Trump’s obsession with Greenland has been ridiculous to be sure. It’s also become somewhat frightening because he won’t let go of ‘owing’ the place. Ever the spoiled man-baby Trump says ‘MINE!’ when he covets something and clearly Greenland has become a something to him. The mystery of course is why and perhaps the fog on that is parting. It all goes back to Trump’s first term and his dumbass views (and limited knowledge) about NATO and of course his ego. Like high society elites in his hometown of New York City Trump knows he’s never been truly one of them. Literally taking NATO could be a death blow to the alliance and Trump is after all on a revenge tour. Plus, blowing up NATO would square him with Putin so it’s a twofer for Trump.
You know the old saying about a picture being able to paint a thousand words. That photo of Trump sitting there like a petulant child (and he IS a full grown fatassed orange man-baby) as leaders try to talk some sense into him sums up the decades long feelings Trump has about the value of the NATO alliance. As in is has no value. Long before that moment he was convinced NATO was ripping off the United States and simply wasn’t worth the investment our country made to it. HE was the true expert and they didn’t know a damned thing worth knowing so he sat there with his arms folded and point blank without words said they had nothing to tell him worth hearing.
It’s never registered with Trump that the United States had for so many decades been the leader of the free world because we were the leader of NATO and contributed so much to it. If we spent more than other countries it was because we could afford to. And we reaped incalculable diplomatic, security and even economic benefits from being the unquestioned leader. Trump could bring an end to all that. When the experiment under the stands at Staff Field at the University of Chicago successfully created the first nuclear chain reaction there was a lot of celebrating. One person who didn’t was the physicist who conceived the idea and was crucial in getting us to that point. Rather than celebrate Leo Szilard said “The world is headed for trouble. The world is headed for grief.” That sad prediction will come true even more if Trump blows up the NATO alliance by taking control of Greenland ‘one way or the other.’ All because NATO hasn’t made a big show out of kissing his ass.
According to this short article from The Daily Beast Trump’s fee fees are hurt because NATO hasn’t proclaimed him as the SAVIOR of the alliance that’s preserved stability and freedom in so much of the world for almost eight decades now. Once again poor irony is being flogged and fed through the wood chipper. Trump never saw any value in NATO so Pootie telling him to dismantle it was a whatever you say boss moment for him. Starting back in his first term Trumpty sure as hell tried, and he did undermine NATO rather substantially. Joe Biden built it back up but Trump seems hell bent on doing what he couldn’t the first time around. That’s where irony comes in:
President Donald Trump wants to be credited with saving the defense alliance he’s been threatening to destroy as he seeks to acquire Greenland at any cost.
After bragging to reporters on Sunday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization wouldn’t exist if he weren’t president, Trump promptly took to social media on Monday to repeat his claim in MAGA speak—using all-caps and excessive exclamation points.
“I’m the one who SAVED NATO!!! President DJT,” he wrote at about 8 a.m. Washington time on Truth Social.
Saved NATO? SAVED it? Whatever Dr. Pill Popper aka former doctor and WH physician Ronny Jackson is giving Trump I could sure use a small supply. (Maybe not so small as I think about it) Right from the start Trump made himself look like the fool he was. He actually thought NATO countries paid dues like the suckups and suckers at his Mar A Lago club! In his first meeting I’m certain could feel their contemptuous, consdesnding attitude towards him much as they tried to conceal it. Trump believed he knew more than all the other leaders combined and wasn’t shy about letting them know it.
For their part amongst themselves they wondered how in the hell the United States could come up with someone worse than Baby Bush. To them, Trumpty didn’t even merit a seat at the kiddie table. Still, he was the U.S. President so they had to put up with him and try to mollify him as they tried (and failed) to provide him some working knowledge. It’s clear in retrospect they didn’t know (nor did others) that a) Trump is and has long been incapable of learning even if he wanted to try, and b) the way to get him on board with something is simple flattery. They tried to treat him like an adult, one who’d spent his career in real estate about military stuff and and security cooperation. That was the big mistake since they might as well have been talking to a brick. Trump IS after all to borrow from the band Jethro Tull ‘Thick As A Brick’ which is Brit-speak for total dumbass.
When asked by a reporter if he was worried his push to get Greenland would be the end of NATO Trump responded “You wouldn’t have NATO if I weren’t president.” He naturally followed it up with a tweet, or a ‘truth’ or whatever the hell it’s called on his Truth Social platform:
Trump keeps talking about Russia or China taking over Greenland. I think he’s really that stupid. Russia and China might have made an increased presence in the north Atlantic but come on! Russia is mightily weakened by Pooties fiasco in Ukraine and any notion he could take and hold Greenland is laughable on its face. Plus, Russia doesn’t need the minerals that Trump seems to think should be his for the taking. China doesn’t need them either. Plus, China is thousands of miles of ocean away from Greenland and the Pacific which they want to control is vast. Any ‘threats’ they make intended to reach Trump’s wax clogged ears are nothing but distractions. Which apparently work pretty well.
You know who IS close to Greenland? NATO member CANADA. We too are much closer than either Russia or China and so is much of the NATO alliance. Denmark which nominally controls Greenland (which is granted self-rule for the most part) is a founding member of NATO. From the outset due to Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) has been an immense power in the world. It would lead to the fall of the old USSR and their version, the Warsaw Pact. Putin has from the day the USSR collapsed deemed it the worst moment in human history and has vowed to restore it all to its former “glory.”
Trump on the other hand openly wonders if NATO would be there ‘if we needed them.’ Uh, someone should remind Trump that the Bush war against Afghanistan and Iraq that he so publicly opposed at the time and ever since was the ONLY instance in history when Article 5 has been invoked. By the freaking UNITED STATES! It wasn’t really necessary. Agreements could have been worked out with only a handful of NATO countries to take out the Taliban in Afghanistan. And depose Saddam in Iraq too. It did come in handy when we tried, and failed as most countries do to get into the nation building business in a country where the population doesn’t want an occupier.
No matter. Trump thinks that somehow NATO wouldn’t respond to aid Greenland/Denmark if Russia or China tried to take it! A legendary professor at Penn called Trump ‘the dumbest goddam student I ever had’ which is saying something. Something not at all good. It’s been clear from his firs week in his first term Trump has been ‘the dumbest goddam President we’ve ever had’ and that’s far worse.
Trump is willing, even eager to due what his puppet master Pootie always wanted him to do. Destroy the NATO alliance. The most formidable and effective alliance to protect peace and spread freedom in history. Why? Because Trump is majorly butt-hurt over lack of credit he feels is due him. He’s upset that he’s not getting praised to high heaven for ‘saving’ the alliance he’s tried from day one to destroy!
It’s going to be one of those sleepless nights of anguish over poor Irony being dug up so Trump could desecrate its body yet again. There were enough Republicans in Congress in his first term to rein Trump in on ‘pulling the U.S. out of NATO.’ Now? I’m not so sure. As I started writing Rachel Maddow was saying GOPer on Capitol Hill are finally waking up. I’d liike to believe she’s right and to a degree there has in fact been some pushback lately. Not enough but some. On this however we need MAJOR pushback and we need it fast.
From where I sit, what’s needed is for Congressional Republicans to get a dose of what I experienced every morning transitioning from civilian into a Marine. The DIs flicking on the lights, rattlling the shitcan (metal trash can – in which we weren’t allowed to put an actual trash!) and SCREAMING at us to get up and get dressed. If within less than thirty seconds you hadn’t pulled on your camo pants and blouse and finishing lacing up your boots and starting to make your rack (bed) you were in for a thrashing.
This country and the free world are in for far worse if GOPers don’t wake the f**k up and get moving with similar urgency.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
The NATO alliance was set up to protect countries, not companies. That’s what he wants to change.
NATO will survive Trump and will survive whatever mess he makes of it, albeit in reduced and arguably less powerful form. I’d argue that a NATO free of Trumpland would be slimmer and more effective in its declared goal of resisting Russian aggression. Losing the USA would be the brutal wake-up call you’re talking about with your old DI. Trump has been nothing but a thorn in NATO’s side, time to let it fall off and wait for another leader to try to heal the wound.
I think you’re right. I even think that someday we might have a seat at the table and a meaningful voice but it would be generations, if ever before we were at the helm and (mostly) calling the shots as has been the case until Trump.
I also think that while it would be diminished a NATO without the U.S. could turn out to be a case of Putin should have been more careful about what he wished for. Without the U.S. holding them back I think Putin’s incursions into NATO countries on Russia’s border and what he claims are “accidental” missiles gone astray will prompt a military response. Russia can’t even take over Ukraine and if he’s got fresh NATO forces joining the fight Russia would get pounded so hard they’d be defeated in weeks. And Pootie would suffer a 9mm headeache and quietly be buried in an unmarked grave.