Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Today's News: Could there be a method to Trump's madness?


So now Trump is talking about the United States invading Mexico, buying Greenland and taking over the Panama Canal as well as Canada. 
Its nuts.
For one thing, this:
View on Threads
It seems like a joke:
But maybe he's not just babbling, maybe there is reason for this craziness.

Jeff Tiedrich / Everyone is entitled to my own opinion
oh look, Elderly Golfer is a geopolitical madman
Panama, Greenland, Canada and Mexico are all on Donny’s shopping list
...well, shove over, George, and make room — there’s a new worst president ever in town
Donny Convict is also being advised to achieve dominance by fucking shit up on a global scale — but he’s not listening to the neocons, who at least had some level of experience in foreign policy.
no, Donny has surrounded himself with a fucktangle of vainglorious lunatics who have no idea what they’re talking about, and no earthly clue how to achieve their batshit goals.
...on Saturday, Donny threatened to invade Panama and take back the Canal. we all had fun mocking the shit out Donny’s bluster, but he didn’t come up with the idea all by his lonesome.
this clusterfuck-to-come has the ketamine-addled cortex of President-Elect Elon Musk all over it — because you know who depends on global shipping lanes, don’t you?
...last night, Donny took to his failing app to announce that Ken Howery was to be his pick for Ambassador to Denmark — and deep down in the post was an ominous threat. “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.”
so now Donny’s not just asking Denmark to sell us Greenland — he’s demanding it. that’s nice.
this time around, there’s a reason for Donny’s northern land-grab: eventually, climate change is going to make all the Arctic ice go fuckity-bye, opening up new shipping routes at the top of the world. controlling Greenland would put the United States right in the thick of this new profit center.
...so when Donny “jokes” about annexing Canada, you have to wonder — is he really joking? because Canada is also going to be jockeying for primacy as new Arctic shipping lanes open.
...here where we stand today: a demented megalomaniac who will soon have access to a nuclear arsenal — and who would love nothing more than to crown himself King of the World — is being manipulated by one or more greedy plutocrats who have their own business interests at heart.
what could possibly go wrong?
our saving grace, once again, will be that the Sewer Cons are delusional clownfuckers with a track record of failure after failure, and have no idea what they’re doing.
Daniel Drezner / Drezner's World
Donald Trump, American Imperialist
Restraint had a nice rhetorical run.
...Trump trolling one jurisdiction is just Trump sounding on brand. Trump talking about Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, and Greenland like he wants to annex them is a bit different.
The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is skeptical that Trump will go beyond threats and tweets when it comes to the whiter countries Canada and Greenland. Sometimes bluster and trolling is just bluster and trolling: obnoxious but meaningless. Trump might threaten tariffs to get what he wants, but even with allies, economic coercion does not yield successful land grabs.
When it comes to Mexico or the Panama Canal, however, it is hard to believe that Trump will back down. I sure don’t see Marco Rubio trying to talk him out of it. As I noted in the New York Times, “Mr. Rubio’s own hawkishness will mesh well with the MAGA view on Latin America; expect to see lots of American force used in that region.”
We will have to see how this plays out after January 20, 2025. It might amount to nothing. But I cannot escape the sense that those pundits who really believed that Donald Trump was going to embrace restraint in foreign policy have been played for fools.
Hmmm...other countries aren't amused:

A stern and well deserved rebuke from Colombia’s leader.

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— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) December 23, 2024 at 1:25 PM
CNN thinks there's nothing to see here, its just Trump being amusingly presidential, as any president would be, completely normal...

Oh, did he “tease” seizing other countries’ territory, @cnn.com? What a little scamp he is. What an incorrigible rascal.

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— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) December 23, 2024 at 10:02 PM
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