(Greenland 3.0) In August of 2019, Donald Trump proposed to buy Greenland. Premier Kim Kielsen responded--"Greenland is not for sale and cannot be sold, but Greenland is open for trade and cooperation with other countries—including the United States."
(Greenland 4.0) In the immortal words of Simba, Trump just can’t wait to be king. Again.
Credit. Fotobehangdoning
Undeterred, and running on some sort of political sugar high from his self-proclaimed Election 2024 “mandate”, on 12/22/24, President-Elect Trump issued the following statement on his personal social media network, Truth Social, prior to re-taking high office--"For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
“National security”—That one is fun. North America generally and the territory within the sovereign control of the United States of America specifically hasn’t been approached, much less assaulted, by denizens of Norway since the Medieval Warm Period (950 to 1250 CE).
Credit. Wikipedia. Sculptor Duluth
What is odd about this whole situation is the possibility that Trump’s native greed may make him Destiny’s Child—the tipping point of a global realignment of real estate interests.
So What?
Well, We the People have a right to understand and consent to levies upon our purses made to further protections of our lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness. Any one of Trump’s proposed forays into another nation’s sovereignty will require funding of the consequences of consent.
I say—stay vigilant. Stay informed. Stay vocal.
Protect and actively defend your opinions and personhood. And your purse.
Don’t just survive Trump and Project 2025.
Prevail.
Serendipitous Sighting
Just before I launched this opinion piece this morning, my iPhone feed introduced me to a MSNBC opinion piece written by Hayes Brown and entitled “Donald Trump might be falling for the oldest real estate scam in the books.” I recommend the article. Essentially, Hayes points out “There’s been a concerted effort to make the energy poured into his half-baked fantasy make sense…. As tends to be the case with Trump, the real answer is both entirely on-brand and deeply weird…. the proposal originally came from his longtime friend Ronald Lauder, an heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune…. Trump comments as reported in 2022 by Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker (follow):
“You take a look at the map. I’m a real estate developer. I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building’…It’s not that different…I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States’.”
Credit: Google AI. Corrected size of Greenland in reltionship to current USA mainland holdings
“It is especially fitting that a real estate developer whose properties have declared bankruptcy multiple times is besotted with this particular landmass. Greenland is one of the oldest real estate bait-and-switch cons in the book, named to encourage settlement on what is mostly a barren expanse of ice. And, as any cartography fan would tell you, the way Greenland looks on most common maps is extremely misleading thanks to the distortion needed to make the globe flat….the island….is quite as massive as Trump seems to think…..there may be something darker at work with his Greenland obsession—a desire to see American territory expanded under his watch, a neo-colonial bent that would fit all too uncomfortably well with his merchantilistic worldview.”
The guiding principle of real estate development is to use OPM—Other People’s Money—to enrich oneself.
Watch your purse strings, We the People. Your duly elected representatives to Congress easily could be convinced to tithe you in support of Trump’s ambitions and misconceptions. You are just OPM until 2026.
Thanks for reading Must Tilt Windmills! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Geography lessons usually start in third grade. Fascination with the spinning globe of the world may start sooner. It was an easy lesson to remember: Iceland and Greenland were named about the same time to fool enemies. Greenland is mostly ice. Iceland is lush and green, a better place to choose if you are seeking a better homeland. Donnie only knows real estate grabs but may not have been paying attention to the third-grade teacher or the details of the deal. Meanwhile, in Denmark, they are rocking to the song "Another One Bites The Dust." The name switch is still working!!
Geography lessons usually start in third grade. Fascination with the spinning globe of the world may start sooner. It was an easy lesson to remember: Iceland and Greenland were named about the same time to fool enemies. Greenland is mostly ice. Iceland is lush and green, a better place to choose if you are seeking a better homeland. Donnie only knows real estate grabs but may not have been paying attention to the third-grade teacher or the details of the deal. Meanwhile, in Denmark, they are rocking to the song "Another One Bites The Dust." The name switch is still working!!