Trump is insane, melts down over Greenland

August 21, 2019 • 8:00 am

When I first heard that Trump wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark, I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t; he wants its natural resources and its strategic location, though there’s already a big air base there with listening posts. Read and weep:

Well, of course Denmark won’t sell it, so Trump doesn’t get the chance of buying a country that could become a state (can you imagine?). So Trump does what any child would do: postpones (indefinitely) a meeting with Denmark’s and Greenland’s Prime Ministers, a meeting scheduled for September in Copenhagen.

Up till now I just thought he was a bully, a narcissist, and the worst President ever; now I think he’s insane.

 

 

180 thoughts on “Trump is insane, melts down over Greenland”

    1. Though I think there must be several psychopathologies at play in the concentration of ganglia that passes for his brain, the Greenland story now pales before the latest revelation that, with the help of Wayne Allyn Root Trump is fancying himself as King of the Jews! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-news-latest-jewish-antisemitism-king-of-israel-twitter-democrats-a9072951.html

      This must explain why he excoriated American Jews who vote Democratic, and equated them with traitors.

      Reply

  4. Well, it’s not without precendent: Lousiana Purchase and Seward’s Folly. And apparently Truman had the same idea. Still it’s hard to fathom how Trump came up with the idea, or what use he thinks it would be.

    Reply

    2. Greenland is valuable for its location alone but in addition to that it has a wealth of natural resources including at least two known large oil reserves.

      Reply

      1. Yeah, ummm … the Davis Strait one … well, Cairn haven’t developed it. It’s stranded, like the North Falkland Basin discoveries. The other – you’re thinking of the onshore work in E. Greenland, and the marine modelling? It’s certainly attractive, but again not proven, and profoundly challenging.

        Reply

        1. Oh I don’t really know much at all about either one, just repeating statistics I’ve come across in the past couple of days since this Greenland proposal came up.

          Makes sense that extraction would be challenging else they probably would have been tapped already.

          Reply

          1. Yeah, I did a lot of remote areas exploration work a few years ago. The planning that goes into these things before you get to the point of planning a well is substantial. How do you get the oil (or condensate, or gas) to market being one of the more fundamental questions, long before you get to the little, hundred-million dollar questions.

          3. Well, sometimes. But mostly it’s the same-old same-old rusty boat, computer screen and grey sea. Getting there and back can be interesting but the “back” bit is normally fogged by having a week beforehand of 20+ hour days.

          4. Does your name here reflect that work?

            Inspecting gravel from interesting places?

          5. Seems like gravelinspector may have checked out, so I’ll very carefully speak for him.

            Yes, he is a geologist and based on comments over the years he seems to have done quite a bit of oil exploration field work.

          6. Looking at the rocks out of oil wells – while they’re drilling. The rocks come up as chips of gravel size to finer. I also curate the samples, QC gas and fluid sampling and collate the data for the office geologists back in head office.

    3. Sure, it’s happened before but that was in the time of colonialism. It’s very bizarre for a sovereign country to ask to purchase another sovereign country in this day and age and seems insulting.

      Reply

      1. Yeah, but let’s be fair here, wouldn’t you want to own Greenland? It would be pretty cool to own Greenland. I would do all sorts of fun things with it! Maybe I’d build an Inuit-themed park, with crazy ice skating and skiing spots modeled after igloos. I’d have the “Baby Seal Club,” where you could stay up all night doing MDMA and stuff.

        Oh, and I’d legalize MDMA. And manufacture it.

        Reply

          2. It means when you have arctic land already, you don’t need more. Canada’s arctic is not recognized by Denmark, Russia, or our greatest ally, the US. Most likely someone like Trump will take it from us one day while the world turns away. All for the resources.

          3. Oh, well it was all just a good-natured joke anyway. I figured the MDMA part would have solidified that, but one can never truly tell in these perilous times.

          4. Well yes but we already have our arctic and all its problems. Canada really would like a nice warm place.

          5. Umm, there’s a disputed island between Baffin Island (undisputed) and Greenland (undisputed). I think the military expenditure (above those of having a military presence) averages a bottle of spirits every second year, and a post-it. I don’t know about American or Russian claims to Northern Canada, but I would have thought that any mainland claims the Russians had would have lapsed with the Seward purchase.
            Or is it just that they’ve not sent ambassadors or consuls to Iqaluit?

          7. Sorry, but the Kotelny archipelago discussed there has been mapped Russian territory since the early 1800s and is only a couple of hundred km from it’s northern Asian coast. It’s as un-Russian territory as Ellesmere Island is un-Canadian.
            Of course there are NORAD generals wanting to use it as a justification for getting increased funding. That signifies to me that NORAD generals want increased funding and job security.

            They were chastised by the UN for staking claim to Canadian territory.

            Not in those articles. Where are the Russians claiming rights over what is currently deemed to be Canadian territory?
            Does letting some military bases rust mean cessation of a nation’s ownership of an area? Does re-establishment of such bases indicate a new claim?

          8. No, I wasn’t claiming those articles talked about the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. I think they were struck down in 2001 or so then have resubmitted their claim. It’s what they were doing there in 2007: https://blogs.platts.com/2015/10/12/politics-geology-money-russia-arctic/

            What is more annoying are the military flybys where all increased in the north. Russia likes to buzz its northern neighbours. I don’t know how much that is still happening but I know it was frequent under our former prime minister because Putin hated him (I can’t blame Putin for that).

          9. We’ve been getting one or two press reports every month of significant (multiple plane, bomber plus fighters are occasionally reported) for as long as I can remember. When I was working in the far northern North Sea, we’d see more on our radars than went to the press. It’s a routine form of sabre-rattling.
            I can see it would be more worrying being in Canada. How did Tennyson put it? “Russians to right of them,
            Russians to left of them,
            Russians in front of them ” – that’d be the Alaskans, or Trump’s Greenland real estate deal?

          10. It isn’t really supposed to be this way post Coldwar and it wasn’t until Putin changed his mind about things.

          12. An important reason Putin is so provocative and disagreeable, I’ve read, is as a distraction from the failed Russian economy. He and the Oligarchs really like the status quo.

          14. Also, I only thought of the Baby Seal Club because I was listening to Frank Zappa this morning.

        1. Give me a break. We aren’t dealing with Kings owning colonies are we? We are separate democracies. American presidents acting otherwise doesn’t do America’s reputation any favours. It reminds me of the U2 Lyric for Bullet the Blue Sky:

          So this guy comes up to me
          His face red like the rose of a thorn bush
          Like all the colours of a royal flush
          And he’s peelin off those dollar bills
          Slappin them down
          One hundred
          Two hundred
          </blockquote?

          Reply

      3. Can you imagine how Americans would feel if there were a larger country that tried to buy them outright, and then had a hissy fit when they were rebuffed?

        The arrogance of it is just astonishing.

        Reply

        1. I used to work in a camp ground when I was in university. It was between two well known tourist spots so people from all over the world often stopped there. There were also older locals who used to camp there in their trailers.

          This guy was the embodiment of privilege. He felt the rules didn’t apply to him. He was probably the age I am now or a bit older but he looked 20 years older than his age. I asked him to stop putting his big truck on the grass because it had rained and there were big, muddy troughs where he had ripped up the grass. Instead, could he please park his vehicle on the provided paved area. His response: “I could BUY you!”. I imagine the inhabitants of Greenland feel something like I felt when he said that. He was basically calling me a whore who was for sale. My response? Go get a white man! I got my big 6’4″ boss to holler at him. And the best part? He took me to his trailer when he yelled at him. Boy, did Mr Privilege react differently to my boss!

          Reply

          2. People who think “I can bye you” immediately give away the fact that they are devoid of any sense of the value of honesty and integrity, which for most decent people are not for sale at any price.

          3. I thunk I replied, “no you can’t because I’m not for sale”. It was especially meant from him in a “you little whore” way to me because of some of the previous comments he had made. I was only 20 at the time and I looked even younger. It was a way for him to assert dominance because he felt superior to me. I think he had recently come into some money as well so he felt especially prideful. It was very Trump of him.

          4. I think it was Oscar Wilde who once described a character who “knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

      4. Diana – “It’s very bizarre for a sovereign country to ask to purchase another sovereign country in this day and age and seems insulting.”

        That’s pretty much what the prime minister of Denmark said too, besides pointing out that Denmark doesn’t own Greenland.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE5kAXmsrsw

        To say that tRump has a screw loose would be an understatement, he hasn’t got any screws that aren’t loose.

        cr

        Reply

  5. It goes far beyond Greenland. This tweet from from Jim Ludes (cohost of Story Public Square on Sirius/XM) summarizes the last 24 hours:

    “Going to bed. Since I woke, the President questioned the loyalty of Jewish Americans; flipped on background checks after speaking to the NRA, advocated for Russia to be readmitted to G8; and cancelled trip to Denmark because they won’t sell Greenland to the United States. Madness”

    Reply

    1. The pity is that all these actions, as all his others, will have no effect on those who intend to vote for him.

      Reply

  6. I,for one,have been questioning tRUMP’s mental health, or lack of same, since before he was elected. Many renditions of his state of mind have been offered up; there’s been no dearth of analyses. There’s ample evidence that he’s not been in his/a “right” mind (except politically speaking). It is truly unnerving to have someone at the helm of our ship of state who’s nuttier than Ahab or Capt. Queeg. We can only pray we don’t sink before he’s placed back on land (preferably in a prison for the criminally insane).

    Reply

      2. I make Trump for a malevolent junior-high juvenile delinquent — the vindictive kind of kid every middle-school teacher has probably had the misfortune to meet, the kind of kid who refuses to accept responsibility for anything that goes wrong and always tries to claim credit for the accomplishments of others. The kind who mocks other students for their handicaps and physical appearance.

        Reply

          1. His personality development seems to have stagnated at about the age his parents shipped his ass off to a military boarding school upstate.

  7. I thought this was the wild Scandinavian sense of humor regarding Trump ( remember Norwegians raking their forests?) but I suppose its more likely fake – the Danes have offered to buy the USA. They’ll take everything except the politicians who’ll have to move to Russia or NK and they’ll give us a great health care and education system.

    Reply

  8. I follow a guy on Twitter who argues that Trump has frontal temporal dementia. Very worrisome reading. And we elected this guy.

    Reply

      1. Funny Facebook Thing which I can’t manage to copy here. Breaking news, Denmark planning to lend Greenland to Canada just to fuck with Trump.

        Reply

      2. He definitely has prefrontal disinhibition, but it is difficult to ascribe it to a particular ailment (eg. Alzheimers, multiple small vascular infarctions) in a patient who is plagued by several personality disorders for decades

        Reply

    1. As I ‘ve been coached … …:
      … … TO His Orangeness,
      Mz Leader Frederiksen would .n o t. … …
      .d a n e. to comply.

      Blue

      Reply

  10. I think Trump is a national embarrassment and he certainly has serious personality defect but I dont think he’s mentally ill.

    Very high stress situations tend to amplify ones defects. If you combine that with the fact that Trump wont listen to advice and doesnt care what most people think of him and I think that explains most of his behavior.

    Reply

    1. I am not disagreeing with you, Mr Wilson,
      so much as expounding upon what you state:
      Your last sentence contains within it two
      ( of the very many other ) criteria which
      Mr Trump .consistently. / .daily. exhibits:
      narcissism. https://tinyurl.com/yxkb8k73.

      from one such source: ” Is Narcissistic
      Personality Disorder … …
      a Mental Illness?

      Yes. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
      (DSM-V), Narcissistic Personality Disorder
      (NPD) is one of several personality disorders
      and IS DEFINED AS a mental illness
      that is associated with a pervasive pattern of
      grandiosity, need for admiration and lack of empathy. ”

      Blue

      Reply

  11. I can only suggest a reading: The Dangerous Case of Donald, by 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts.

    I saw a smart little article in the Post this morning that says, how Trump goes is pretty much in the hands of Xi. He will decide if Trump survives or goes down in flames.

    Reply

    1. Which I started reading just yesterday.

      There’s a new edition out, and one can find interviews with interviews Dr. Bandy Lee on Youtube

      Reply

      1. Yes, good to update as the original is two years old now anyway. I give them credit for attempting to enlighten the public or at least those who read the book. Concerned professionals who found it necessary to push the limits and explain their reasons for doing so. It seems their concerns have been proven correct.

        Reply

  12. Is there even any historical precedent for buying another country? I know that in the old colonial days some territories were traded for others. But an outright purchase? In the last 100 years?

    Anyone? Bueller?

    It’s this kind of hubris that makes yanks awfully unpopular the world over.

    Reply

    1. Weren’t Louisiana (which then was a much bigger territory than today’s state), Alaska and the Virgin Islands (which were Danish) bought for money?

      Reply

      1. Yes they were. Also President Truman made an effort to buy Greenland after WWII, which did not happen.

        Reply

  14. A theory that is supposedly popular in Denmark is that Trump’s intention from the start was to provide an excuse to cancel the scheduled meeting in Denmark because Obama will be there giving a speech just two days prior.

    I’ve no idea if that is accurate, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

    Reply

    2. Rare minerals that mostly otherwise come from China; coal; geostrategic position. Plus: if he could, then he would. Same reason a dog licks its own balls.

      Reply

      1. Rare minerals that mostly otherwise come from China

        Hmmm, that needs elaboration. There are certainly significant mineral deposits, but ones presently mainly supplied from China, is much more dubious. (I suspect bad reporting – it’s a buzzy idea at the moment, and journalists like easy phrases.)

        coal;

        Oh definitely. There are significant amounts recorded in and just under the East Greenland igneous province. It’s not really what you want for cooking into oil (good for dry gas though), but it’s an indicator of usefully low sediment oxygenation.

        geostrategic position.

        No question. It’s why Truman half-jokingly suggested buying Greenland in the – was it late 40s or 50s?

        Plus: if he could, then he would. Same reason a dog licks its own balls.

        … then why on earth did he do that thing with Stormy Daniels and the hundred kilobucks? No, let’s not go there. Not without NBC suits at least.

        Reply

  16. How, precisely, is that a “meltdown”? For Trump, that is incredibly polite. He thanks her for being direct and suggests they reschedule at a later date.

    Additionally, the US purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark previously, why would the purchase of Greenland be farcical? Countries have bought and sold territories quite often. Do I need to bring up the Lousiana Purchase, which was essentially all of the plains states from France? Or what about Alaska?

    Reply

    1. False analogy. You should at least look Greenland up in Wikipedia before making a comparison to the Virgin Islands.

      Reply

    2. Pretty sure Jefferson had some private negotiations with France regarding the availability of the Louisiana Territory, as Secretary of State William Seward did with Russia regarding Alaska, instead of doing the 19th century version of tweeting out the first damfool idea that popped into their heads.

      They both also did their negotiating in a buyers’ market. Not so President Arty McDeal.

      Reply

      1. In regard to the Louisiana Purchase, Wikipedia says this: “Jefferson tasked Monroe and Livingston with purchasing New Orleans, but the American representatives quickly agreed to negotiate for the purchase of the entire territory of Louisiana after Napoleon offered to sell it.” Jefferson just wanted New Orleans, but Napoleon wanted to get rid of the whole territory. In other words, Napoleon was eager to sell, quite a different historical situation than Trump and Denmark.In regard to Alaska, Wikipedia notes that Russia was willing to sell it to the U.S. as way of hemming in the British in British Columbia. We need to be always alert to the false historical analogy.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase

        Reply

    3. He had a hissy fit because a country refused to let him buy it. The fact that he didn’t explicitly write ‘f— you’ in big letters is hardly relevant.
      Just imagine the reaction if another nation tried something similar with America, or some part of America. There would be absolute outrage from across the political spectrum and you know it.

      And yes, places were bought from other places, but people were also bought from people once too. Slavery still exists in some locations.
      Now before you say anything, the kind of grotesque free-market-imperialism that motivates Trump isn’t as bad as slavery…but neither of them are regarded as positive things. People don’t like being seen as commodities, full stop, especially when the buyer is a useless, lying chancer who’s gone bankrupt five times and who lost a billion dollars when he was supposed to be at his most financially successful. You might as well sell your gerbil farm to Richard Gere.

      Reply

    4. In the immortal words of Gene Hackman…”I”ll take Australia”.

      By the way, CBO says more debt than previously estimated…time to buy buy buy🤑

      Reply

    5. The era in which nations could buy or sell entire lands has past. In the past, there was never any consideration for the people who occupied those lands. Indigenous people didn’t count. Today, Greenland is inhabited. To even suggest that their home can be sold to another nation is beyond absurd.

      Reply

  17. Pejorative sobriquet for Denmark’s PM Mette Frederiksen to follow, no doubt.

    That’s generally the Donald’s weapon of choice in such situations.

    Reply

    1. Indeed, Mr Kukec.
      Quite likely = .that. … … to follow.

      THE “weapon” oft employed against Us Uppity
      Disagreeing / Disagreeable … … Wimminz.

      Blue

      Reply

        1. With men, Trump almost always attacks them as being weak or sad or losers; with women he generally mocks their looks.

          Reply

  18. As sure as no god made little green apples and Aesop made sour grapes, we’ll be hearing from Trump that Greenland sucks and he never really wanted it anyway.

    Based on his past performance charts, Trump’s probably convinced himself already that the deal was Denmark’s idea in the first place and he’s a hero for saving the US a load of dough by nixing it.

    Reply

  20. I think future historians will just declare this presidency ‘non-canon’… It’s so badly written, the plot makes NO FUCKING SENSE, all the characters are unlikeable, the protagonist is a ridiculous creation whose behaviour is simply not credible…

    It just doesn’t fit into the overall ‘American president’ series, which, while it’s had its duds, has nevertheless maintained a certain level of consistency and prestige over the last few centuries.

    Reply

    1. No, the episode will be declared as “Legends”.

      Like Disney did with the Star Wars Expanded Universe after they bought Lucasfilm.

      Reply

  21. I don’t think offering to buy Greenland is crazy. The US has long had such an interest offering $100 million for it in 1946. What is crazy is Trump’s canceling his trip because Denmark said no again.

    Reply

  22. Presumably he’s just heard that Alaska was bought from Russia and thinks he can do a similar deal.

    I assume when tRump ‘offers to buy Greenland’ he means the US will pay for it and then he will be able to get some valuable concessions dirt cheap at the taxpayer’s expense?

    The guy’s a joke. A bad one.

    cr

    Reply

  23. I honestly don’t think he is insane. I think he is just extraordinarily ignorant — to a degree that makes him look he’s malfunctioning psychologically. Nope, he is really that clueless.

    He advised Teresa May to sue the EU, and then criticised her for not doing it.

    He advised the Spanish foreign minister to build a wall at the “Sahara border” — so he thinks there’s a country called the Sahara; that it borders Spain; and that it would be a suitable place for a wall.

    When he got laughed at when addressing the UN General Assembly, he told journalists that “there were many highly professional people there, including from the United Nations” — so he thinks the UN is a place, like the UAE.

    He behaves so subordinately around Kim Jong Un not so much because he loves dictators and wants to emulate them, but because on a person to person level, Kim has a more dominant personality than Trump — in other words, he has no real concept of the status of the United States President in relation to other countries.

    He probably even devalues that status because the US president can’t be that important can it — after all that black dude was one of them.

    He didn’t know that there were no planes in the War of Independence, because he is incapable of the level of abstract thought necessary to visualise the past being different to now, and has no idea that there are things that he doesn’t know.

    Now with Greenland he has probably picked up the idea that places like New Orleans were bought by a previous US president, and everyone says it was clever, so he wants to do that too.

    This is perfectly normal behaviour for Trump, but no one can conceive that such ignoramus could be in such a powerful position. He himself has absolutely no conception of how ignorant he is. Remember that interview on Fox news a while back– “I have these…. thoughts, this… thinking!” He thinks no one else has thoughts that pop into into their head out of nowhere. He really thinks he is the smartest person who ever lived.

    Reply

    1. ” Remember that interview on Fox news a while back– “I have these…. thoughts, this… thinking!””

      Do you have a link to that? I have a guilty love of his most idiotic moments, they’re just wonderful.
      I wish he was fictional so I could enjoy him like I enjoy Borat or Homer Simpson.

      Reply

      1. Oh…. Ouch…. I have looked for it but I can’t find it. It was on Fox News, maybe a year ago. He was sitting outside in a garden, and the interviewer might have been Laura Ingraham, but I’ve checked and I can’t find anything like that in interviews with her.

        Usually I wouldn’t refer to something here so vaguely, but I guess I got excited. So I apologise!

        Reply

        2. That’s ok, I don’t doubt that he said it. He’s said even stupider stuff before. I love these things he says, they’re like a Sacha Baron Cohen character come to life.

          My favourite was his reply when he was accused of lacking humility: “I have more humility than anyone in the world”.

          I mean…that’s just great comedy writing

          Reply

          1. That is a good one. Someday we’ll be able to look back on this time as one of never-ending comedy. I hope we all live long enough for that to happen.

          2. The problem is that even if he leaves in 2020, he’ll still be hanging around in the metaphorical attic like some mad auntie, ranting about CNN and whoever now has his job. He’ll still have the same number of followers on Twitter. He’ll still be promulgating bullshit on right-wing media.

            …And all at a time when the US will need to heal and try and come together after four years of fissiparous insanity. He won’t stop being dangerous after leaving office.

            It’s all rather depressing.

          3. That first paragraph reminded me of Tony Horwitz’s book Confederates in the Attic. In the late 90’s, he traveled around the 10 states that seceded from the Union- the subtitle is Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. The book came out in 1998 and it is both hilarious and chilling. The South 30 years ago (and presumably today) is still segregated in places (just not by law, but by economics and culture). And there is a deep sense of loss for white people and a yearning for a lost time that has been vastly romanticized; this sense of loss seems to manifest itself in many Southerners as anger and fear towards the “Northern Aggressors” and those they set free. Having lived in the West my entire life, this attitude is completely alien to my thinking (though I do regard the Rebel flag as an insult to the US and racially polarizing). Its as if having a chip on your shoulder is a part of white Southern culture. Mix this resentment with lots of evangelicalism and a sense of white superiority and you have the reason why the South is America’s Republican stronghold. And I would bet dollars to beignets that the South is even more fissiparous today…particularly in the last 2.5 years. But as you observe, Trump is a hero to his base, and he’ll be stirring that pot (that is very easily stirred) until his Tw*tter account is closed. And then the South will probably be the only place in the US that erects a Trump monument, or renames a library.

            (Fissiparous…thanks for the new word.)

          4. I read Confederates in the Attic recently. I agree with your assessment… well worth the read. Both funny and depressing.

          6. @ Mark – I like the sound of the book. I might give that a read. You guys have a very painful history. Rich soil for someone like Trump.
            Yes, they’ll put up statues to this prick if he gets impeached….please just vote him out okay? For the sake of the rest of the world, we need the US back functioning.

          7. Speaking of Sacha Baron Cohen characters, Trump did make an appearance on the Ali G show.

            Unlike most other famous people who fell for the ruse, Trump made no effort to play along out of public politeness. He was simply rude and walked out of the interview, not because he saw through the character, but because he recognized right away that some chav like Ali G portrayed could be of no benefit to Trump in his quest for wealth or self-aggrandizement, the only two things things that matter to him.

          8. I think Trump did realise(eventually) that, in some intangible way, he wasn’t in control and was being mocked, and then he walked out(I’m bending over backwards here to give him some credit.).

            But he still sat with SBC for something like seven minutes in the unedited version, so Trump’s claim that he ‘walked straight out’ is his usual bollocks.

          9. Yes, it’s one of the less embarrassing retractions I’ve had to make, and one of my more credible claims I’ve failed to back up.

            I could have skipped the whole thing and just linked to his twitter feed.

          10. I was thinking today that if he was a character in a comedy, we’d all be laughing.

      2. Trump played a fictional character on The Apprentice — an omniscient, honest-to-Ichan billionaire and successful businessman.

        I think a lot of Trump’s 2016 voters confused that Apprentice character for the bankruptcy-prone deadbeat stumble-bum silver-spoon conman he is IRL.

        Reply

      4. Do you have a link to that? I have a guilty love of his most idiotic moments, they’re just wonderful.

        Someone, somewhere must be compiling a list of “Greatest Presidential Bloopers”. It won’t be a Trump soliloquy – if nothing else “It depends on what the meaning of the word `is` is” and “There is no cover up.” will be on there. But boy is he going to figure strongly.
        Better do the continuity links in some language Trump doesn’t speak – not a hard restriction – otherwise he’ll get all wobbly and start kicking his hells on the carpet.

        Reply

  24. Might be insane or might be canny; Throwing crazy crap against the wall to distract news coverage from his flipping on background checks, for example. Seems to have worked in the past.

    Reply

  25. Greenland has more than strategic value. Glaciers are melting so fast, Trump could just sit around and exploit all the natural resources that will be exposed on land and sea. Then he could indeed turn Greenland into a tropical resort for a new Mar-a-Lago.

    Reply

  26. Could be part of a pre-planned scheme between Tr*mp and Putin. Next, Russia stages a fake invasion, US comes to Greenland’s defense, a truce is declared and US / Russia split Greenland between themselves.

    At the very least, Boss Tweet should lose a lot of whatever support he had from those in the US who are proud of their Danish ancestry, and a lot of them are in the upper midwest where that would be very helpful next fall.

    Reply

  27. I think Trump wanting to buy Greenland is a very good omen. He is thinking he’s going to lose in 2020 and he’s looking for things that will define his legacy. (Other than being the worst President ever, no one else even close.) If it stops him from seeking worse things to place in his legacy, perhaps the world should give him Greenland. LOL

    Reply

  28. In the classic board game “Risk”, Greenland was one of the territories you ALWAYS wanted to possess. Clearly Der Drumpenfuhrer has not progressed beyond board game level in his intercontinental relationship building strategy.

    Reply

    1. I also doubt the Donald understands that the standard Mercator projection-style world map makes Greenland look a lot bigger than it actually is.

      Reply

  30. I think he’s worried about being indicted after he leaves the Presidency and thinks he can hide out in his newly bought country that he’ll rename Trumpland. Trumpland will, of course, have no extradition treaties.

    Reply

      1. Better…thanks. I also tried to think of other policies, and was overwhelmed with an embarrassment of possibilities.

        Reply

  31. The trouble is, if the Danes sold up that is, the US taxpayer would pay for it but it would be HIS name on the title. This would be to ensure Putin didn’t get nervous of course.

    Reply

  32. There is nothing wrong with finding out if Greenland could be purchased. Any ordinary CEO would proceed as follows:

    1. Privately inquire whether Denmark is interested in selling Greenland.
    2. Upon learning that Greenland has self-rule as of 2009, privately inquire whether Greenland is interested in selling Greenland.
    3. Upon finding out they are not, say no more about it.

    What is flabbergasting about Donald Trump in this case is how he went about it. Tweeting to the world that his only reason to meet with the leader of a NATO ally was to discuss an unlikely real estate deal is ridiculous, and a completely avoidable own goal.

    Reply

    1. I totally agree but I bet his supporters think more along these lines.

      “He’s the God-damned President of the United States! He should do it however he likes. Denmark should feel lucky he even asked first.”

      Reply

      1. Yeah. My dad told me that he was visiting friends in California back when there was the big Bomarc Missile dispute between Canada & the US. A Texan told him they should just send in the marines and take over Canada. My dad told him not to do it during rush hour on the 401. Anyone from Ontario will know why that’s funny. But it is a common response among Republicans because they don’t really know how to cooperate only bully.

        Reply

  33. I maintain it’s the ongoing Operation Great Distraction. Meanwhile the great looting and dismantling of the government continues apace. Every good heist needs a good getaway.

    Conservatives always do it like that. They do nothing, let things rot, then convince the public that institutions are perhaps better off in private hands. Or do it the Republican way, outright fill their pockets at the expense of the public, and tell the voters that the money will “trickle down” 🤣

    Now Trump’s deprivation of institutions, letting them waste away, staffing them with outright lobbyist, foxes-guarding-the-henhouse is probably unprecedented, and needs an adequate coverup so that the whole extent of the damage cannot come into full view. He shows spectacle instead. Noise. Some of that might misfire, or look badly to the Blue Tribe, but much of this works excellently for the Red Tribe jingoists, who read that America is great, and has the prowess to buy even a big land.

    Reply

  38. Aidan: Since Peters (unwittingly?) resurrected the Gall projection, one cartographer called the Peters Projection the Unmitigated Gall Projection. Cartographer humor.

    Reply

  39. Trump is trolling the Chinese.
    The Chinese have pushed the idea of expanding three airports in Greenland as part of their plan for a “Polar Silk Road”

    From “Arctic Yearbook 2018″- The Self-Government Act (Folketinget,2009, article 2 and 7) facilitated that the Government of Greenland gained responsibility of the administration of and revenues from minerals and oil extraction which had previously fallen under the Danish state”

    The Chinese have already negotiated agreements with Greenland to form the “Shenghe Resources and China National Nuclear Corporation” which will allow China to extract and market Uranium, neodymium, dysprosium, and yttrium deposits in Greenland.

    Reply

      1. I am not excluding the possibility that Trump was briefed on the complexities of Chinese influence in Greenland, and concluded that offering to buy it was a great idea.

        But it is an interesting issue. The introduction of identity politics have led to many of the majority Inuit viewing Denmark as an exploiting colonial power, and also some belief that the Chinese are less so, partly on account of a shared “Asian” identity.

        Another interesting aspect is that although Greenland law requires qualified Greenlanders
        be offered any job before foreign citizens can be imported to work, Greenland is pretty sparsely populated, so even the state-owned Royal Greenland fish processing has been importing Chinese workers since 2017.
        I hope that Chinese influence in Greenland will not end up the same way it has in the DR of Congo. I have seen that for myself, and it is real old-time colonialism.

        Reply

        1. China, I’m sure, is not building roads in Greenland and elsewhere out of the goodness of the Central Committee’s heart.

          Reply

        2. I see another, similar, theory under consideration. Denmark is in a conflict over some pipeline Russia wants to build. Denmark wants to the US to help them block it. Perhaps Trump was trying to put a price on that support.

          Reply

        3. Are there really Inuit with an “Asian” identity? (I know that of course biologically they are relatively recent newcomers to the Americans relative to other Native Americans, but …)

          Reply

  40. I almost wish he’d succeed. Another 3 democratic votes in the electoral college and 2 practically-socialists in the Senate would certainly alter the checkerboard.

    But, for exactly those reasons, I imagine that even in the inconceivable circumstance where Denmark would’ve said “you got yourself a deal!”, Mitch McConnell would’ve scuppered it.

    Reply

  41. Maybe Denmark is starting a trend here, and the best way for a country to keep Trump from visiting is to announce that part of that country isn’t for sale.

    Too bad it comes to late for the UK. The Brits could’ve probably formulated some Trump-repellent, and saved themselves the embarrassment and pain and angst of Trump’s state visit with Her Majesty earlier this year by announcing that he couldn’t buy the Hebrides.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Steven in Tokyo Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *