Trump is more and more visibly coming apart, yet he has another almost three years in office. While he pulls back from the brink somewhat, as he did with his Liberation Day tariffs and apparently again at Dovos over Greenland due to harsh discipline from Mr. Market, there are perilous few others willing and able to stand up to him, which is the only way to deal effectively with bullies. President Xi has on trade with clampdowns on rare earth sales and other restrictions. Putin has in a way that is too sophisticated for Trump and his team to grok, which is by not yielding more than affirmatively resisting. Putin has deeply internalized his judo practice and Trump offers many opportunities to take advantage of his misguided use of force. Even then, with Xi, Trump has seen fit to violate de-escalatory understandings, leading to recriminations and further clampdowns by China.
While it’s impossible to read Trump’s mind, the most plausible explanation for his sudden climbdown after his persistent demand that the US had to own Greenland, that any alternative was inadequate, was the nearly 900 point fall in the Dow, a plunge in the dollar, and a climb in bond yields. Further confirmation comes from the unseemly spectacle of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stooping to shame Deutsche Bank. Note that analysts are accorded a good deal of independence, and if the analyst was not fired, the fact of a mere groveling call is sus, yet another craven show of subordination to the mad bad Trump team. It also seems a stretch the Deutsche research note triggered the selloff, as opposed to intensifying it by confirming investor worries. Nevertheless, the business press dutifully fell in with Administration messaging. For example, from the Financial Times:
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bessent said: “This notion that Europeans would be selling US assets came from a single analyst at Deutsche Bank, of course, the fake news media led by the Financial Times amplified it. The CEO of Deutsche Bank called to say that Deutsche Bank does not stand by that analyst.”
The note, written by Deutsche Bank’s chief forex strategist George Saravelos on Sunday, said that Europe held roughly $8tn of US bonds and equities, making it America’s largest creditor and underlining Washington’s reliance on foreign capital to finance persistent deficits.
“We spent most of last year arguing that for all its military and economic strength, the US has one key weakness: it relies on others to pay its bills via large external deficits. Europe, on the other hand, is America’s largest lender,” Saravelos wrote.
But irrespective of what Saravelos wrote, plenty of other political and economic experts were deeply alarmed about the Trump Greenland threat as fatally destructive to what remained of an already-wobbly post-World-War-II geopolitical order. Trump has and likely will continue to undermine international law, institutions, and informal yet once-powerful norms out of his bizarre belief that he and only he can and will determine the trajectory of world events. If you want to see a very thorough and persuasive view of what Trump might have wrought with his Greenland seizure threat, read Big Serge’s The Great Greenland War. While one can quibble with details of his scenarios, like the idea that Russia would take advantage of the instability to take the Baltics, they give a sense of how much this move could and likely would have set in motion events that would radically change the world order, and not in ways beneficial to the US.
The bigger point here is that virtually all close observers of the Trump Greenland threats, including your humble blogger, had thought Trump really was not going to back down over his demand to annex Greenland. However, we had stated in our last post on this topic that the one thing that might deter Trump was the Market Gods and the best strategy European leaders has was not to try to placate Trump but to play up the possibility of conflict. And while we may not know right away, recall that even US investors have been cutting US exposures over Trump worries, as the Financial Times recently headlined in a lead story on fund giant PIMCO.
Trump is for the moment now attempting a climbdown of getting various elements of a “deal” in lieu of a takeover. That may include trying to get concessions from NATO or the Europeans on Project Ukraine or other broader matters economic. But many outlets had pointed out that the US already had substantial military rights with respect to Greenland, and that the Danish government has offered all sorts of possible concessions save transfer of ownership. Also keep in mind that the idea that there is a lot of mineral wealth in Greenland that could be exploited is a fiction absent much greater progress of global warming. If multinationals could develop profitably there, they would have done so by now.
However, even now, Trump’s new story is ahead of reality. From BBC:
On Truth Social on Wednesday, the US president said: “We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.
“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all Nato Nations.”
Diplomatic sources told the BBC’s US partner CBS that there was no agreement for American control or ownership of the autonomous Danish dependent territory….
Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said in a statement after the meeting between Trump and Rutte: “Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.”
However, one of two Greenlandic lawmakers in the Danish parliament questioned why Nato would have any input on the island’s mineral wealth.
“Nato in no case has the right to negotiate on anything without us, Greenland. Nothing about us without us,” Aaja Chenmitz said.
According to US media, the potential plan could allow the US to build more military bases on the territory.Officials who attended the Nato meeting on Wednesday told the New York Times a template for the suggested arrangement might be similar to UK bases on Cyprus, which are part of British Overseas Territories.
Under existing agreements with Denmark, the US can bring as many troops as it wants to Greenland. It already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its Pituffik base in the north-western tip of the territory.
And note that for the moment Trump has only sworn off the use of arms and tariffs. Again from the BBC:
In his first speech in six years to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Trump said he was “seeking immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland, but insisted the US would not take the territory by force.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive force. We’d be unstoppable, but we won’t do that,” Trump said. “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
He also urged world leaders to allow the US to take control of Greenland from Denmark, saying: “You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.”
In other words, Trump may still get what he wants, via a sale rather than a seizure, by continuing to have temper tantrums and getting the EU to fold as quickly as Machado did. If the Europeans were clever, they could take a page from Russia’s book and opt to to along with negotiations, but insist that they be structured and get to detailed treaty-type agreements, of course for the protection of the US as well as for them to be able to be ratified by relevant official bodies. Team Trump is simply incapable of this sort of thing. Any effort to do this would drag or peter out
However, there’s plenty of precedent for government officials cleverly packaging existing authorities and presenting them as a shiny, new consequential scheme. One was Mario Draghi’s Outright Monetary Transactions scheme, which he presented as a “whatever it took” facility when it contained absolutely no new measures. But investors nevertheless reacted to the PR as opposed to the content and bid wobbly assets up.
But let’s return to the bigger issues: Trump’s Davos speech provided yet more evidence that he is losing it cognitively as well as in terms of his emotional self regulation, although we hardly need more evidence after his toddler-esque demand that Maria Corina Machado turn over her Nobel prize to him and then his statement that his resolve to take Greenland was to avenge the Nobel Committee diss of not giving it to him in the first place..
There’s a lot of commentary on the numerous gaffes in the Davos speech, from Trump slurring to ranting about windmills and incorrectly depicting China as not having windfarms and banging on yet again about having the Presidency stolen from him in 2020. The Guardian has one tally. The New Republic gave a good take in Trump Embarrasses All of America in Slurred, Disjointed Davos Speech:
President Trump delivered yet another rambling, long-winded speech Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, using the massive world stage to rail against windmills, complain for the umpteenth time about how the 2020 election was rigged, reaffirm his desire to seize Greenland from Denmark, and take credit for every good thing in the world.
The room was dead silent virtually the entire time.
“Certain places in Europe are not even recognizable frankly, anymore. They’re not recognizable. And we can argue about it, but there’s no argument,” Trump said early in his speech to the room full of Europeans. “Friends come back from different places—I don’t wanna insult anybody—and say ‘I don’t recognize it.’ And that’s not in a positive way.… It’s not heading in the right direction.”….
Trump then of course got to Greenland, accidentally mixing it up with Iceland for nearly the entire time he spoke about it.
“Until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me,” Trump said, meaning to say Greenland. “They called me daddy … very smart man said, ‘He’s our daddy.’”
We’ll use The Hill as convenient one-stop shopping for how official DC is reacting to the latest Trump whipsaw. It appears not well. From a new story, NATO allies take on Trump as Greenland threats ‘rupture’ global order:
The leaders of some of America’s closest allies used the Davos summit this week to confront a new world order under President Trump in which the U.S. is an unreliable partner, at best, and increasingly viewed as an adversary.
The leaders of Canada and France were among those speaking out during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, calling Trump’s efforts to take control of Greenland a wake-up call for the need to establish military and economic power that does not depend on the United States.
However, one European diplomat told The Hill that Trump’s remarks offered little relief given his continued hostility toward NATO allies and the veiled threats in his combative speech.
“They have a choice. You can say ‘yes’ and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember,” Trump said.
But just hours later, Trump posted on TruthSocial that he reached a “framework of a future deal” over Greenland with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who has positioned himself as a main bridgebuilder between Europe and Washington….
Jim Townsend, adjunct senior fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program with the Center for a New American Security, said Trump is too unpredictable for anyone to take the president at his word.
Shorter: even the normally internally-focused Beltway is waking up to the severity of Trump’s sabotage of US interests. Wired made the same point more starkly in We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower:
Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?
Nothing.
The sugar high of the Caracas raid seems to have faded awfully quickly. Trump did wisely back down over the plan to attack Iran when the theocratic state shut down the Internet and thwarted the use of roughly 40,000 Starlink terminals used to coordinate violence at protests and further regime change operations. Alastair Crooke and Mohamed Marandi have reported that Iranian officials have been using the Starlink connections to track down the agitators, meaning that yet more of the networks that Israel built in Iran over many years are being destroyed. Nevertheless, this campaign still seems to be moving ahead as there are many press and Twitter report of naval assets moving to the Middle East.
Trump is also launching his Board of Peace, which many see as an attempt to form a new power center to compete with BRICS. Good luck with that. It will never go much of anywhere with the doddering Trump insisting at putting himself at the center.
Domestically, Trump is not doing at all well, with his hyper-aggressive actions often backfiring. Again, The Hill provides a useful barometer. In the last 24 hours, it report that another epic Trump fight, over control of the Fed, is going pear shaped, via Supreme Court voices hesitation at allowing Trump to fire Fed’s Lisa Cook and DOJ probe throws wrench into Trump’s Fed plans. The latter article explains:
The Justice Department’s criminal probe into the Federal Reserve is casting a shadow over President Trump’s plans for the central bank.
Trump is expected to announce his choice to succeed Fed Chair Jerome Powell within the next few weeks. But the threat of criminal charges against Powell may make it harder for Trump to replace the Fed chair and leave his mark on the bank.
And Trump’s continuing violence by ICE is adding to the continued decline in his approval ratings. From polling maven G. Elliott Morris’s update yesterday:
- Immigration approval declining: Trump’s approval on immigration has dropped to 44% approve / 53% disapprove (net -9), and his deportation policy is at 42% / 54% (net -12). Border security remains his only positive issue at 50% / 46% (net +4). Trump’s numbers on all three have declined since our last poll in October, 2025.
- Presidential approval: 40% approve of Trump’s job performance; 58% disapprove (net -18). This is a new low in our tracking. Just 27% of political independents approve of the president’s job performance (63% disapprove).
- Generic ballot: Democrats lead Republicans among registered voters 51% to 43%, with 6% of voters undecided.
- Democrats trusted on top issues: On the issues Americans rank as most important — prices, health care, and the economy — Democrats hold the advantage over Republicans over which party is seen as “best.”
- Venezuela: 45% oppose the military strike; 53% oppose the U.S. temporarily running the country
- ACA subsidies: 64% want Congress to restore the expired health insurance subsidies. 57% blame Republicans in Congress or Donald Trump for the coverage gap (26% say Democrats).
Even putting aside Trump’s eroding cognition and self-control, his preferred tactics of radical unpredictability plus “flooding the zone” (acting aggressively, often violently on many fronts at once) are destabilizing in a way that is ultimately self-destructive to him and American interests. He is pumping too much energy into the system. At some point, like water becoming steam, it will undergo a state change to something more chaotic, be it a market/economic meltdown, domestic disorder exceeding 1968 levels, and/or a major world conflict. Do what you can do to secure your position in the meantime.
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NATO chief Mark Rutte seems to imagine that he has the right to not only negotiate for Denmark but also the Greenlanders. His idea is to offer chunks of Greenland to the US and calling them “sovereign base areas”. Not leasing those areas for say 99 years but handing them over to Trump so that they will be American territory. Sort of, like mentioned in this article, how chunks of Cyprus were handed over to the UK as their territory. You should hear what the Cypriots say about that one. Rutte also reportedly will allow the US to mine rare-earth minerals in parts of Greenland without having to seek permits. No word if the Greenlanders can tax these mining ventures or all of the profits go straight to the US. Rutte is an idiot if he think that he can make this sort of deal and impose it on Denmark who was not at the table. I think too that he would have undermined his position as NATO chief as all those NATO countries have seen how he will do deals behind their backs which directly affect their sovereignty. He wasn’t so much negotiating for NATO as he was negotiating for Trump.
We’ve got a government run by billionaires and it really is a show of the emperor has no cloths. None of these people know what the hell they are doing. It’s basic diplomatic actions 101 that all parties get a seat at the table even if it’s only for show. Excluding those who you want to force feed you plans only leads them to want to barf it all back up over you and that’s what’s going to happen here.
I think that should be more of a thing in the media. I am no expert but I assume what Rutte tried -especially without consultation or cooperation with Denmark/Greenland – goes against Art. 7 of NATO:
“Article 7
Article 7 states that the North Atlantic Treaty shall not be interpreted as affecting in any way the rights and obligations of member countries under the charter of the United Nations, or the primary responsibility of the United Nations Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security.” in other words, Rutte has no agency as head of NATO.
Please correct my view of this is wrong.
As we have pointed out, NATO is supposed to be a consensus-based organization:
https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/consensus-decision-making-at-nato
That means “NATO” cannot decide anything. Only NATO members all together can decide. Recall that Article 5 only requires individual state to decide each by each to act if another member is attacked.
Americans seem to have issues accepting that they brought all this amongst themselves. They vote for Trump (twice) knowing full well what his background was and what his plans were. But yet many still cling to notions that Trump is some Russian or Chinese puppet and America is an innocent victim being taken advantage of like in that wired article. Even their criticisms of Trump’s actions come with tacit approvals or qualifying statements (ex. yeah attacking Venezuela is bad but Maduro is a “dictator” so it’s good that he was removed).
80 years of peace? The global south countries would like to have word about that.
Americans had a choice between Trump–who promised to do the opposite of what he is doing–and Biden and then his chosen successor. And that’s the Joe Biden who cooked up the war in Ukraine that has killed maybe a million people and stood by and allowed Israel to kill many thousands. Body count wise Trump has yet to come close to Joe.
Our political system is certainly broken but blame that on our economic system which a victorious post WW2 America spent decades defending. One election was not going to change this longstanding trend although both the Dems and then Trump have found it politically advantageous to pretend that it might. Only an economic revolution will change our politics and on that Americans seem to have little choice until the economic power of the elites is broken.
Trump is working on it if the wealthy don’t have him summarily dismissed first. Yves is surely right that this is the outcome he really fears.
I would not characterize our political system as broken. Rather, we have Trump to thank for pointing out the defects in the system which allowed him to become president and should be changed.
For example, Trump won in 2016 because of the Electoral College. He lost the popular vote by millions. That tells us something.
Second, Trump had zero political, military, or foreign policy experience. The presidency should be off limits to people without a minimum level of experience that we can all agree on. In other words it should be more than just being 35 years old. And require a person to be other than rich, a criminal, and friends with Epstein is not asking too much.
I find it remarkable that an upper age limit is not mentioned.
Americans fell for a conman (and not a very good one). His agenda was pretty clear based on project 2025 and statements from his acolytes. They just underestimated him.
Trump may have a lower body count but he is finishing the job in Gaza started under Biden. Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and gave the Israelis the green light to ramp up aggression. Trump didn’t start the war in Ukraine but had no problems sending funding and supplies and trainers during his first administration.
Americans, especially the so called liberals keep blaming their current issues and Trump’s actions as being due to Russian and Chinese interference, instead of owning their mistakes (that wired article is one example of many).
Revisionist history. Trump did not campaign on Project 2025. He did campaign on controlling borders and addressing inflation.
True but plenty of former Trump administrators were members and kept mentioning Trump was aware of their goals and his true vision aligned with theirs. Should have raised some suspicions, especially considering Trump’s history of lying and deceiving. Granted the MSM could have done more to try and expose these connections to the wider public.
Then perhaps the Democrat party should have come up with their own plan.
Project 2025 is just standard Heritage Foundation Republican wishlist. They’ve been doing it for decades. Yes, it’s bad, but I did read a good deal of it and there was plenty in there that the Democrat party already wholeheartedly agreed with, for example Israel policy.
Close to revisionist history. Trump 1.0 was also full of people opposed to his agenda, like John Bolton, and ones he fired for reasons not clear like former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson at State, despite Tillerson obligingly forcing out many long-standing civil servants at State. In other words, one could not infer any coherent plan for Trump 2.0 from personnel in Trump 1.0.
I feel certain, my write-in vote in 2024 for Wink Martindale for President, was the last one cast his way, after my 2016 and 2020 efforts in his regard.
RIP, game show host
…and KRLA radio DJ. Listened with my transistor radio under the pillow to avoid detection ;)
The reality is that, despite the complaining, the vaunted middle class is pretty darn content. Real estate prices remain high as do other asset prices, and 401(K) balances are robust. So, there is little motivation for the middle class to rock the boat. Though it appears that a relative handful of billionaires run the country, that isn’t quite so. The collective middle class has enough inherent power to challenge the billionaires if it chooses to do so. To date, it has chosen not to do so, in my view due to being risk averse. In short, things in the US aren’t bad enough for there to be any meaningful change.
Back in the McCarthy Years (early 1950s), the consensus was that profit must be defended, but labor had a stake. Markets are not self-correcting, they must be regulated. About 1972 that consensus was broken, and the advocates of “free markets” grew more and more powerful. By now the institutions and laws have been so warped in favor of “free markets” that I’m afraid neoliberalism is irreversible, short of the destruction of civilization. Russia and China seem to have retained shreds of sanity, but they have their oligarchs, too. Most people accept the artificial system as “laws of nature,” and just try to live with it. The system isn’t broken, it’s the logical result of the Enlightenment.
When you say Americans “knew” what Trumps plans were, I must say most of his followers expected a domestic program that concentrated on borders and job opportunity progress. The very few among them who respond favorably to his aggressive stance vs. NATO and the EU were those whose position was international capital based upon taking advantage of poor European policies and the fact that Trump and his 2025 cronies OWN the EU political establishment. The turnabout in MAGAs allegiance to him speaks of the waffling, betraying positions he and 2025 have taken.
I had this conversation with friends in the LGBTQ+ community last fall…
“It can’t be that bad, he won’t be that bad” they would say.
My response would always be: “Believe what he says he is going to do because he will be doing that and much worse. The man is a scorned narcist who took losing in 2020 so personally we are all going to pay for it”
Not to mention this time around he has surrounded himself with yes men and sycophants. His first term, there were some guardrails, this time, nothing.
I did not vote for Trump and many others here did not either, so STFU in trying to blame Trump on Americans generally.
Trump lied flagrantly, even by the low norms of US politics, and repeatedly said he would end regime-change wars and get out of Ukraine And in presenting himself as commercially-minded, this seemed credible, since war is good only for arms-makers.
Yes. Even I, who have not voted for a Republicrat candidate since 1976 thought, ‘Oh, maybe there’s a positive side to Trump winning, since he won’t start or support more wars’. And here we are: this is the guy who wants a 1 1/2 TRILLION military budget.
Today, I will resurrect a former bumper/window sticker for my old car: “Trillion$ for the War Machine, Peanuts for Americans“. If just a few people begin to think about it, I will consider it a success.
Hey I didn’t vote for him either and I’m an American too. Sure he promised no wars, he also said he never heard of project 2025 (despite his domestic agenda being close to it). He was also clear about immigration and crackdown on immigrants. He said he would double down on tariffs as part of his economic plan which worked out great the first term, right? So it wasn’t that we were completely blindsided.
I’m just saying perhaps it is time to take some responsibility instead of just blaming some international actors (that Trump is a Russian puppet or Chinese puppet or was voted in by Russian interference). Folks on this site are well aware none of that is accurate but seems the general public still buys it.
Even the criticisms of some of his foreign policy by both right and left come with caveats of well Maduro is a “dictator” so it’s okay to remove him but he should have run it by Congress first.
We got duped by a conman. It happens. Let’s not let it happen again. At least loosen his hold in Congress by not voting in Maga Republicans. Dems have their issues, but I doubt we’d have ICE rounding up random people and disappearing them into camps or foreign prisons if it was President Harris.
“I’m just saying perhaps it is time to take some responsibility instead of just…”
Who exactly should take responsibility for what exactly?
[Responding to .Tom at 12:55 pm], who asks:
“Who exactly should take responsibility for what exactly?
Just my uninformed opinion, as a non-American person: the American people could and should have paid attention to their government’s foreign policy a long time ago. I can’t recall a time when I told an American person, friend or not, about the fact that their country has created havoc, pain and suffering all over the world, particularly since the end of WWII, and they accepted any responsibility for it. If your government is “a representative democracy”, as fictitious as it might sound, and if many if not all Americans believe that fairy tale, then Americans should take responsibility for the actions of those who they accept as their representatives. Look at Minneapolis and DC now, and you can see what their aloofness and their hygienic (and often convenient) distance from their politicians’ actions abroad has brought them today, into their own land and cities. Think Iran, Korea, Vietnam, Bay of Pigs and embargo on Cuba, Chile’s Allende, Pinochet and South America and Plan Condor, bloody civil wars -including nuns and priests murdered- in Central America, Plan Colombia, Grenada, Panama, Aristide removed from power in Haiti and sent abroad, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine. Etc, etc…Can anyone see at least a tiny sliver of complicity of the American public in all of these episodes? Who is responsible for all of that? Just the politicians sitting in Washington and their masters?
US-ians have never been much interested in foreign affairs. Given how involved the US has been and is in foreign affairs this is indeed a problem. Fair point there.
But I don’t think this is what AI was driving at at all.
It partly was but now after some review even I’m not sure what I was ultimately driving at lol. I think my multiple frustrations with the current state of affairs in the US bubbled over and manifested in my original comments. I walked them back if you see my reply to CarlH below.
Perhaps time to take a break from current affairs news. Too much doom scrolling.
Keep in mind the “other” “choice” (there really is no choice in American politics) was a cackling incompetent genocidal maniac in the person of Kamala Harris, and her blood soaked demented bribe taking mentor Biden.
Absent something extraordinary such as a massive push such as a general strike, or the three letter agencies turning against both corporate parties, or a full blown revolution, how are workaday Americans supposed to be able to “take responsibility”? It takes a lot to get any three Americans to agree on anything, much less any of the above.
Then I guess we can do nothing. Read and complain and then move on and hope somehow things change.
Perhaps ignorance is bliss.
It seems to me that you are punching down. The majority of Americans are struggling just to survive and don’t have the time or the mental and emotional capital to invest in order to find their way through the thicket of propaganda they are fed. Perhaps your ire should be aimed at the vast networks who have conspired for decades to ensure that American’s brains remain thoroughly scrambled. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled upon sites like this one. It was luck that I found sources of information like NC which put my thinking on the right track, and I am forever grateful for this.
I’ve had some time to think and review responses. And you are right, my comments didn’t translate well and my frustration spilled over to Americans in general. I should not be punching down. Not all are as fortunate or necessarily have the time or access or understanding to sort out the garbage that is the MSM.
I too am grateful for this website and the commenters. I don’t agree with everything but it has been a great source of information and learning.
That being said I’m hoping something improves. Things seem to be getting worse by the day.
Thank you for this response. I must admit to becoming frustrated with my fellow Americans in the same way you were expressing, but then I remember where my consciousness was at just a few short years ago and I become humbled. I admire people like yourself who are willing to climb down, and again, appreciate the response. It’s people like you which keep my spirits above the water line. Cheers!
We all need a reality check sometimes. Glad to know I’m not the only one getting frustrated and I appreciate you helping me introspect and walk back from the edge.
There is plenty we can do but the political system is impervious to most of it. For example, we cannot vote our way out of this. Writing a letter to my congressional representative won’t displace our tyrannical oligarchic cartel either. Only persistent large scale popular protest might work and that’s just not on the cards at present, is it?
You mistake me, sir, or madame.
I am a socialist. If I could see my fellow Americans working for a better tomorrow, I would join in wholeheartedly.
But expecting lone people with no support to try to upend the system by themselves with no support is a fool’s errand. We have to join together in communities and groups in order to wield real political power against this fascist government.
Our only hope in my estimation, is a massive months long general strike that would bring the current US government to its knees.
But it seems you are still of the opinion that Democan’ts can save us if we only voted for them. We can’t, and socialists like myself won’t help you putting more fascist supporting Dems in office.
“I am a socialist.”
I must ask .. which sort or camp are you banging on about e.g on this blog you need too be more concise. Other than that have you considered the economic effects to a months long general strike post the shocks due to Covid? The thing about this is it only helps elites and the unwashed always pay the price.
A prolonged general strike is impractical in the US and unlikely to succeed. People have bills to pay and kids to feed. It would take a shtf type scenario before that happens.
And maybe that is what it will take. Things have to become a completely unbearable.
Obama and “Slick Willie” were two of the biggest con jobs to come down the road in the last 30 years. Trump is no better but, he never tried to really hide it. He often speaks the quiet part out loud. I’m convinced that there are others pulling the strings on foreign policy and economic issues behind the curtain. The idiots out front can’t be the ones running the carnival show.
As an outsider, I had some hope on Trump keeping out of wars based on a) his attempts to get the USA out of Syria and Afganistan, and b) I did not think he could turn a personal profit.
I may have been mistaken.
Personally, I saw the election as the Democrat’s to lose, and lose they sure did. There are only so many of your base you can alienate before there is no way you can pull out a victory. Democrats want to blame the voters as they always do when they lose, never willing to look in the mirror.
And now, watching their utter shamelessness as they continue to “roll over and play dead,” even as ICE executes US citizens in the streets, I really don’t think they should be in charge either.
Unfortunately we are in a lesser of two evils situation. I personally rather go with the people who won’t be asking me and my family to present our papers because of our skin color and facial features.
I don’t see a lesser evil between the two political parties. Just evil.
Huh? Yeah I don’t think Dems were planning on violently snatching up random folks and kids off the street or making a move on Greenland. There is clearly a worse evil.
What do you mean? Read today’s links. The Dems are all lined up for giving ICE a massive new infusion of cash. That is a direct vote for snatching up random folks and kids off the street at a faster pace than today.
I posted before reading those. So basically unlikely anything will change. Dems will just snatch up folks quietly. And millions will vote for it just like the last time.
Did you miss this one from Biden a few years ago?
https://www.blackagendareport.com/fbi-storms-african-liberation-movement-fabricated-charges-us-government-escalates-brutal-assault
And you don’t greenlight a $%@(@&()_ genocide and get considered a lesser evil in my book.
So what do you propose? I’m all for a third party vote but seems the 2 party system is here to stay.
It was here on NC just yesterday that someone reminded me of the Mao quote “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”. Before that happens I hope someone that shows true leadership and human empathy comes along to pick up the power that is lying in the gutter.
America is an unfree society with a ruling class, and every such society has endless corruption and greed, though the particulars vary with time, individual personalities and other factors. I suggest studying free societies (healthy nations in traditions times) that are able to live without corruption and greed, and learn how to create one with other people. In other words, have a revolution that doesn’t result in another ruling class taking hold, but embraces a way of life based on the golden rule while being able to protect themselves from corrupting unfree societies. The link above points to many examples.
Don’t you get that there is nothing ordinary citizens can do? You keep acting as if voting in a money-driven system (which we have been documenting ad nauseam virtually from the inception of this site) is consequential. It was obvious otherwise in Mark Twain’s day and likely before that. As he said, “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
Demanding that people who have no power take charge is ridiculous.
There are times when there are no solutions. The best you can do is hunker down.
I get it now. Took some time to review responses and they have been insightful. Best we can do for now is survive and try to be better to each other.
In the Brazilian movie “Cidade de Deus” there’s a famous line that goes “do you want to gey shot in the foot or in the hand?” Liberal democracy works like that. When you blame the people for how they vote, there is an underlying assumption that the system is fair, and that real change could come from elections. Nothing is further from the truth, as exemplified by the US itself.
In 2016 the americans elected Trump. Let’s not forget they also rejected Hillary Clinton. All polls indicated that Bernie Sanders was a favorite against Trump, beating Trump in all polls, and by a bigger margin than Hillary. The DNC decided to rig their primaries against Sanders, so Hillary “won” the primaries to go and lose the general election.
Now I’m no Bernie supporter, and had he become president, there would be severe limits. Still, it’s interesting that the only candidate with a mere hint of “left” on them had the path to the presidency blocked in such a way. Before blaming the american (or any other) people for their “choice” of electing someone, we should point the fact that the liberal democracy is there to legitimize oligarch control of society, and no real opposition is allowed.
In the movie mentioned above, the person chooses to get the bullet in the hand, but he gets shot in the foot anyway. This also works as an analogy of liberal democracy.
If, at the time (primaries), you weren’t a supporter of D/R, and you weren’t a supporter of Sanders, who did you support?
We’re all butthurt by his rollover after being cheated, but did you really not feel he would have been far superior to all others?
Americans have little choice offered to them. The Uniparty is very sclerotic and its operating window very narrow. Plus, the so called Deep State, certain bureaucracies also play their hand(s) in this circus that is the american elections.
This is why so many don’t even bothered to vote…
While it’s impossible to read minds, the phenomena of clairvoyance (divination ?)seems to play well with an illusion of control. From conjuring up the thoughts of the dead, to unveiling the future,
analyses are still only as good as the assumptions they rest on.
I know it’s hard to believe but this dude still has really strong support for basically anything he chooses to do across probably 30-40% of the US voting public. And a lot of them are gun nuts. My siblings, who hold well-paying corporate jobs, think he can do no wrong. And they believe the white power propaganda about immigrants. It’s disturbing, but part of the equation. I don’t know what happens when those people have him taken away from them.
That 30 to 40 percent will quickly turn if they find their own economic well being threatened. The real Hitler got this, whereas the Three Stooges Hitler has no plan and his version of social control in Minnesota is scaring the pants off everyone else. Some neighbors who flew a rainbow flag in front of their house since they moved in have taken it down.
Personally I don’t believe all those gun owners are ready to march for Trump although the more psychically crippled may get jobs with ICE. Most of them just like to play soldier in their back yards and fear crime and so have guns.
Those Lib-hating 2nd Amendment types might not march for Trump, but they sure as hell would march against Dems especially if they are given the ok, explicit or tacit, to do so violently.
Aren’t they doing it already in many american cities? The proud boys may no longer be ‘standing down,’ but may be coming to your home soon. vance has told us that ice will be going door to door, but I’ll bet that they won’t be selling any brushes or bibles. It’s a coin flip anyway, are americans more violent, or more stupid?
It’s Germany 1935 here in Minnesota. The local Nazis are not out in force like they are in 2020, and my neighbors agree that that’s because many of them have joined
der Sturm AbteilungICE. But not all of them – they’re still around.I disagree. I think these hard-core, bitter-enders supporting Trump will gladly endure penury as long as Trump does battle with DEI, Somalians, Communists, Radical Lunatics, etc. He is their culture warrior. He is their retribution. He gives them enemies to feel superior to, he gives them visions of a golden age rooted sometimes in the 1950’s, sometimes in the 1890’s, when the superiority of white men was unquestioned.
It’s a weird deal, my wantabe Barnaby Jones* to the right of right of right 76 year old brother in law actually started blaming Biden for most everything wrong in my aborted attempt at political conversation a few weeks ago on our family cruise. It was disheartening-which he’s become so good at.
He spends many hours of the day on stocks (how droll) and when I mentioned the great risk of having all your eggs in 1 currency, he’d hear nothing of it~
* I doubt Barnaby became a gun nut in his golden years, as my b-i-l did.
But what that really means is that Trump and his associates are rapidly approaching their bottom base of public political support. Both political parties and most deeply disliked elected representatives have historically had a cushion of approximately one quarter of the voters who will continue to support them. Mind you that doesn’t apply in primaries.
Would I prefer that seemingly intelligent people get that not only is this unsustainable but irrational and destructive, yes. But that doesn’t seem to occur no matter how bad things get.
Very interesting. The thing with a lot of cyber weapons is that you can use them only once. For example, say you found a exploit sequence with which you can disrupt certain air defense systems. The vulnerabilities the exploits are built on will be closed soon after they are exposed. So you get to use that specific weapon only once. And sometimes the defender will learn something useful about you from studying your attack.
The use of Starlink here might be similar. Assuming Crooke and Marandi are right, is Starlink viable for foreign C3 of a regime change insurgency any more?
Iran disrupted more than Starlink. That’s a solution done by a country that was already experiencing an economic crisis.
It could be a solution, but there are countries where disrupting the internet to that extent to stop protests would be the cause of an economic crisis. I wonder if that would make such a solution more of a dilemma?
Trump is losing but he is winning. This video from More Perfect Union describes how Trump’s chaotic tariff policies are lining the pockets of the corrupt, especially his:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPzcGeiNYvk
Trump may be the most impactful President of the country’s history……because he is finishing it off. The path, however , was well paved by Clinton, Obama, and Biden. We never hear anything about George W. He doesn’t flash around at Martha’s Vineyard and NYC social scene. I am certain he is comfortable.
I remember when Grant was advised to write his autobiography so he could pay his bills.
I’m struggling for an analogy to Trump. He’s like an angry drunk that just destroys everything he touches and blames the world for mess he leaves behind — without any lovable sober scenes.
Maybe John Blutarsky from Animal House writ large and angry on the world stage.
“Fat, power drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
That great Dean Wormer / John Vernon quote was directed at Floundsr, not Bluto.
And Flounder was anything but power drunk.
I was thinking Anthony Fremont in the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life”.
See Wukchumni’s post @ 10:28am below, where he opens with Anthony Fremont, the child-monster from the Twilight Zone episode It’s a Good Life. He beat me to that comparison by about an hour — darn you, Wuk!
Alcohol is Teetotalitarian Leader’s Kryptonite?
Check the WWE.
Trump may be losing it – if he’s slurring that would be a sign. But, he also spent a good deal of time practicing kayfabe with the wrestlers. What we are seeing from him now could be characterized as a ‘heel turn’ – former good guy goes bad, and it’s all scripted ahead of time. Crazy and kayfabe aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive – both could be true.
Sleight of hand is the hallmark of grifters. While we all watch for what crazy thing he might do next, those who have opportunistically attached themselves to him are cashing in in the background.
Thanks for this post.
One more Western Europe push back idea that’s been floated is boycotting the 2026 World Cup being held in the US this year. Stay home, watch on television but don’t attend.
I don’t know how much traction that’s gained. Can you imagine the outcry from hotels and short term rentals and all associated touristy type industries if a large percentage of people planning to come to the games decide to stay home instead?
And how many will decided to stay home out of fear of being picked up and “deported” by ICE? Say you’re a visitor from Brazil or Columbia or India or Somalia….
Listening to T recently is like listening to a stream of consciousness ramble rant from his id. A real fun house…. / my 2 cents
The $100 surcharge upon entry for foreigners is now in effect in 11 National Parks-including Sequoia NP, which will be a nice dissuader for those who have flown far distances, and we get an awful lot of Mexican-American residents from the Central Valley who are typically day-trippers, and how excited are they going to be, to be asked if they are American Citizens?
I linked the other day a report that said many are turning around their cars and refusing to pay. Also there are long lines–including at Sequoia–as fee takers have to check for citizenship.
The topper that the new all parks pass for foreigners–1 year $280–sports a picture of Trump. If you paste over it it may be invalid.
If say you wanted to privatize the National Parks using Trump Outdoor Purveyor Service (TOPS) as sole proprietor, plunging attendance numbers would be a good cause to take over, no?
Why do I think T would be delighted to see the National Park Service revenues fall so much that he could propose opening them up to commercial drilling, mining, and logging to make up the revenue shortfall for park operations? hmmm… no, that couldn’t be part of any “plan”. / ;)
adding: imagine how much T’s actions and words will impact people’s willingness to invest in the T family’s crypto business or in the proposed US stable coin. T’s fortunes may be hoist on his own petard.
A real loss of prestige is if Europe (UEFA) withdrew Their teams from this summer’s World Cup. 7 of the top 10 ranked teams in the world are European, so the tournament would be a sporting farce if they withdrew.
I read that though many now consider a mistake having given the US the organization of next WC nothing could possibly be done and official boycotts (like not participating) were not planned which tells about the bland vassal leaderships of Urope. Current FIFA President (Mr. Infantino) is being criticized for being exclusively focused in money. Such accusations could spread wide to lots of circles but the Greenland affair was putting Mr. Infantino exactly under the focus. Apart from that nothing special.
I am thinking if, after one year of Trump, suffering TDS might now be seen as a sign of sanity.
The thing that baffles me is that they were overtly exhibiting TDS before the election, willingly earning his enmity, then pretended that none of that ever happened and started kissing his a** shamelessly once he won, and even now, they (the so called European leaders) are eagerly praising the Trumpy New Peace in Our Time. Such craveness and slavishness deserves only contempt (and reminds us that Chamberlain and Daladier got undeservedly bad rap.)
Football (or soccer, as Yanks call it) is kind of religion in Europe, and World Cup is premier international event. Also the reason it’s in US this year is because the people running it hope Americans will finally wholly embrace the proper kind of football and tens of billions of dollars will flow to them. So EU boycotting it is only slightly less likely than Americans canceling Super Bowl and World Series at the same time.
I’ve been wondering if we in Canada and Mexico may be inundated with fans and the USA may have a few empty seats. Knowing the fanatic loyalty of football fans many will likely risk the USA but still I wonder.
ah. thanks. I recently learned that US football is now international as well, with US football leagues in Brazil and other countries broadcast on US television as regular NFL and AFL football games.
All grown up now Anthony Fremont starts off talking about vengeance weapons, and then veers off into personal vengeance, followed by a perplexing campaign speech to the movers and shakers of the world.
When Godwins, rational thought often goes out the window, but the parallels to Adolf are pretty apparent, and late in the game the latter didn’t give 2 shits in regards to the German people, he wanted them to suffer along~
Can’t recommend the diary of Victor Klemperer enough, he was a WW1 Jewish vet who was a professor at the university in Dresden and kept a clandestine journal from 1933 to 1945, and being a critical thinker he reads between the lines to ascertain the truth, and of course we all know how things go, but its uncanny how often he figures out what is really going on.
This passage from I Will Bear Witness is especially poignant…
March 23, 1936
“He flies from place to place and gives triumphal speeches. The whole thing is called an “election campaign”.”
“It’s honestly funny watching these colonizers scurry for cover as they discover that they’re Euro-peons and the 51st State to Americans. ‘The Coalition of The Willing’ is baffled that the country that invaded so many countries with might turn around and invade them. Remember that colonizers always lie and hide in abstractions, there’s no general principle at work here, it’s just the usual racism.
Hence Carney proposes a whites-only non-aligned movement like he just came up with the idea of ‘middle powers,’ when he could just join colored people. But he won’t. Canada still supports America’s war against Russia, still exploits Africa via mining, and still backs the death cult ‘Israel’. Canada has no problem with white supremacism as long as it benefits them. That’s the only principle at play here, they only speak out when it threatens their capital.”
https://indi.ca/wolves-crying-wolf-canada-denmark-etc/
Well said.
The US (and in general western) inability to keep agreements has been noted in recent years by Russia (the PreTrumpian-era), but has form – ask the Native Americans (and other victims of the age of colonialism).
Indoctrination works, apparently forcing every generation to relearn history the hard way. The Trumpian difference is the absence of a pretense of being agreement capable (how can business or an economy above Somalia warlordism function if contractual agreements are not agreements?).
—
” 900 paint fall in the Dow” works for me too!
“While it’s impossible to read Trump’s mind, the most plausible explanation for his sudden climbdown after his persistent demand that the US had to own Greenland, that any alternative was inadequate, was the nearly 900 paint fall in the Dow, a plunge in the dollar, and a climb in bond yields.”
It pains me to say this:
More likely is that President Trump is lying and preparing another surreptitious, unannounced, unpredictable, Talmud-inspired attack that violates the laws of war and only invites retaliation in kind.
Let us be honest. President Trump is a deceitful man – that is to say, President Trump is a man who is full of deceit. He lies to his constituents, he lies to his donors, he lies to his aides, and he probably lies to his children, too.
Also: President Trump does not expect to be alive long enough to suffer the consequences of his bad decisions – so he simply doesn’t care about consequences, other than getting the Nobel Peace Prize, lol.
Simple self-defense demands that you recognize these fundamental truths or you’ll just do this to yourself again and again.
*Sigh*
We have posted before on what it would take to seize Greenland by force. The short version is that it can’t even remotely be done via a Caracas style raid….which by the way has not give US control of Venezuela. We do have leverage there, but it is via the blockade and protracted sanctions. Not that anyone in Europe is about to grow a pair, but there is no obvious leadership figure in Greenland to regime change and the terrain and geographic spread are hostile to an occupation.
Remember, Donald: Greenland is the icy one, and Iceland is the green one.
I’m available anytime as a presidential advisor.
Or Trump is mixing up Greenland and Iceland because Iceland is the next item on the menu, and he gets confused? Greenland and Iceland gives the USA two thirds of the of the Greenland Iceland UK gap (GIUK gap).
Britain looks like a loyal US servant so the US is in control of the GIUK gap.
I’m kind of surprised Benedict Donald hasn’t unleashed a boycott on danishes, those delicious Danish butter cookies in a tin that they can somehow sell for a few bucks, and Danish ham.
A ban on distribution of Jean Luc Godard movies featuring Danish bombshell Anna Karina….Connie Nielsen will be digitally removed from Gladiator and Gladiator 2.
There’s a bomb in the biscuit tin
Provisional IRA
He can have my Danish butter cookies, Vaniljekranse, when he pries them from my cold, dead hands! (This comment is a spoof on old Charlton Heston speeches. / ;)
There is now a new app “Uden USA” (“Without the USA”), purporting to help Danes find alternatives to American products. As of now, it is – in delicious irony – only available on iPhone.
Don’t give him ideas. Freedom fries redux.
Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) is named posthumously an international terrorist because Trump misinterpreted Out of Africa as a protest against American imperialism (he neither read the book nor saw the movie). Babette’s Feast now includes a Big Mac instead of Cailles en sarcophage.
Instead of tariff “dividends” Trump could sell this as other countries giving America money to buy Greenland, but that at least makes a kind of sense, so it is out of bounds.
This suggests a simple and obvious way to placate Trump. Have the Nobel committee invent a new prize: the My Name Will Probably Live Beyond Eternity prize, and award it to his majesty. (Maybe we should take out the word probably; it makes him sound wishy-washy :-) )
This prize would take the form of a gigantic seated bust of Trump, made of solid gold and taller than the Washington monument. People would pay $50,000 for an elevator ride to the top and peer out of the bust’s eyes.
Nobody should pander to Trump. Instead, we must find ways to remove him and his entire cabinet from office.
Honestly, like this is all you need to know about Trump even, this guy has lost his mind:
(bold mine)
Wowzers
Rutte, I think?
As ridiculous as Trump so often is, the willingness of “very smart man” to play along like that is still more striking.
Daddiiieee… Ian Richardson in House of Cards.
utube, ~1+ minute.
DADDIIIEEEEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzV4t9r7Lho
I honestly cannot conceive of why this is even being discussed globally like it is. Is there no one in the EU with a spine who will tell Trump that this isn’t how it works and to go pound sand?
First term, opposition was all over him when he hadn’t done much of anything. This time he’s doing real damage and everyone cowers in a corner.
The comparison of Greenland to the British Sovereign Territories in Cyprus is unintentionally damning.
Britain first acquired rights in Cyprus because the Suez Canal connected her to the Jewel in the Crown, British India, and Russia was thought to threaten the Raj because she was thought to desire access to the Med (the Ottoman Empire), the Gulf (Persia) and the Subcontinent (the Khyber Pass).
The Ottoman Empire controlled Cyprus but was the Sick Man of Europe (in fact, just suffering a parasite infection of global finance capital from London) and so, to prevent Russia taking advantage of the Ottomans and gaining access from the Black Sea to the Med and the ability to blockade Suez, the British pressured the Ottomans into awarding them a protectorate of Cyprus, which guards the seaways south of the Bosphorous, in the late 19th century while Istanbul remained technically suzerain.
This protectorate was then unilaterally seized by Britain as a military colony in the early days of WWI when the Ottoman Empire sided with Austro-Hungary and Germany (and the terror of the Berlin-Baghdad railway loomed).
On decolonisation in the 1960’s, the sovereign territories were retained as military bases.
Questions to consider:
– is the EU the sick man of Eurasia, in a modern parallel
– is the US Empire the British Empire
– what is the Jewel in the Crown for the US, that Greenland protects? Access to European markets? Control of Russia shipping?
– is the correct first move a protectorate? Or is that what US has today and seizure is the only escalation? Can the US move to sovereign bases without passing through the full arc of Imperialism?
– do Greenlanders desire enosis with Arctic Canada? Who is the Inuit Archbishop Makarios? Is Denmark Turkey?
Befuddled~~~ Trump has been a known, ditto for his family, since day one. The Idea[tm] by some on NC that a vote for him would punish the Dems and via that change is now borne out. In reality what everyone like that did was unleash the most strident and vulgar side of the GOP that has been chaffing at the bit for a big time social agenda. Hence why – in my thoughts – that the Dinos are happy to sit back and let it all wash. See how the so called voters respond to this dominate GOP agenda. It costs them nothing and its a long game, not that they care about citizans without money to donate – so many parties to attend and social network for the next election …
Anyone who pointed that out was accused of TDS, which was simply a method of magasbara gaslighting.
“Punish the Democrats” was an idea from the Puristocratic Left, but pointing that out will elicit a hail of abuse from the “plague on both their houses” crowd.
Grump’s Davos slurring is much worse than Biden’s mindless infatuation with paratroopers floating into view adjacent to that photo Op where Italian President (Merloni?) had to redirect Biden to the matter at hand in that European field.
Just keep Grump away from that Nuclear Football!
Sixty heads of state were at Davos and not one called for Trump’s incarceration or hospitalization. They could have boycotted the event altogether, and left Trump there by himself. Or they could have made identical speeches: “Trump must be ignored, his threats ignored.” But not one of these heads of state was brave enough to say what everyone in the room knows what must be said (and done) to put the world back on track. Pathetic. We live in a time of international cowardice. We see it on every front.