Taking Trump's imperialist trolling seriously (for a moment)
We've come a long way from bringing down egg prices.
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Speaking as someone who’s been covering Trump for nine years now, paying attention to what he’s doing instead of obsessing over what he’s saying is generally a good rule of thumb. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore his escalating rhetoric of territorial conquest.
Trump refused to rule out using the military to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal. He said he wants to use “economic force” to annex Canada. And all of that happened just during his bananas news conference on Tuesday. (Watch the clip below to see what I mean.)
While Trump was trying to come across as dead serious during his news conference, some of this is obviously just trolling. When it comes to his absurd talk of annexing Canada, for instance, the president-elect clearly loves needling the libs (outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau foremost among them) by incessantly posting memes like the one below.
But there’s more going on here than just having some social media jollies. Sean Hannity is aping the approach Putin used to gobble up parts of Ukraine by suggesting people in Greenland are “being treated horribly” by Denmark and “would probably vote for an alliance with the US.” (Watch him lay that out below during his interview on Tuesday with Don Jr., who traveled to Greenland to promote MAGA earlier that day.)
Meanwhile, Republicans are already referring to Canada as a “territory” and have drafted legislation to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” If nothing else, they’re making clear there’s nothing their Dear Leader could say or do that they won’t enthusiastically support.
It’s worth remembering how Trump generated made-for-cable-news fiascos almost every week during his first term that were happily gobbled up by the media, to the detriment of coverage of more substantial topics. There’s some of that going on here. Elizabeth Warren went on CNN last night and argued that Trump’s talk of taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal is meant to distract from his terrible cabinet nominees. But world leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are sufficiently concerned that they’re speaking out publicly.
Regardless of Trump’s true intentions, his talk of using coercion to add land to America speaks to his deep disdain for our NATO allies — Greenland is a territory of Denmark, after all — and also serves as a painful reminder that we’re in for at least four more years of complete and utter batshittery.
Trump voters may have hoped they would benefit from lower egg prices and beefed up border security, but the president-elect is entering office seemingly more focused on his daydreams of turning the Western Hemisphere into some sort of MAGA Reich.
To get expert perspective on Trump’s imperialist rhetoric against the backdrop of America’s history of expansionism, Public Notice contributor Thor Benson recently connected with Paul Frymer, a professor of politics at Princeton University and author of the book, “Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion.”
“I think sometimes we think he’s a little more strategic than he actually is,” Frymer told us. “If he was going to build a Trump casino or something in Greenland, then you might get some sense of what he wants, but this just seems like the kind of language that he floats around.”
Frymer made a case that when push comes to shove, there’s no real constituency for armed conflicts in our hemisphere, and furthermore, Republicans aren’t likely to have much interest in adding Canadians or Panamanians to the pool of American voters.
“If Trump was thinking about it, the US would probably get rid of places. Downsize,” he added. “It’s kind of surprising, in keeping with his deportation stuff, that he doesn’t say, ‘You know what? We’re going to sell San Diego back to Mexico. Mexico is going to pay for it.’ That would, in some ways, make more sense.”
A full transcript of the conversation with Frymer, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Thor Benson