Dementia, Bravado or Unparalleled Narcissistic Personality Disorder

 

Dementia, Bravado or Unparalleled Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Greenland, Panama and Even Canada?!

As the richest person in the world ranges and forages among Europe’s rising rightwing – we believe in efficient autocracy – among major and often governing political parties, alienating liberal governments as if he were immune from retribution, US Co-President designee, Elon Musk deploys his vast wealth and influence first and foremost, on his own investment holdings, and secondarily to destabilize liberal forces that refute his vision of who should rule… and who should bow down in absolute fealty to him. Is Trump becoming less mentally stable – just think what the rightwing would have said if Biden had uttered such Trump Greenland/Panama/Canada territorial “claims” – or is he otherwise protecting his center-stage in global politics by making demands and observations far more bullying than Musk.

For Trump, is this the Monroe Doctrine reboot on steroids turned on its megalomaniacal head? The world is watching. Trump touted a sale of Greenland by Denmark (it is semi-autonomous Danish territory since 1953 and could not be sold without a local vote anyway) during his first term, but the initial response this second time around was met with a belief that this was Trump’s attempt at humor. Yet as this claim was repeated with increasing seriousness, as Donny Trump (above) traveled to Greenland (a huge Arctic land with under 100,000 people), people began to take the elder Trump’s threat (a little hint of saber rattling behind the offer to buy) seriously. On January 7th, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and that the island is “not for sale.” Not now. Not ever.

Trump did his usual double-down – coupled with his seemingly equally serious threat to Panama (which acquired the US-built Panama Canal in 1977 during the Carter administration) to lower canal fees and give US vessels a preference or else expect a US takeover. The Canal recently incurred billions of dollars in investment to modernize and widen the passage, and ships are allowed to enter the Canal with no built-in preferences. Cost to traverse the Canal? Generally, between $300,000 and $1,000,000 depending on size. Nobody gets a discount. But President-elect Trump hinted that he would use economic and military force to take back the Canal if Panama does not steeply discount passage to US ships (cargo and military) and accord such ships a priority. Panama stiffly resisted. Greenland too?

"There is obviously no question that the European Union would never let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are… We are a strong continent." French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio in response to a hypothetical question addressing a US invasion of Greenland. Arctic power Russia made its own intentions clear “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Russia is closely monitoring the situation, after US President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out military action to take Greenland from Denmark… Peskov said the Arctic was in Russia's ‘sphere of national and strategic interests and it is interested in peace and stability there.’" BBC.com, January 9th

Yet Russia might love the US imitating Russia’s efforts to take Ukraine by annexing it neighbor to the north. After all, why stop at sparsely populated Greenland or at Panama (which doesn’t even have a standing army), when Canada has so many more riches… Even greater than the industrial wealth that Taiwan offers China, which is threatening to take that independent nation by force. Hopefully in jest, Trump suggested that Canadians would love to become the 51st state. Don’t bet on it… but for existing US citizens, adding Canada to the US would be a blessing… finally bringing national healthcare to our shores and blunting the harsh rightwing MAGA vector that brought Trump back into power. With Canada’s population slightly above that of California, adding Canadians to our voting mix would definitely move the United States to the left. Prime Minister/US Governor Wayne Gretzky?! Yup, that’s what Trump suggested.

But there is another parameter rising here, the standard Trumpian distract and blame when he obviously cannot deliver on most of his pledges. Like: cutting food and gas prices, funding government just based on tariff income, ending the Ukraine War in a day, dropping inflation can cutting taxes for the rich while reducing the national debt and installing his incompetent cabinet picks to run the country. It does seem that de facto co-President Musk is getting what he wanted… even if Trump cannot deliver on his promises.

I’m Peter Dekom, and even if Trump makes a little headway on immigration deportation, even that will add costs to just about everything.