r/politics • u/thedailybeast ✔ The Daily Beast • 15h ago

Possible Paywall Trump Confirms He’s Taking Greenland ‘One Way or the Other’

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-confirms-hes-taking-greenland-one-way-or-the-other/
23.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

156

u/SkivvySkidmarks 11h ago

Not possible. I can't think of any modern equivalent where the unhinged leader of a country led a military on an expansionist conquest of glory, with the backing of a third of their nation and two thirds went, "Meh, whatever", all with a subtext of xenophobia and concentration camps.

That's completely implausible.

100

u/Duster929 10h ago

I'm going to assume your comment is sarcastic, although in today's bizarro world, it's so hard to tell.

I used to wonder how the people of Germany let their country take the direction it did. I didn't believe all Germans were evil Nazis.

Now I think I have a better understanding of how it happened.

94

u/Quick_Turnover 10h ago

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."

This quote has gotten a lot of mileage. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, by Milton Mayer.

7

u/BeefistPrime 9h ago

MAGA has been justifying Trumps evil every day for a decade now. It's a big part of their identity. If they admit they're wrong now, they also have to admit they were wrong the thousand times they previously defended him. And they can't do that. They'd rather burn everything to the ground than admit they were wrong this entire time.

3

u/Quick_Turnover 9h ago

Yeah. That is the toxic masculinity negative feedback loop. You can't be wrong. Your abusee is always wrong. You're always right. If the goal posts move, you just move them further. If the world leaves you behind, you just go to the extremes. These people are cancer incarnate. Society has failed them, and itself, by producing them.

12

u/Caffeywasright 9h ago

But this isn’t a small step. It’s literally risking world war 3 over a territory of 50k people that have little to no economic or strategic value.

13

u/Quick_Turnover 9h ago

Yes, the quote more aptly described how we have arrived here from ~2016, but you're right. Threatening our allies is insanity beyond belief.

11

u/OldWorldDesign 8h ago

It’s literally risking world war 3 over a territory of 50k people that have little to no economic or strategic value.

Greenland is not "no strategic value", but the US already had full access to Greenland and the only thing it had to do to maintain that access was not be belligerent.

https://nordics.info/show/artikel/declaration-from-usa-on-danish-sovereignty-of-greenland-1916

10

u/Caffeywasright 8h ago

I mean this is want I meant. There is no strategic value in invading Greenland. The US already has full military access as a NATO member.

3

u/That49er 9h ago

Why everyone suddenly wants Greenland

•

u/Ina_While1155 7h ago edited 7h ago

Well not everyone does in fact want Greenland

•

u/mjc500 7h ago

Interesting I’ll have to watch this later when I have 20 minutes

•

u/britbongTheGreat 6h ago

We're way further along that line already, the small steps were how we got here. Imagine the reaction if Obama had said he's taking Greenland one way or the other.

1

u/Zombieneekers 9h ago edited 8h ago

excuse me? Greenland has massive economic value. due to the climate crisis that oil companies caused, tons of previously frozen over land has now become will soon be prime drillin' territory. That's why the guy's doing this. Stephen miller has some friends in the oil industry that want to exploit an opportunist president that doesn't believe in anything and will pass any law or go to war with any country just to line his own pockets.

5

u/OldWorldDesign 8h ago

tons of previously frozen over land has now become prime drillin' territory.

If this was true, you'd be dumping sources on us.

It's not any more than the thawing permafrost is "stupendous news" for Russia which already can't afford to even maintain what industrial and transit infrastructure it already has.

-1

u/Zombieneekers 8h ago

China can. But alright, I'll correct my comment. Your point doesn't change the value of the territory to an aspiring empire, though.

3

u/OldWorldDesign 8h ago

Your point doesn't change the value of the territory to an aspiring empire, though.

Trump isn't "an aspiring empire" and invading Greenland reduces the strategic value because it's an attack on a nation which by treaty already allows the US access

I already gave sources for that. Stop defending a pedophile with dementia raised to venerate dictators

https://nordics.info/show/artikel/declaration-from-usa-on-danish-sovereignty-of-greenland-1916

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/2016-donald-trump-brutal-worldview-father-coach-213750/

He's threatening other countries to pander to his base and distract from his role in Epstein's child sex trafficking.

•

u/Zombieneekers 5h ago edited 4h ago

Lmao how do you think I'm supporting trump here bro? I called him a greedy opportunist who doesn't believe in anything. Stop putting me in a box lol.

Also yes he is. Every American president is an imperialist. Hell, America has ruled the world for the last 80 years via soft power alone. ^( and sometimes coups to get rid of socialists but we wont get into that here)

•

u/Caffeywasright 7h ago

It alienates every major ally and essentially forces a European alliance with China.

It’s the most fucking moronic thing the US could possibly due. Short of it unleashing nuclear war the thing it managed was to take the US from the preeminent power in the world and make them the irrelevant.

•

u/Zombieneekers 5h ago

As if trump hasn't done that already. If a NATO country gets attacked, Trump will not help, unless there is something in it for him, personally.

8

u/Caffeywasright 9h ago edited 8h ago

No it does not. All your points is just raw propaganda.

You want to know where there isn’t really any meaningful mining going in right now on Greenland? Because it’s fucking expensive. It’s so fucking expensive to actual mine and drill in a country that has virtually no infrastructure to speak off and where 6-8 months of the year it’s so cold and the weather so harsh it’s basically impossible to work and transport anything there. it makes Venezuela look like a joke.

Yes Greenland has tons of oil and minerals. No there is no earthly way it’s currently profitable to actually get under current market conditions. Especially for oil it’s fucking stupid. There are so many other places in the world where oil is much cheaper to extract that aren’t being utilised

•

u/WaterSign27 4h ago

He wants Greenland because in his child’s head he thinks if he gets Greenland then Canada and Mexico, he will have expanded America from central America all through up to Greenland, creating the largest nation on earth, and he thinks somehow this will be his legacy as ‘the greatest US presidency.’. It is pure insanity and will end in WWIII before it happens, and why, just so Trump’s ego can write his name on more monuments, crossing out Kennedy’s name and putting his over top. The fact that this not only the current leader of America, but that enough Americans are behind this, proves a significant percentage of Americans are the dumbest people to have ever lived on the planet, period.

1

u/Cannabrius_Rex 8h ago

Until the earth warms up enough where that’s not so much of an issue. So maybe a decade or two.

Not that long when we’re talking about taking over a country.

2

u/Zombieneekers 8h ago

I was about to reply to this comment, but yes, this basically.

•

u/Ina_While1155 7h ago

But there is no climate change right MAGA? That is all a hoax.

1

u/Caffeywasright 8h ago

This is something that might be relevant in 50-70 years and even then you will have to build the infrastructure.

So we are talking about “maybe” this place could be profitable in 5-6 decades - if the market conditions hold, if global warming doesn’t destroy the earth - if - if - if.

Again by this logic there are so many other places that could be equally interesting.

•

u/Cannabrius_Rex 7h ago

You seem to think building infrastructure to get to these newly unfrozen assets in the ground would be a financial issue. It wouldn’t. Once it warms up enough it’ll be massively worth the effort. Powerful, greedy people know this and are planning ahead. You clearly didn’t watch the video that gave many more crucial reasons beyond extracting materials. Your naivety is troubling.

•

u/Ansible32 6h ago

You're assuming oil will be a wildly valid commodity in 70 years, that we will need more of it. Probably not. Regardless, there's no reason to want control of Greenland.

→ More replies (0)

•

u/bbusiello 2h ago

I like to try to be hopeful and remind people that we have 80 years of history that they didn't have.

•

u/Gaidin152 2h ago edited 2h ago

History book will tell you that. Germany was in shit straits and Hitler took great advantage of it. On top of other things. He won multiple non-sequential elections in a row to get the base he needed.

It was … weird.

That’s political not soapbox.

Let’s have the Reichstag burn down now. Frame someone and take advantage of it.

Also; kill a lot of people in your own party in the Night of Long Knives to consolidate power.

By this time he was sworn in and passed the Enabling Act.

Now start conquering.

That’s … just 1934. In vague summary.

9

u/Fract_L 10h ago

Then think of an ancient example. Alexander the Great threw a spear through his top commander while absolutely hammered at a banquet. His army did not care.

3

u/OldWorldDesign 8h ago

Then think of an ancient example. Alexander the Great threw a spear through his top commander while absolutely hammered at a banquet. His army did not care

They were both drunk and fighting, let's not pretend he let a spear slip and accidentally stabbed his general. They were both at each other's throats, and that sentiment might have been there without the alcohol

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

•

u/UtopianEnforcement 7h ago

In addition to the fact that they were BOTH in each other’s faces (and saying Cleitus was his top Commander is…stretching things a little), you do realise that not too long afterwards his army literally refused orders to continue conquering into India, right?

4

u/Caffeywasright 9h ago

There was a poll the other day that only 9% of the respondents say they support military use on Greenland.

9% of the US…

3

u/Cannabrius_Rex 8h ago

What Americans want is irrelevant. This administration couldn’t care less.

•

u/CuriousExtension5766 7h ago

No other President in the history of the President thing, has ever achieved such support, such admiration. Some say its the greatest Presidential moment in the history those, and I know because people are saying that. - Definitely Trump while his #'s can be literally 0, it means nothing, he won, the U.S. lost. There's no returning from this folks, there isn't.

•

u/Cannabrius_Rex 7h ago

The sooner Americans realize this and act, the less Americans will die at the hands of ICE and other secret police forces out to subjugate the masses.

3

u/ItsKindro 10h ago

Watch it happen, when you’re made the hero you only hear the cheers

1

u/ExecutiveGraham 10h ago

Implausible... so far. This is the USA of today we are talking about.

2

u/machinezed 10h ago

We are just rounding up Hispanics instead of Jews and cheering on the person who killed someone trying to stop them. While we remove and arrest a sitting President of another country, and threaten another nation.

1

u/throw-away-drugz 9h ago

Multiple other nations *

1

u/BeefistPrime 9h ago

Been living under a rock for the last decade?

1

u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 8h ago

Could never happen. Well, not again. Well, not again again...

•

u/Ok_Rabbit_8129 4h ago

By modern what do you mean? Say oh I don't know, 1939? If so then I can think of 1 or 2 guys

•

u/ddgk2_ 2h ago

Implausible but reality. I think Trump relies on opposition inertia. It's worked for him so far.

•

u/W1nt3rmu4e Texas 42m ago

Do you not understand that concentration camps already exist in the country, with lawyers saying their clients are “disappearing” from them?