The Wizard of Straws
The Greenland insanity has reached a fever pitch, as it brings together so many of Trump’s greatest hits. Antagonizing allies, a mentally ill obsession with the Nobel prize, constant bluster, endless lies, a false reading of history, random word capitalizations, and so much more. In his first term, there were some guardrails. Now there are just guard dogs, preventing anyone from slowing down the crazy train. Anne Applebaum sums things up in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.” Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw. “He is locked into a world of his own, determined to ‘win’ every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis. These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy. And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being.” (When it comes to anyone, especially in the GOP Congress, standing up to Trump, I worry that we have infinite straws.)
+ At this point, we need Congress to step up. The military is planning for something they shouldn’t even be considering. And these aren’t the unqualified scrubs terrorizing women and children on our city streets. These are people who have sacrificed for a country the world barely recognizes. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Military Is Being Forced to Plan for an Unthinkable Betrayal. “Attacking an ally would be a perversion of everything the armed forces have been trained to do.”
+ “When I took my post as secretary general of the Council of Europe just over a year ago, I did not think that I would ever have to write about the possibility of the United States taking military action against a member state. Yet here we are.”
+ Trump, sharing leaked texts and AI mock-ups, vows ‘no going back’ on Greenland. Here’s the latest as world leaders gather in Davos.
