The spiritual rot of our time is nowhere so evident as in the number of people—across both parties—who are rushing to normalize Trump's threats to invade Greenland (a neo-colonial assault that would—let us recall—also constitute a direct attack on a NATO ally, and thereby trigger Article 5 against... ourselves? I don't think the designers of the treaty ever contemplated that one).
The punditry's response to Trump's bizarre and unprovoked saber-rattling (against, I repeat, countries that are already allied to us, at least until Trump succeeds in completely and permanently poisoning those relationships) has been all-too typical. In the immediate wake of Trump's comments, people mocked those who took him seriously. "He's just kidding," they said; or "it's a negotiating tactic."
Now, the discourse has evolved a step further, and everyone seems to agree: Trump is genuinely obsessed with the idea of acquiring Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal by appropriating the sovereign territory of our allies. But now, people have shifted from saying this was "just a joke" to declaring that it's a no big deal. "Totally normal idea; nothing to see here," they declare.
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was probably the most egregious example of this, since he obviously knows better. But, in recent weeks, he has decided to stop at nothing in his efforts to curry favor with right-wing populists. In one recent interview, he said laconically that "I don’t think Greenland is absurd," referring to Trump's plans to try to annex the Danish-controlled island.
Note the sleight-of-hand here. Trump's proposal has been implicitly reframed as simply the bare suggestion that the U.S. might one day expand to include Greenland. And indeed, that is not inherently absurd. If the Greenlanders wanted it, and the Danes wanted it, and it did not involve the unwilling seizure of land and a possible war with a NATO ally, I'd be all for it.
But, of course, that's not what Trump said. He didn't just say: I'd like to make an offer to the Greenlanders and the Danes. He instead indicated that he would use economic coercion, in the form of an unprovoked trade war against an ally, and possibly military force as well, to force the sale of the island. That's the megalomaniacal criminal madness of what Trump is proposing.
He didn't just say: Greenland is cool, and has lots of valuable resources. I mean, Greenland is cool, and probably does have lots of valuable resources, for all I know. That's not the insane or evil part. The insane and evil part is when he adds: "Greenland is cool, and has lots of valuable resources, and that's why we should kill them and take all of their cool stuff."
It's a proposal for sheer robbery and murder. But, as Henry Fielding observed in Jonathan Wild, a robber needs only to pull off a big enough theft to go from being condemned as a criminal to lauded as "Great." And indeed, Trump is well on his way to meeting Fielding's wry definition of "greatness"— which (if Alexander the Great, say, is any guide) "consists in bringing all manner of mischief on mankind."
After all, the pundits are already falling over themselves—just as they did in the fascist era—to exonerate robbery and butchery by calling it a spiritual quest for greatness. Two unsettling articles in Politico herald the return of the kind of Social Darwinist thinking that accompanied the last age of imperialism: the return of "the law of the strongest," as the French foreign minister has ominously put it.
One of the articles describes the emergence of a strain of thinking on the so-called New Right that heralds the conquest of surrounding territory as a way to recover U.S. spiritual vitality (remind you of any 1930s dictators?). The second article makes the same pitch in less forthrightly fascist terms. This one, instead, seems to shed crocodile tears at the regrettable "necessity" of invading our allies.
This second article needs to be read to be believed. It declares that the liberal global order is dead. However much we may mourn its passing, it's no good crying over it now. We have returned to an era of "competition"—read Social Darwinism and the "law of the strongest." In today's world, Great Powers just take the things they want, so the U.S. must do so as well or risk getting left behind.
So goes the argument—seriously. The second Trump administration hasn't even started yet, and already the pundits are positioning themselves to serve as mouthpieces for a neo-fascist vision of conquering and subduing the "lesser breeds without the law" and expanding into Greenland and Canada in order to secure more Lebensraum for Americans. It's already come to this.
But what particularly fascinates me about this argument is its total disingenuousness. It declares the liberal order to be dead, as it it were a fait accompli. But—the old U.S.-led liberal global order is not dead; people like this author are murdering it before our eyes. Trump and Putin and Xi and all their kind are doing all in their power to destroy it—but it certainly didn't die of natural causes.
Indeed, in many respects, the U.S.-led global order is doing great right now. The U.S. remains the most prosperous and powerful country on Earth. Clearly, our system of alliances has worked great for us and helped us to secure both economic advantage and geopolitical might. We could indefinitely keep both, if Trump wasn't mining the foundations of this order by threatening our allies right now.
People like this pundit cite Putin's invasion of Ukraine, of course. But, let it be noted: Putin didn't win. His full-scale invasion, as you may have noticed, didn't go very well for him. Nor did he manage to drive a wedge between the Western allies who stood up for democracy and opposed him (at least not yet). The West held together, and that's why Putin has largely failed.
Of course, Trump is trying to undo that too, and hand Putin the victory he seeks—but that's not a case of the liberal global order dying. That's a case of a madman needlessly killing the liberal global order while it's otherwise in perfect health. Trump and Putin are striking it down in its prime. The liberal global order didn't just fall down the stairs on its own, people—it was pushed.
I am reminded of an astonishing episode of diplomatic history that Henry Adams records in his classic autobiography. In describing his time in England with his father during the Civil War, when they were tasked with managing the U.S. relationship with Britain, Adams notes that the British politicians of the era always invoked that old helpful standby: tragic "necessity."
Gladstone, for instance, declared that however much one's sympathies might lie with the Union cause—regrettably, the fact on the ground was that the South was bound to prevail.
As Gladstone said in a speech, as Adams records: "We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made, what is more than either, they have made a nation."
In reality, as Adams observes, British sympathies did not in fact lie with the Union. To the contrary, many of its statesmen longed to see the upstart nation fail and be divided, since such an event would take an otherwise powerful rival out of commission.
Furthermore, it wasn't so much that the South was just succeeding through its own efforts, as it was that Great Britain was allowing it to succeed for reasons of its own self-interest. As Adams writes: "No one knew so well as he [i.e., Gladstone], that he and his own officials and friends at Liverpool were alone 'making' a rebel navy, and that Jefferson Davis had next to nothing to do with it."
But it was convenient for men like Gladstone to pretend that they were of course rooting for the triumph of freedom and the Union, but that events were simply forcing their hand.
One is reminded of all the false friends of Ukraine (and real friends of Putin) who say: "oh, of course, one sympathizes with the Ukrainian cause, but—alas—it is doomed. We might as well hand Putin the territory he covets and condemn the Ukrainians living there to military occupation by a power that has been torturing and killing them and kidnapping their children for forced deportation to Russia."
One is also reminded, even more, of the people (like this pundit) who say: "oh, of course, one mourns the passing of the liberal global order. Deeply regrettable and all. But, alas, that's the world we live in now! The liberal order is dead. We'd better make the best of the Social Darwinist land-grab we find ourselves in now."
When—of course—they don't actually regret it at all; it is precisely what they want. Just as it was for Gladstone—it is always very convenient to present what one actually desires for its own sake as merely a fait accompli that one is simply forced to accept. But we shouldn't be fooled for an instant.
The liberal order didn't die, it is being killed—by people like this. And now they are already trying to read its eulogy and bury it, while the body is still warm. Why? "Tragic necessity"? Hardly. It's because they're gleeful at the prospect. They want the liberal order out of the way, because its emphasis on the rule of law and respect for sovereign borders is inconvenient to a neo-imperialist vision.
They are actually thrilled and titillated to think that maybe we are about to embark on a new era of bloodshed and conquest. Like all fascists, they seek spiritual renewal through violence. And, in the case of this pundit at least, the very real prospect of climate change has provided a new pseudo-rationale for the ideology of Lebensraum—America has to conquer the Arctic, we are told; because it will soon be the only livable place.
But surely someone will oppose Trump in these ambitions, right? How about the organized Left? How about the "anti-war movement"? Won't they have something to say against his threats to invade our allies?
I wouldn't count on it. Most of the progressive Left has spent the last week heaping praise on Trump for what they see as his role in securing the Gaza ceasefire. They have spent so many months blaming Biden for everything, it appears, that they can't break the habit, even when Biden is almost out the door. From what I can see, the anti-war Left at this point adores Trump.
That just leaves me and a handful of other liberals, I guess. And the Greenlanders. And the Danes. And the Canadians. And the Panamanians. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I ever betray them—if you ever see me singing these pundits' hymns to the glorious new Trump imperium. To our allies around the world, I say—I, at least, won't be the one to sell you out.
I say to them, with Edna St. Vincent Millay's "conscientious objector": "Brother, the password and the plans of our city/ are safe with me; Never through me/ Shall you be overcome."
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