James B. Greenberg, Professor Emeritus
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James B. Greenberg, Professor Emeritus
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James B. Greenberg is an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology in the School of Anthropology.
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The science is settled. The timeline is not. The new denialism isn’t disbelief—it’s delay.

#ClimateAction #ClimateDelay #FossilCapital #DiscoursesOfDelay #Policy #Power #Anthropocene
Climate Delay as Policy
How Power Turns Truth Into Inaction
open.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 5:23 PM
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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 Logic of Denial: Climate Change and the Preservation of Meaning
How culture, faith, and fossil capital converged to turn scientific evidence into moral resistance.
open.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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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 Century of Persuasion: How Madison Avenue Rewired the American Mind
The Rise of Emotional Capitalism and the Fall of Public Reason
open.substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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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 Living and the Dead: An Anthropology of Power and Obedience
Vampires, Zombies, and the Necrostate We’re Becoming
open.substack.com
November 2, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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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
The Illusion of Trump’s Asian Trade Deals
The Spectacle of Strength and the Economic Fragility Beneath It
open.substack.com
November 1, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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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
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...
substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:27 PM
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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
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
open.substack.com
October 30, 2025 at 1:47 PM
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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
When the Storm Speaks and the State Goes Silent
Rising seas, silenced science, and the political economy of denial
open.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:40 PM
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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
Trump’s War on Universities
Ritual Erasure and the Attrition of Civic Infrastructure
open.substack.com
October 28, 2025 at 1:52 PM
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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
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
open.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:52 PM
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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
Trump’s Palace: Monumental Architecture and the Performance of Sovereignty
Monuments as Power, Palaces as Sovereignty
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October 26, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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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
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
open.substack.com
October 25, 2025 at 11:23 PM
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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
The Politics of Spectacle: Improvisational Dominance and the Erosion of Governance
Improvisational dominance, ritual politics, and the dangerous intelligence of performance
open.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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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
One Nation, Many Realities
How White Christian Nationalism Collapses America’s Plural Worlds into a Single Sacred Story
substack.com
October 23, 2025 at 1:35 PM
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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
Spectacle, Scatology, and the Authoritarian Mind
Symbolic Warfare in the Age of Generative Media
open.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 4:19 PM
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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
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.
open.substack.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:01 PM
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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
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.
open.substack.com
October 20, 2025 at 1:41 PM
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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
The No Kings Day Protests
Defiance, Civic Courage, and the Moral Ecology of Resistance in the Age of Authoritarian Drift
open.substack.com
October 19, 2025 at 1:49 PM
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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
Why Trump May Want a War with Venezuela
From Cartels to Conflict: How a Manufactured Threat Serves Authoritarian Power
jamesbgreenberg.substack.com
October 18, 2025 at 2:22 PM
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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
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
open.substack.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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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
Authoritarian Drift and the Normalization of Extremism
How silence, loyalty, and spectacle move the boundaries of the possible until extremism becomes ordinary
substack.com
October 16, 2025 at 1:53 PM
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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
Commodity Identity
How a society built on consumption leaves us rootless, reshapes our relationships, and turns grievance into political power
open.substack.com
October 15, 2025 at 2:10 PM
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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 Pledge Republicans Fail to Understand
Why allegiance to the Republic means defending the Bill of Rights, not dismantling it
substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 1:13 PM
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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 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.
open.substack.com
October 13, 2025 at 2:09 PM
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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 Epstein Files and the Silencing of Adelita Grijalva
Why Speaker Johnson is blocking a duly elected representative and what it means for democracy.
jamesbgreenberg.substack.com
October 12, 2025 at 2:42 PM