This shows me you have not understood what I meant nor how Trump and his friends operate. It is irrelevant whether Denmark was awful to the level of the Trail of Tears (of course it was not) or “merely” racist in a subliminal way. They, through their usual channels (X, Meta, TikTok, Instagram etc) will set all channels of disinformation in motion to spark resentment. They will find examples, never mind how flimsy, of terrible oppression, and when they see than one case sparks feelings of outrage, they will pound on it till the Greenlanders get into a rage sufficient to get a positive vote when the referendum for independence comes. They managed with the whole of the UK, who voted to get out of the EU for no good reason, but with plenty of outrage. Can’t you see how easy it will be for them to get 50,000 non Danish inhabitants of Greenland to vote against Denmark? They already got the prime minister of Denmark to foolishly state officially that the fate of Greenland is in the hands of its inhabitants (as Stranger_On_A_Train explained further up it is more complicated than that, but now when they make it complicated they will cry “treason most foul!” and further stoke the anger). Can’t you see how easy it will be for trump & friends to run over 50,000 people when they turn their backs on Denmark? Have you not seen how they have made the rural population in vast parts of the USA vote against their own interests, a substantial part of the Black and Latino populations vote for them too? Are you blind?
And you call me obtuse and willfully blind?
Now would be a good time to start. Recognize that the other side does not play by the rules and stop being taken for a sucker. They dominate the media (and have the nerve to complain about leftist bias), the social media, the courts and they have just gotten a criminal fool out of jail forever and into the White House, and you are mad at me for telling you that they are on their way to another victory here?
That shows me that they really are winning. I am not the enemy. You are wasting your anger and your energy.
Exactly the same rhetoric I hear in China when I bring up independence of Taiwan or Hong kong. It’s so dangerous to give people a free choice! It’s clearly all Western propaganda.
Greenland has been moving towards independence for decades, it’s not some overnight Maga magic.
I really didn’t see the point of bringing up Greenland’s relatively peaceful history especially consider our history is far worse… My point was that Greenlands citizens are given a much better deal than in the US. Their government provides more benefits to their middle class citizens and don’t cater to the desires of their 1% nearly as much.
Now it is true that the inhabitants of Greenland may wish for their own autonomy from Denmark due to historical grievences but that’s vastly different than wanting to surrender their autonomy to the US. Their people would have to be fools to surrender their autonomy to the US in light if how badly we treat our own cituzens and how we committed far worse atrocities to the inhabitants of this country.
I also think you are way off base when you say Trump and his cronies are on their way to another victory with respects to this issue. Trump and company may be able to fool the people of this country but they sure aren’t fooling anyone outside this country. I’ve seen nothing that gives me the indication that the people of Greenland are buying into this nonsense. Their government doesn’t even want to meet with Trump’s idiot son. It’s a lot easier for the rest of the world to see Trump for all his bumbling bombastic buffoonery than the people inside this country who have been inundated with a deludge of propaganda meant to turn our own citizens against each other. It’s a lot easier to see the truth for what it is from the outside looking in.
But I’ll go back even farther for my reference and mention Panama, which seems to have been subsumed by the Greenland discussion. Back when we were considering building the Panama Canal, there were strong disagreements about it (many preferred Nicaragua as the site for a canal) and Colombia, which had sovereignty over Panama, (so to a degree like the situation with Denmark and Greenland, albeit there were substantial differences). When negotiations with Colombia stalled, some of those most supportive of the Panama plan conspired with folks in Panama and members of the US Government. So (1) A group of Panamanians declared independence (2) The US recognized the independence and blocked Colombian troops from moving in to restore order and (3) the new Panamanian leadership instantly made agreements/treaties with the US to build the Canai (on US terms, of course). And the rest, as they say, is history.
(And yes, this is brief and maybe misses a point or two, but the basics are there, so chill… )
So whose to say some natives who still hold grudges against the Danes (you don’t need a lot) declare independence and the US instantly recognizes them and sends the Atlantic Fleet to ‘protect the newly-independent state of Greenland’, while sending folks appointed by Trump to do some major wheeling and dealing…
Probably unlikely, I grant you, but it wouldn’t shock me if something like this happens. And if it was to improbably work there…
Ultimately, the opinion of Greenland or Denmark doesn’t matter; it’s Trump’s opinion that matters. If he wants to conquer Greenland there’s nothing they can realistically do to stop him.
Because you’re already putting more thought into this than the one who proposed the idea.
I cannot imagine the sheer amount of daily sanewashing that will increasingly occur over the next several years, even by people who understand how ludicrous some of the suggestions truly are.
We are already to the point that it is difficult to distinguish between The New York Times and The Onion, which despite the satirical intent may now actually be unironically described as “America’s Finest News Source”. Tell me you wouldn’t have to double check to make sure this isn’t an MSNBC panel discussion:
If he put no thought into it, he might have just as easily called for each province becoming a state, an idea that would be hated by his base due to handing the Democrats the U.S. Senate.
And if he had put no thought in it, he might have just as easily called for Canada to become a U.S. territory, which is what he, as a mercantilist, really wants, but which would seem unfair to median U.S. voters.
It seems unlikely to me that he keeps on lucking out by randomly making statements that meet his political needs. You do not get to be an effective demagogue being an idiot.
Trump’s proposal is just generous enough that it not only divides Americans – Trump is dividing Canadians:
EDIT: On the basis of one poll from a bad pollster, I do NOT think that Greenlanders are in favor of a U.S. takeover. I do think that Trump is dividing Greenlanders. Judging by who they have elected locally, they are more in favor of independence, which seems to me, at this point, risky.
Re the Greenland poll, the supposed methodology is here:
There is no mention of how they might have dealt with the multiple languages and dialects spoken in Greenland. If in English – or Danish – it would not be meaningful.
If in English, maybe U.S. servicemembers mostly answered. Something is wrong here, but it is impossible for me to know what it is…
Re last post, sounds to me that they are admitting their bias, and that’s better than hiding it. Partisan Republicans are, IMHO, extremely bad at policy, but I do NOT see evidence that Republican pollsters are extremely bad at polling.
Nate Silver gives Patriot Polling a grade of “:B/C”, which is low, but no lower than some seemingly legitimate university-based pollsters.
Having said that, the idea that most Greenlanders like Trump’s plan for them seems to me an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
My wild guess is that they only polled in English and mostly got through to U.S. servicemembers having Greenland cell phone numbers.
I hope this will be followed up by a pollster who polls in Greenlandic and Danish. Until then I cannot totally dismiss it.
Again, this assumes he knows things or puts thought into things.
Are you actually crediting him with knowing Canada has several provinces and territories? I would be shocked if he could name a single one, much less three of them.
Yes. I doubt he can name many of them, but, then, I cannot name more than a couple states of Mexico. Doesn’t make me an idiot.
The evidence is that his proposals make political sense. Factual errors in them are not of a sort to hurt him in the polls, at least not in U.S. polls — and maybe not even in foreign polls. He could be incredibly lucky to keep on saying things that help him politically, but it is more plausible that he mostly knows what he is doing.
To make a silk purse out of this particular pigs ear, when next the Lone Star state runs off with the argument that Texas can and/or should secede from the Union the argument should be cited from this ne’er-do-well representative as incontrovertible refutation; that through the expedience of proximity alone, it is an honor for Texas to be part of the American fold.
)