Modern authoritarianism doesn’t arrive with tanks. It announces itself with spreadsheets, budget cuts, accreditation fights, and the quiet capture of institutions most people barely notice—until they’re gone.
This week on Science Counterpunch, we’re joined by Professor Christina Pagel, Professor of Operational Research at UCL and creator of the Trump Action Tracker, a data‑driven record of nearly 3,000 actions documenting the attacks on democratic and scientific institutions in the U.S.
Drawing on her public communication work with Independent SAGE, Christina now raises the alarm about US politics with hard-to-refute data; explains why universities, regulators, media, and science itself are always early targets, and how fear and anticipatory compliance do much of the authoritarian work for free.
We talk about:
her data collection project “Trump action tracker” and the administration’s method behind the madness
why modern authoritarianism is quiet, bureaucratic, and strategic
how controlling data and “official numbers” beats outright censorship
why institutions don’t protect themselves—and often can’t
how vulnerable UK institutions really are (even the ones you assume are safe)
and why paying attention, speaking up, and refusing to disengage still matters
This isn’t about doom-scrolling news. It’s about pattern recognition—and a warning from someone who knows how quickly “it can’t happen here” turns into “it already has.”
Science Counterpunch is a punchy YouTube-first podcast that exists to defend the Enlightenment in an age of information warfare. We expose merchants of doubt, amplify experts under attack, and arm you with the tools to spot anti-science rhetoric before it spreads.
Evidence matters. Reason isn’t optional. Let’s counterpunch.
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