence, loyalty, and spectacle move the boundaries of the possible until extremism becomes ordinary

Authoritarianism doesn’t arrive overnight. It creeps in through silence, loyalty tests, and rituals that make the unthinkable seem normal. Trump’s tolerance of Nazi sympathizers shows how drift becomes culture.

#AuthoritarianDrift #DemocracyUnderThreat #AnthropologyOfPower #FascismWithoutDoctrine

Commodity Identity How a society built on consumption leaves us rootless, reshapes our relationships, and turns grievance into political power

We surround ourselves with things, but lose each other in the process. Commodities promise identity and security, but deliver loneliness, resentment, and fertile ground for populism. #CommodityIdentity #Anthropology #Populism #Democracy

The Pledge Republicans Fail to Understand Why allegiance to the Republic means defending the Bill of Rights, not dismantling it

They chant the pledge but betray its meaning. Trump is trampling the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. You will have no rights under a dictatorship.

#Democracy #BillOfRights #Authoritarianism #Project2025 #CivilRights

The Shutdown as Loyalty Test How Trump turns fiscal deadlock into a weapon for Project 2025 — reshaping trust, silencing dissent, and teaching Americans to live as subjects of favor rather than citizens of a republic.

Trump said the shutdown would “inflict on Democrats.” It’s more than a budget fight. It’s a loyalty test — a rehearsal for Project 2025, where Social Security, disaster aid, and universities become levers of obedience.

#Shutdown #Project2025 #Authoritarianism #Democracy #HigherEd #SocialSecurity

The Epstein Files and the Silencing of Adelita Grijalva Why Speaker Johnson is blocking a duly elected representative and what it means for democracy.

Speaker Johnson says it’s “procedural.” But blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her oath because she would vote to the release the Epstein files. At stake also is who decides who may sit in Congress.

#AdelitaGrijalva #EpsteinFiles #SpeakerJohnson #Democracy #Disenfranchisement #Authoritarianism

The Enemy Within: The Politics of Repression in America How dissent is reclassified as disloyalty and the state turns citizens into suspects.

October 18 is being framed as treason, and ordinary acts of citizenship are recast as betrayal. The phrase “Hate America” is no longer rhetoric—it’s a governing logic.

#Democracy #Repression #Protest #Rights #Anthropology #HateAmerica

The Republic Is Not Yet Lost How institutions, law, and civic culture still hold tools to resist authoritarian capture, if we choose to use them

Trump’s is trying to military dictatorship, but the Republic is not yet lost. Authoritarianism thrives on resignation. The tools of resistance are still here—in our courts, our states, our civil society—if we choose to use them.

#Democracy #Authoritarianism #RuleOfLaw #CivilSociety #Resistance

The Generals’ Ultimatum — Purging the Last Independent Institution How Trump turned Quantico into the stage for a purge, ordering the military to fall in line and declaring war on Americans as the “enemy within.”

At Quantico, Trump declared war on the “enemy within” & told generals: fall in line or resign. The purge has begun—new forces, watchlists, loyalty tests. What starts with silence can end with repression. #Quantico #Democracy #Authoritarianism