Our president has cancelled a meeting with the Prime Minister of Denmark…because she wouldn’t consider selling Greenland to him.
This is absurd.
Why.
Do.
We.
Tolerate.
This.
Degree.
Of.
Incompetence?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
umm… because you live in an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy?
Up until now, I had been just assuming that all the nonsense about “buying” Greenland had just been a few random remarks by the toddler-in-chief taken up by the late-night TV hosts and blown out of proportion (what does that even mean now?) for comic effect. But it appears I am wrong, it’s actually there in black-and-white, the senile git is really thinking about it.
Is it enough to distract him from the “space force”? if so, maybe not a bad idea.(/sn)
Trumpist don’t just tolerate it, they love it, because they have no feelings except burn-it-all-down spite for libs who tell them that there are “rules” like their parents used to.
Republicans tolerate it because they’re rich aristocrats and nothing matters except getting the wealth and power highscore.
White centrist Dems tolerate it because they see “caution” as synonymous with “strategic” and since the system is set up in their favor, any action taken feels radical.
Everyone else doesn’t have enough power.
I can’t stop thinking of this [greenland thing] as a form of gaslighting to distract us from his more sinister reasons for not wanting to have her visit. Simplest is he can’t stand being confronted by a world leader not of his gender. His misogyny struggled against Angela Merkel and it now lashes out whenever possible.
He’d rather us see him as an petulant child upset not being allowed to buy something not for sale, than as the hateful bigoted misogynous asshole he is. IE lesser of two evils he reasons irrationally
It’s not that crazy an idea. After all, I’m sure a world leader and master negotiator like Trump knows that Greenland has a high degree of autonomy from Denmark, so the decision would really be in the hands of the people of Greenland. People who have excellent socialised healthcare, free education in schools that have no need to do “active shooter drills”, great maternity and childcare benefits and a well functioning welfare system. Surely those people would be itching to join the USA, especially under its current enlightened government.
… alternatively, he could just be looking for excuses not to go to Denmark since Obama is due to visit in a few weeks, and the comparisons between the Danish people’s reception of the two might just be to the Orange Skull’s detriment.
Because it’s normal now.
I think a better plan would be to sell the USA to Denmark. Or, rather, given the appalling condition it is now in, pay Denmark to take it over. Once Scandinavian-style socialism has turned it into a country worth living in, I doubt anyone will mind.
Not Denmark. I’m willing to become part of Greenland, and allow the Inuit to be in charge.
What this is about:
Donald Trump would rather have you talking about his stupid plan to buy Greenland than about the way his incompetent trade war fumblings are threatening to tank the economy of the USA – and the world.
as non-US person I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing at least unless I realise that when US sneezes, rest of the world catches influenza….
also it reminds me when my country was in “friendly cooperation” with soviet union, when popular joke was that we should declare war on US and 30 seconds later capitulate
Probably the most disturbing element is the extent to which “serious” people went so far down the rabbit hole with Trump instead of dismissing it as obviously delusion. The normally reasonable Matt Yglesias is a good example.
Trump believes his own kayfabe of master deal-maker, a story that was invented by a ghostwriter who is now ashamed he did it. Yglesias concedes it’s a “silly” idea before going off into smarty-pants contrarian land where he will explain how it could actually be reasonable. That’s fine, but the big story here is that we have a delusional old man in the Oval Office who wants to revisit some fantasy of settling new frontier.
Reginald Selkirk:
But there hasn’t been a single day in his presidency (or his campaign, or his entire adult life) when he wasn’t being terrible and/or stupid.
I’m wondering how soon the right wingnuts will call for a military invasion of Greenland.
There are only 58,000 Greenlanders and Denmark doesn’t have much of a military.
They couldn’t stop us or even slow us down.
The US has a history of that, having seized territory from Mexico (Texas, Southwest and California), and Spain (the Philippines).
I have a feeling in Greenland and Denmark right now, the thoughts are, “They couldn’t be that crazy, could they?” followed by “Well, who knows, maybe they are.”
Trump failed to learn the first lesson of kindergarten.
Be nice to your friends, or you won’t have any.
He has insulted and started fights with NATO, the EU, Africa, Mexico, Canada, Central America, Iran, Yemen, China, Japan, Korea, Turkey, the UN, and now Greenland/Denmark.
So who trusts the US these days?
No one who has ever thought about it.
I live here and I don’t trust the USA any more.
If we ever need any help or cooperation from the rest of the world, it isn’t going to be there.
Strangely enough, we actually have a major Air Force Base in Greenland, Thule.
It’s part of our nuclear missile warning systems directed mainly against the Russians.
About now, I’m sure Denmark and Greenland are wondering just why they bothered cooperating with the USA to the extent of letting them set up a major US base.
It isn’t like they are getting anything out of it these days.
‘A narcissistic fool’: Danes hit out at Donald Trump over cancelled visit:
How the heck did the Orange Skull even get the idea in the first place? Was there a teevee special about Greenland recently?
We know that Trumpsterfire can get terribly fascinated by things he sees, like how Stormy Daniels (yet another scandal he shrugged off!) described his interest in Shark Week. Say, wasn’t it Shark Week recently for this year? Did they talk about sharks off the coast of Greenland?
The only other thing I recall reading about Greenland recently is that global warming is exposing a lot of valuable sand, which is apparently in high demand. So if there was any logic, that could be part of it. It is very strange to be talking about Greenland.
Poor Trump. He was just trying to implement what he thought was the “Green New Deal”.
Look, it’s all very simple if you can bring yourself down to Trump’s thought level for a moment:
“It’s GREEN-LAND. Green is a COLOR and it’s a LAND. So it’s a ‘Land of Color’. If we buy it, maybe we can get all of the ‘people of color’ to move there.”
At least that’s the way I imagine that Stephen Miller explained it to him.
No, it’s not incompetence, it’s racism. It’s not just racism, it’s 19th century colonial racism, where European or European descended powers buy and sell indigenous land with indigenous populations without even thinking they’d need to consult with those people, because to them they’re not people. They#re things to be sold and bought together with the land.
+++
While I don’t know how far they’d be willing to go (remember that the so called free nations were happy to let the fascists have Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia..) , Denmark is a member of the EU and while Trump is happy to bully his “friends” and “allies”, there would probably be consequences for invading one of their countries.
We’re well aware. There was the crash of a nuclear-armed plane back in 1968, several law suits by the clean-up crew, who had increased cancer rates after the job, and revelations that the Danish government had allowed the use of the base for nuclear weapons, in violation of the official non-nuclear policy and without telling anyone they had done so.
If you mention the Thule base in Denmark, that’s what people will remember. I doubt anyone feels good about it.
Oh My Fucking God!!! I thought Trump was just doing a stupid bit of trolling. He actually meant it for real!. Absolutely stunning!
jimf@20, My initial reaction was he was taken in by Eric the Red’s name for the place, Greenland, and “thought”
What are the odds that Dumbo’s attempt to buy Greenland has something to do with the oil reserves around Greenland. Greenland has been slow to sell exploration rights. Denmark has some say in the matter.
robro@25, Well, this is hair furor, so who knows. (That includes hair furor himself, who probably does not know, and will lie about it no matter what.) The glitch — of sorts — is Greenland has NO proven oil reserves (Greenland crude oil reserves by year). Having said that, it is thought “by some geologists to have some of the world’s largest remaining oil resources” (Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge).
I initially heard there was barroom banter during a cabinet meeting, where one of them joked about Greenland being for sale, hoping the Orange Skull would get it and laugh. Instead mPeach took it as a ruse as distraction to avoid meeting with the Queen of Denmark as scheduled. 45 is deadset to alienate every ally from associating with us. (all in Vlad’s plan, I suppose)
There are a lot of mineral resources in Greenland. More of them are becoming accessible due to the “it’s a fake Chinese plot” global warming. The strategic position of Greenland appears to be an afterthought. Trump wants the minerals.
It’s also possible that Trump saw a Mercator Projection map of Greenland and thinks it’s bigger than it actually is, since that projection disproportionately enlarges land area at high latitudes.
So now he’s talking about “saving great deal of expense”, as if the Denmark trip was planned specifically to discuss the purchase of Greenland? I distinctly remember news reports noting it was meant to be about some other issues. Besides, nobody in US administration has yet even made a request to start negotiations on Greenland, as it seems. I guess he’s either in face saving mode, or really desperate to keep distraction going on.
And then he talks about “rescheduling” this apparently unnecessary meeting, which I guess is just is his generic attempt at sounding less blunt.
(Speaking of blunt, I predict the next step is some early morning tweet where he puts on his cranky hat and whines along the lines of “Why can’t we have Greenland when we’re already de facto defending it with our great military and Denmark isn’t paying their NATO bills? SO UNFAIR!”)
Shorter Trump: “Don’t mess with me cuz I’m Kah-razee!”
We’re ready with your straight jacket “Mr. President.”
robro:
It also offers something for the military: bases, missile silos, secret prisons, and so forth. But whether the idea is “kill” or “drill” or both, it’s all part of the same game for these assholes.
So who trusts the US these days?
No one? The Russians seem to have a new term недоговороспособны that seems to mean not-agreement-capable.
Ever since I read “Winning Through Intimidation ” in the 1980’s I realized that that I could never trust a US politician or business person.
Whatever Trump’s motives, I think it’s incompetence to put out a trial balloon that has absolutely no chance of succeeding and makes him into a global laughing-stock (yes, yes, he was already).
However, I like the kayfabe theory of Trumpism, a term I had never heard until it was used in a political column early in Trump’s presidency.
Who is Donald Trump? Why, he’s the richest man in America. He’s a self-made billionaire. He’s the smartest guy at the negotiating table, and he goes by the title “Deal Maker”.
The fact that he’s an old man with a big ass and a prickly personality who made less return on his daddy’s money than he could have by sticking it in a mutual fund doesn’t change the kayfabe. And Trump actually does know pro-wrestling better than he knows other things (like the constitutional role of POTUS).
He’s been losing the original narrative since he’s been in office, but portraying Greenland as a “huge real estate deal” (actual messaging) ties into the kayfabe almost perfectly. This may not have been the primary purpose, but it’s the one that makes the most sense.
Besides, much of Greenland is actually “fake estate” because in many parts the bedrock is below sea level, supporting the ice sheet that’s now melting away.
raven wrote:
This recently occurred to me, too. However, now I’m actually getting concerned that, if the economy goes down the toilet over the next 15 months, Trump will increasingly start picking up wars with random countries for distraction.
I mean, he has lots of friends. Blood-gargling Nazis, dictators, billionaire oligarchs, Jeffrey Epstein… too soon?
You’re assuming that anything he does is as an honest agent of the American people. It is not.
This Greenland bullshit keeps him in the news which is otherwise full of talk about how right wing neoliberal democrats are the only hope against Bernie. It distracts from his innumerable failed policies, corruption, and looting. It creates an intensely stupid rivalry between him and a woman in a country his followers have never heard of. Or maybe it just that he’s an idiot and was thinking about it on the toilet, who knows.
Trump cancelled the trip to Denmark because his feelings were hurt.
Link
Keep in mind that Trump equates himself with the United States. He even said today, in public and to the press, “I am the chosen one.”
So, yes, narcissistic as noted in other comments above, and a petulant child, and a small-minded man-child who does not understand diplomacy.
Greenland highlights Trump’s willingness to offend close US allies:
I think Donald thinks it’s called Greenland because it is completely covered in golf courses.
I was thinking of trying to crowdfund buying a US state. Which one would anyone recommend?
lumipuna@29, Re your prediction… Yep, hair furor is now lashing out about Nato (from the Grauniad’s current live States blog):
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that an unusual number of mental malignancies exist in Trump simultaneously:
https://billmoyers.com/story/dangerous-case-donald-trump-robert-jay-lifton-bill-moyers-duty-warn/
Time to Stop Making Excuses for Trump Supporters
“They joined what they joined.”
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/20/its-2019-time-to-stop-making-excuses-for-trump-supporters/
Holy fuck I’m too prescient.
As for the general topic, a great summary by PaulBC:
WTF?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/21/just-hours-after-anti-semitic-remarks-trump-self-promotes-himself-king-israel-second
stroppy@43
“The President is a raving lunatic. He is not well.”
True enough, but the part that scares me is that absolutely nothing causes his approval rating to budge. A frightening number of Americans have gone all in on this lunatic.
If they really wanted Greenland, they’d have had the CIA building a nationalist independence movement, starting a bloody coup, then begging to become a protectorate of the US. I.e.: the same playbook they have worked over and over again. Trump’s just impatient.
@Gorzki, #10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared_(film)
I think the Greenland story was to distract from the possible looming recession. I think he thought, “I’ll buy Greenland and the media will forget all about the likely recession in the near future.”
Why do we tolerate this level of incompetence? Because if we stopped tolerating incompetence, all the major figures of both parties would be thrown out on their ears. Iraq, by itself, should have ended the careers of pretty much the entire Republican Party. But at the same time, the Democrats refuse categorically to hold candidates responsible for the disasters they’ve supported and/or voted for — Joe Biden’s record includes support for both Iraq wars (as recently as 2016 he was saying that the 2003 invasion was a good idea, and I have been unable to find any statements where he reversed on the question; he has merely stopped talking about it, the same way he has stopped talking about being against abortion), Reagan’s union-destroying NAFTA, the invasion of Libya (which, if Iraq means Bush and Cheney and Powell should be facing war crimes trials, should put Obama and Biden and Clinton up there with them), boots on the ground in Syria, the right-wing wet dream which was the TPP (it’s amazing how none of its supporters ever seem to be aware that it would have permitted corporations to have laws declared null and void on the basis of making it too hard to turn a profit)… if Democrats held their candidates responsible for incompetence, the votes for the Iraq invasion and the creation of ICE in 2002 would have pretty much stripped the party of Clinton-era names. And that would clearly be unacceptable, so incompetence just was made part of the norm for both parties and they’re really hoping nobody will talk too much about it.
blf @ #26 — “Proven” perhaps, but as you point out, there’s speculation and evidence about the extent of oil reserves around Greenland. Getting control of Greenland would be a strategic step toward exploration and exploitation of oil as well as other minerals available there.
stroppy, could we skip on the ableism? It won’t hurt Trump, but it does hurt people with mental illnesses.
Is anyone else hearing this in the voice of Dr. Evil? I mean, it’s not even a stretch.
I suspect strongly that the #OrangeIdiot wanted the Trump organization to purchase it, rather than the U.S.
@ 50
“..could we skip on the ableism?…”
Trump is toxic and harmful, quite possibly in a clinical sense, and he doesn’t belong in a position of power. If you find that idea problematic, read this again:
https://billmoyers.com/story/dangerous-case-donald-trump-robert-jay-lifton-bill-moyers-duty-warn/
Re my comment @ 30, it’s referring to Republican prison yard type political strategy, IOW deliberately using craziness (colloquial) as a way to confuse and intimidate… and in the case of Trump, to also justify his behavior.
Two different things, neither of which has anything to do with ableism.
Just out of curiosity, are you offended by the title of the Richard Prior movie “Stir Crazy” or the lyrics to the Miranda Lambert song “Mama’s Broken Heart:” (“Go and fix your make up girl it’s, just a break up run an’/Hide your crazy and start actin’ like a lady…) etc.?
(Cross-posted from poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread.)
: with boasts and insults, Trump sets new benchmark for incoherence:
I note that insults most Muslims, who do not regard the daesh-controlled territory a .
At #15, Raven wrote this:
Thule Air Base Wikipedia
Thule Air Base, or Thule Air Base/Pituffik Airport (IATA: THU, ICAO: BGTL), is the United States Air Force’s northernmost base, located 1,207 km (750 mi) north of the Arctic Circle and 1,524 km (947 mi) from the North Pole on the northwest coast of the island of Greenland.
Thule Air Base is home to the 21st Space Wing’s global network of sensors providing missile warning, space surveillance and space control to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Air Force Space Command (AFSPC).
It keeps crossing my mind that this base could be at a very strategic point when it comes to observing or stopping things that Russia might be doing. Could it be that Putin put him up to this? If he could get his moronic orange puppet to either take over Greenland (lol), or as is more likely, piss off the citizens of both Denmark and Greenland so much that Thule gets closed down, it might be something that would benefit Putin. Imagine the US not having that base there to keep an eye on Russia’s doings!
magistramarla@55, A somewhat similar opinion column in the Grauniad, Trump wanting to buy Greenland is yet another sign of Putin’s puppetry:
Aside from oil, Greenland has many other mineral reserves, including “rare earth” metals in which China currently has a near-monopoloy. And as I note in the Political Madness thread, it’s a key to claims to the Arctic seabed, over which oil, gas and minerals corporations are licking their lips as the ice melts. Claims are made by 5 countries, on the basis of possessing Arctic coasts: the USA, Russia, Canada, Norway, and – through it’s sovereignty over Greenland – Denmark. Trump has just blurted out what I bet the military-industrial complex (h/t Pres. Eisenhower) has been thinking for years: wouldn’t it be nice to get our hands on Greenland.
We don’t tolerate it. What are we supposed to do about it, storm the White House and forcibly evict him?
To KG
Protip: China produces 95% of the world’s rare earth metals, but its not because it has 95% of the world’s deposits.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-rareearth-refining/china-set-to-control-rare-earth-supply-for-years-due-to-processing-dominance-idUSKCN1T004J
Rather, current Chinese dominance over rare earth metal supply seems primarily due to the widespread radiophobia from the Greens.
https://www.mining.com/web/us-lost-plot-rare-earths/
It doesn’t help that it seems that mining and refining rare earth metals is an environmental catastrophe in China, and it probably costs a lot more to do it without severely polluting the nearby environment.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/
Yay Greens! Causing us to offshore our rare earth metal mining, and ensuring that it will be done in a horrifically worse way by China instead of under US supervision.
GerrardOfTitanServer
And here comes Don Quixote, merrily slashing away at his imaginary demons again. Truth is, the process to extract rare earths is difficult requiring many complex steps. Countries (like China) that don’t give much of a shit about the health of its workers are ideally placed to corner the market. Elsewhere, scientists are working to simplify the process that it can be done in a sensible manner nearer the source. Example:
https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/MRF/Areas/Resourceful-magazine/Issue-07/Rare-earth-challenge
To Lofty
Uhh, what? Didn’t I also mention that is one of the prominent reasons that it’s being done in China right now? I gave two reasons. Your reason is one of my two reasons. It’s like you’re trying to rebut me or something. I don’t get it.
@ GerrardOfTitanServer
Most other places (which was mainly Australia at the time) besides China simply stopped mining and processing rare earths because China did it so damn cheap it wasn’t economically viable. And one of the reasons they were so cheap (but not the only reason) was that they lacked most environmental standards. To make it economically viable in (for example) Australia was to either drop the standards (a move which would indeed be opposed by those darn “Greens”, but also by most rational thinking people), but even that wouldn’t have dropped the prices enough, or to raise the price of Chinese imports by slapping on tariffs (which would probably not have been opposed by most “Greens”), which would have the effect of raising the cost of manufacturing outside of China, so that would also imply manufactured Chinese goods containing rare earth resources should have been subjected to tariffs to level the economic playing field.
We know you have a hate-boner for those “Greens”, but this is quite reaching. The only thing regarding rare earths that can be “blamed” on the “Greens” is that they probably don’t want to drop our ecological standards to the disastrous Chinese standards.
There are several aspects in play. However, I have heard accounts and interviews from sources that I consider to be reliable (ThorCon Alliance and associated figures) who directly cite a real mine owner in the US who say that they could mine rare earth metals in the US under current US regulations if not for the severe regulations on the disposal of thorium. Rare earth metals typically come with small amounts of thorium, and naturally occurring thorium is radioactive, but barely so.
I very much attribute modern radiophobia to the Green movement today (but there are also other causes, such as the desire to stop nuclear weapon testing for peace purposes – that’s a whole fun story about how they probably faked evidence in order to get support for the treaty that bans open air nuclear weapon testing).
So, with all of this thorium that they have to dispose of, which is considered to be nuclear waste, it’s such an expense that it makes mining rare earth metals too costly and difficult to do, and again I currently trust this account as probably accurate because it comes from sources that I currently trust.
@KG:
Of course, 3 of those are allies, one is the US itself, and buying Greenland wouldn’t help against the claims of Russia at all.
We’re not in competition with Denmark in any relevant sense. Norway is much more likely to extract fossil fuels from the Arctic Ocean basin than Denmark. My read of politics here is that Canada is probably less likely than likely Norway to to do so, while very possibly more likely than Denmark (I know little to nothing of Denmark politics, but that’s my feeling based on the sliver I do know). But Greenland isn’t Canada’s.
I guess I could see Greenland maybe, possibly permitting extraction of rare earths or some other valuable ores from parts of the landmass itself someday, but that seems wildly unlikely for the foreseeable future, given their largely indigenous population and semi-independent government. But if they did do that, would that hurt US interests in any way? Certainly the US wouldn’t make more in royalties that it would cost to purchase the island, and if Greenland began to extract such minerals, US companies would be as able as anyone else to invest in enterprises on the island and take their share of the profits.
Indeed the only scenario in which I can see purchasing Greenland being any use at all is if the US wanted to extract minerals and fossil fuels while the Greenland government prohibited on-land extractions and Denmark prohibited off-shore extraction. It seems to me that the US corps could simply extract from other sources at a faster rate, given the lack of competition, and make just as much money from other mines/wells. The fossil fuels, meanwhile, would lose value as the world moves more and more towards a reduced-carbon and/or carbon-free energy economy. At the same time, the massive need for desalinization to gain fresh water for human consumption, bathing, and industry combined with the potential to extract minerals from seawater (including mountains of lithium as well as REEs) virtually guarantee continued progress toward water purification technology that offers the opportunity to extract economically valuable elements as byproducts.
In other words, elements that we might extract from the island will come closer and closer over time to a state of adequate availability with no mining necessary. The pace of that progress is not directly or precisely predictable, of course, but it’s clear that we’re going to have to put a lot of resources into water purification and it only makes sense, if we’re going to spend time and energy separating the water from the elemental sludge, to make economic use of the organic and inorganic leftovers as best we can.
In short, there’s literally nothing that the US stands to gain. Corporations would not have access to new products. The nation wouldn’t be able to shut out a competitor. The resources gained aren’t needed during the timeframe in which they become available, and as the arctic warms to make those resources more available, it is inevitable that that very warming is further evidence to the world that action must be taken to eliminate our economic use of the most valuable resource sink: fossil fuel reserves. Mining inland on the island might be possible, but not soon, and we have no idea if those minerals will be able to be brought to market in a cost-competitive manner either before or after de-glaciation.
It’s stupid. It’s disrespectful. It’s colonialist. It’s grandiose. It is grotesque.
In my opinion, neither Denmark nor Greenland responded strongly enough. But the world of international diplomacy is such that, “I’m not entirely sure you really have thought this one quite all the way through,” can be interpreted as, “You’re less intelligent than a bag of doorknobs” embroidered with multiple strings of profanities. So, who knows? Maybe they did respond strongly enough.
One of the most rabid nutcases in the Senate claims he was responsible for hair furor’s delusions, Sen Cotton says he asked Danish ambassador about selling Greenland:
Revisionist history. It was to convert three(?) disused airfields into modern aeroports — a Greenlandic plan to replace the apparently rather tiny aeroport at Nuuk. A Chinese company bid to build two(?) of the aeroports, but ultimately Greenland decided on financing from Denmark, and the company withdrew their bid.
There apparently was another incident — although again rather different to the nutter’s ravings — to convert an recently(?)-closed military base into a logistical hub for trans-Arctic shipping. Again, there was a Chinese bid; this time, Greenland decided the plan was bonkers and the facility should be reopened.
Big China — which was been calling itself a “near-Arctic power” — is certainly interested in having a presence on Greenland, presumably similar to what they’ve been up to in S.America and Africa.
I get weird Republican spam polls sometimes. One of them, from Thursday 22 August 2019, asked “Would you support an invasion of Greenland?”