Some research suggests that Patriot Polling is run by two college freshmen who both lean Republican themselves, and that there have been some concerns over bias in their election polls.
They asked 416 people out of 56000 total in Greenland (~1%). They dialed randomized landline numbers (which is a biased group of people if you ask me).
It also leaves a bit of an after taste that this poll was done by an American organization which has the word "patriot" in it.
Also pushed by The Hill, which is generally Trump friendly. This is a classic regime change operation by advocacy and indoctrination of the Greenland population.
If Greenland votes to join the U.S., they will get a reservation and the U.S. will get the minerals. Ask the Inuit in Alaska.
> Unfortunately, there's a method to his pronouncements.
Am I missing some alternate definition of "method" which is actually explored by this article? I was hoping for some (even speculative) explanation for why territorial expansion has suddenly entered the American zeitgeist...
Other than providing fodder to the media and distracting his citizens from broken promises? Threatening to invade and take territory from another founding member of NATO is a sure-fire way to delegitimise and destroy the alliance his administration clearly does not value.
By throwing out the most outlandish inflammatory shit, the media gushes over it ("no such thing as bad press"), regular people who just want straightforward stability freak out about it, an army of edgelord simps go to work arguing how such a plan is straightforwardly reasonable xor is actually some 4d chess move, and ultimately the entire memetic sphere is filled with polarized spectator-sport trash - drowning out and neutralizing reasoned criticism of what is actually happening.
More than the inevitable national tragedies that will be openly shirked and just used as opportunities to divide, more than the overt destruction and corporate coup his cadre of anti-American enablers have had four years to plan, what I am really dreading is going back to being continually gaslit that any of it makes sense as a coherent political perspective beyond mere postmodern nihilism.
My opinion is that it's trolling us all. Also, it's a feint to get us to look elsewhere while other deeds are done. We all only have so much attention to give and every news website is certainly filled with this "news".
Trump's goal is to get his nominees through congress. Some are fine, but there are about 5-7 who are deemed pretty unacceptable by most people. Perhaps the lack of light on those people will help get them through the process.
He's trolling while at the same time has the power to act on the trolling if it doesn't get push back.
That's the core issue with his "trolling", usually a troll doesn't have power so not feeding them the attention is all it's needed to defuse the situation, when the troll has the weight of the USA's government filled with sycophants behind to do their bidding then it isn't trolling anymore but much more a "testing the waters" situation.
This is highly speculative (and more likely the brainchild of military intelligence than Trump himself) but it could be aimed at intimidating Russia prior to talks re Ukraine. Russia has strategic interests in the Arctic, and a US presence in those waters is probably a little alarming. Especially given that they are currently using old tankers registered to other flags to circumvent oil sanctions.
The Russian angle is an interesting one I had not considered! Even the "threat" of an increased US presence in the Arctic would seem to apply some additional pressure on Russia.
It could also have interesting effects regarding Russia/Ukraine negotiations. Russia would be wise to consider if it really wants to open to door to a major powers territorial acquisition fire-sale....
If this is the actual reasoning, it would be one of the few times where the West has actually gotten the tone roughly correct regarding Putin. Strongman leaders struggle to see strength in anything except other strongman leaders.
Maybe. In my experience Danes tend to be very practical and professional people. As long as it stays as just bluster, it probably won't ruffle too many feathers in their political sphere.
>Someone needs to point out Puerto Rico as an example of how they'll be treated.
Puerto Rico and USVI are the wealthiest places in the Caribbean.
>Also, Guam and other US territories.
The US pacific island territories are, again, the wealthiest places in the Pacific other than Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand.
>All that, AND no healthcare. And taxes.
Greenland doesn't pay for its "free" healthcare; Denmark does, with a $600 million annual grant that is half the island's budget. $600 million is the size of the annual budget of El Paso. In other words, expect the US to persuade Greenlanders toward annexation by doubling or tripling that amount.
Snarky editorials are missing the memo here, that like it or not, history is happening again. Trump's not going to pull a Crimea with little green men, but the Overton window is opening.
Why can't the US pay each Greenlander $1mmm to vote for independence and then ratify joining the US? Nobody can give a good answer what's stopping this. Denmark has already promised to allow an independence vote.
Maybe Greenlanders would use the million dollars to move to a US metro area so their kids could get a better education. Maybe they want to get a tech job. Maybe they just don't like being cold!
Inuits aren't serfs. Stop treating them like part of the landscape. They are human beings free to make their own choices.
EDIT: I can't post more comments right now, so about Guam — I've never heard China make an offer! If the US has to counter to hold onto a strategically important territory, that's a good thing for the residents!
The fact that trump junior had to bribe homeless people with food to get enough people in maga gear to take a supportive looking photo I think is quite instructive about what the Greenlanders feel
Well, maybe Denmark should have done something to help the crowds of homeless elderly people in the supermarket, so Don couldn't use them a a photo op. The entire island is 75k people, how could Don round up 20 homeless people in an hour at a single grocery store?
Either this is the entire homeless population of Greenland or Denmark isn't really doing a great support job.
By your logic Washington state should consider becoming Icelandic. Relative levels of homelessness are not an indication of who wants to join whom or who gets to annex whom.
This entire line of reasoning is INSANE
>round up 20 homeless people in an hour at a single grocery store?
pretty sure I could manage that in +- any decent sized city globally. Hungry people like food. Completely irrelevant to this topic. A political player needing to stage photo ops with bribery does indicate that there isn't organic support for it though.
Denmark promised to allow a fair independence vote. They certainly didn't promise to respect the results of an unfair independence vote with significant outside interference.
Really ask yourself — if Denmark, the colonial state, who never asked Greenland whether it wanted to a colony in the first place, rejects an independence vote (and pro-US) by the 88% native Inuit population, are they the good guys?
I'm not saying Greenland would vote to join the US! But if they do, it would be extremely hard to view Denmark as the "good guys" for rejecting it. That's a real white-man's-burden perspective.
> who never asked Greenland whether it wanted to a colony in the first place
If that was the criterion for legitimacy in such a claim for land then I have to ask, who asked the native Americans anything? Or Mexicans?
This kind of "works for me but not for you" argument, similar to the one you threw above (US to "buy democracy" by paying people to vote for independence) and then dodged any follow-up, can only take you so far in a quality conversation.
As per the Civil War and SCOTUS rulings during Reconstruction, US States are not allowed to leave the Union. Even if the people of Alaska (or any state for that matter) voted overwhelmingly to secede, the other states would have to pass a constitutional amendment allowing for secession. America’s own Article 50, if you will.
In Greenland’s case, Denmark has guaranteed a right to an independence referendum. A closer parallel would be the status of Puerto Rico as a US territory. The choice to apply for statehood, remain a territory, or vote for independence has no clear majority. However there isn’t anything that would prevent independence for Puerto Rico if that’s what the people there wanted.
If Denmark was noble enough to allow a referendum in a time when it was regarded the correct thing to do, it does not mean that the referendum can be abused so that the U.S. can later annex the substantial natural resources of Greenland and say it is for everyone's security.
You cite legalistic reasons that make it impossible to annex Alaska. I'm sure similar legalistic reasons can be found to reverse Denmark's offer in an age that has turned neo-colonial.
> guaranteed a right to an independence referendum
exactly a independence referendum
and that is what Greenland wants independence not being a US territory
like think about it why would they want to be US territory it's pretty clear cut worse for them in close to every aspect. Like they would have less self control then under Denmark, they would have a way worse health care system, way worse labor rights, way less democracy, worse legal system etc. No one (who is well informed) in Greenland wants to be a US territory.
It may seem pedantic but once independence is granted Greenland would become a sovereign nation. Sovereign nations have the right to request annexation into another state. Whether that happens within days or a century after independence is immaterial.
the point is they don't want to so if it's happen it would happen because the US forced them to do so which mean the US would have degraded to be on the level of evil states the world would be far better of not existing
it would have betrayed all of it's core values and it's founders would turn around for shame if such a thing where possible for dead people (EDIT: well at lest some of them)
Also like, Greenland never voted to join Denmark. Denmark just took it! Every single US state at least had a ratification vote for the territory to become a state.
California... It was taken by military force ending in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It ratified statehood 2 years later, so it was annexed and then accepted into the Union, not very legitimate to be done this way.
The pop of Alaska is not the relevant number here. Presumably the vote to transfer Alaska to Russia would have to be at the level of the whole country. (The question of whether a state can unilaterally leave the United States has come up in the past and was pretty violently settled.)
> The pop of Alaska is not the relevant number here. Presumably the vote to transfer Alaska to Russia would have to be at the level of the whole country.
No. Nobody proposed a Greenland referendum where all Danes can vote. Greenland ≈ Alaska, Denmark ≈ USA.
Why would anyone in Greenland believe that they would ever actually get paid? And if they were paid ahead of a vote, why wouldn't they just take the money, vote no, and go on with their lives?
The US government has a history of not following through with promises like these, even when they are codified into law or ratified in legally binding treaties.
It's my (unsophisticated) understanding that any country/territory in the world could petition US Congress for statehood. The only qualifications are that it be a republic, and have an explicit constitution (no wishy-washy UK "we sort of have an unwritten constitution").
Any of the Canadian provinces could do this on their own (though, maybe they should consider getting the divorce finalized first), Greenland could do it, hell, Argentina or Mongolia could do it.
The catch being, of course, Congress doesn't have to accept.
Could provinces do it? They are not strictly republics - they still each have a lieutenant governor, appointed by the governor general and act as the King’s representative. Passage of legislation still requires royal assent.
>They are not strictly republics - they still each have a lieutenant governor, appointed by the governor general and act as the King’s representative. Passage of legislation still requires royal assent.
Nothing prevents former Canadian states from retaining parliamentary systems after annexation. They would still need a governor, either elected or appointed by the federal government, who would fulfill the role the king's representative does now, but that is no different from any former monarchy that, after becoming a republic, now elects a president to serve in that role.
I do not believe that it counts that Canada has a monarch, unless say Alberta has its own private king or something. But I'm conceding that I don't know the answer to this and my first comment's overstated. My bad.
the huge majority of citizens in Greenland do _not_ want to be part of the US nor is there wide spread historic US control over it so you can't pull a Crimea.
The reason they don't want to be part of Denmark is because they don't want to be a external territory but their own _independent_ country, making their own decisions for themself.
Not only would joining the US not give them that, they would actually be worse off then before as they pretty much guaranteed wouldn't become a US state but external territory instead. Not speaking about all kinds of living and right standards they are used to and would likely lose when entering the US (e.g. health care, consumer rights, etc.).
And when it comes about having a military outpost on Greenland the US already has that.
So we have:
- Denmark: Want's to keep it, and is doing financially well so they have no reason to sell, but have many reasons to keep it.
- Greenland People: Want to be a _fully independent_ nation.
- A US president with megalomania who wants to _force allays_ to give him territory they don't want to give up and force his rule onto people which do not want this. And that not just with a random EU allay but one of their closest allays (Canada)
Let's be realistic the US trying to "do a Crimea" wouldn't be a Crimera but more like Germans invasion into Poland i.e. the start of WW3 due to how it basically signals to China and Russia that Nato is weak (I mean NATO would at lest boarder on a internal war, if not even some members having declared war.) and forcefully sizing territories is fine.
Ignoring megalomania the worst thing here is IMHO how much facts are again just absurdly misrepresented, like treating "Greenland wants to be a independent country" as "Greenland wants to be a territory of the US"
For some reason I thought of Comcast telling me when I called in to get the 20 dollar rate on a mailer, that it's only for new customers. I suppose their purpose is transparent with a teaser rate, but still feels unfair.
Regardless of existing US citizens not getting offered 1MM, what does the regular citizen get if Greenland were to join I wonder?
The military base is already there, why not?
Also, IIRC the base is of dubious legality. It was built during WWII when Denmark was part of the Third Reich.
> To replace the agreement entered into during World War II between the US and Denmark, a new agreement with respect to Greenland was ratified on 27 April 1951 (effective on 8 June 1951). At the request of NATO, the agreement became a part of the NATO defense program. The pact specified that the two nations would arrange for the use of facilities in Greenland by NATO forces in defense of the NATO area known as the Greenland Defense Area.
So I wonder what would happen to the treaty/base if the US left NATO?
Denmark was first neutral, and then occupied by the Germans during WWII. This is not what people would typically consider "part of the Third Reich", unless one would also consider Switzerland or Belgium to have been.
Greenland is serious. The U.S. has been trying to grab it for a century. They have influenced the native population for decades and will continue to stir anti-Danish sentiment. A classic regime change operation like hundreds of others.
Many U.S. newspapers who have lectured us on Ukraine's sovereignty for four years are relatively silent on the issue. The All-In podcast (now almost a pure Trump outlet) were in favor and suggested other land grabs.
The EU, stripped of its will and subservient, makes meek comments. Apparently it is fine that 2 trillion in minerals will go to the U.S. and they can buy them back from the U.S.
> A classic regime change operation like hundreds of others.
My memory of post-WWII is that the US has a history of "changing" regimes in other countries, but has made very few (none? Maybe Cuba?) serious efforts to add territory to the actual land area of the United States.
it is extremely disconcerting to me how quickly the concept of the US using pressure or force to make an ally cut it's own country in half and make people US subjects is just a normal thing to see discussed.
trump and his sociopathic outriders are a cancer on us all and refusing to normalise all this garbage is one thing we can personally do against them.
agreed, especially how everyone overlooks that Greenland wants to be a fully independent nation and treats their thirst for independence as wanting to be a US territory which can't even properly vote... wtf
There is even conversation going on about Svalbard on Twitter. I think a lot of people just realized hos close that is to Greenland and then if Greenland then why not Svalbard.
wonder when they'll do it to australia. not much will change here i guess. except more homelessness. the overton window is new to me though, thanks to my sibling poster for that new idea!
but this is the thing Denmark did too, their is a sufficient large US military base in Greenland. When it comes to projecting military power to the north/east the US has no reason to try and size Greenland, like AT ALL.
This isn't about projecting military power it's about sizing Greenland itself, not just from the Denmark but the people of Greenland themself.
Censoring content, and removing users was done by Twitter and Facebook
as the behest of who was in power.
Now someone else is in power they lean towards them instead.
Under the current regime they removed users, censored content,
hired people to ensure politlca correctness.
All moving farther away from free speech.
The way it apeparsr to move now, that the same companies align to a new regime
is opening up speech.
If you have reached the conclusion that your political opponents should
not be allowed to speak, and that is the only way to keep free speech,
""
>Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.
-Noam Chomsky
""
"I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.
—Voltaire, 1770
> Seems to have strong opinions on how things should run in the EU as well.
People in the US expression strong opinions about how other countries
or regions should be run is, for those who pay attention, just the way
things are.
When the US expresses strong enough opinion about how other countries
or region should be run they impose sanctions or arrange regime change
and even downright invasion.
https://patriotpolling.com/our-polls/f/greenland-supports-jo...