What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tamas]

Ah

[celedhring]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-eyes-a-new-real-estate-purchase-greenland-11565904223

President Trump Eyes a New Real-Estate Purchase: Greenland
In conversations with aides, the president has—with varying degrees of seriousness—floated the idea of the U.S. buying the autonomous Danish territory

WASHINGTON—President Trump made his name on the world's most famous island. Now he wants to buy the world's biggest.

The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer's imagination, according to people familiar with the discussion, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea.

Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it would be a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination that will never come to fruition. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort were serious.

With a population of about 56,000, Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen. Mr. Trump is scheduled to make his first visit to Denmark early next month, although the visit is unrelated, these people said.

The White House and State Department didn't respond to a request for comment. Officials with Denmark's Royal House and the Danish embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. officials view Greenland as important to American national-security interests. A decades-old defense treaty between Denmark and the U.S. gives the U.S. military virtually unlimited rights in Greenland at America's northernmost base, Thule Air Base. Located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it includes a radar station that is part of a U.S. ballistic missile early-warning system. The base is also used by the U.S. Air Force Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The U.S. has sought to derail Chinese efforts to gain an economic foothold in Greenland. The Pentagon worked successfully in 2018 to block China from financing three airports on the island.

People outside the White House have described purchasing Greenland as an Alaska-type acquisition for Mr. Trump's legacy, advisers said.
The few current and former White House officials who had heard of the notion, described it with a mix of anticipation and apprehension because it remains unknown how far the president might push the idea. It generated a cascade of questions among his advisers, such as whether the U.S. could use Greenland to establish a stronger military presence in the Arctic, and what kind of research opportunities it might present.

Though it has vast natural resources across its 811,000 square miles, Greenland relies on $591 million of subsidies from Denmark annually, which make up about 60% of its annual budget, according to U.S. and Danish government statistics.

Though Greenland is technically part of North America, it is culturally and politically linked to Europe. Following World War II, the U.S. under President Harry Truman developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland and in 1946 offered to buy it from Denmark for $100 million. Denmark refused to sell. And that was the second failed attempt—the State Department had also launched an inquiry into buying Greenland and Iceland in 1867.

At a dinner with associates last spring, Mr. Trump said someone had told him at a roundtable that Denmark was having financial trouble over its assistance to Greenland, and suggested that he should consider buying the island, according to one of the people. "What do you guys think about that?" he asked the room, the person said. "Do you think it would work?"

The person described the question less as a serious inquiry than as a joke meant to indicate "I'm so powerful I could buy a country," noting that since Mr. Trump hadn't floated the idea at a campaign rally yet, he probably wasn't seriously considering it.

The person believed the president was interested in the idea because of the island's natural resources and because it would give him a legacy akin to President Dwight Eisenhower 's admission of Alaska into the U.S. as a state.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was scheduled to visit Greenland in May with the aim of discussing long-term peace and sustainable economic developments, particularly since "we're concerned about activities of other nations, including China, that do not share these same commitments," a senior State Department official said at the time. Mr. Pompeo was also scheduled to visit the New York Air National Guard in Kangerlussuaq, which supports U.S. scientists conducting research on Greenland's ice cap. His trip was called off at the last minute because of escalating tensions with Iran.

Kenneth Mortensen, a real-estate agent in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, said that the running joke in Greenland currently is that Mr. Trump is traveling to Denmark with the sole intention of buying their island. But he said Mr. Trump might run into some trouble.

"You can never own land here," Mr. Mortensen said, as all land is owned by the government. "In Greenland, you get a right to use the land where you want to build a house, but you can't buy."

"Of course, buying Greenland is a different issue altogether," he added. "I'm not sure about that."

[Caliga]

 

[PDH]

He wants something like this so he will be remembered as the bestest president for ever.

[Savonarola]

While no one really knows what Bo Schembechler meant by a "Michigan Man," I don't think this is what he had in mind:

President Trump repeats dubious claim he was Michigan's 'Man of the Year'.



This caught my eye since I had never heard of Michigan's Man of the Year award; and, upon reading the article,no one else (other than Donald Trump) has either.  It looks like he made that up at a 2016 rally in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights and has expanded on it since.  JD Salinger was supposed to talk about his characters like they were real people and Dickens talked about living with David Copperfield (no, not the magician, honestly); but what happens when you're your own fictional creation and you start to believe in that fiction?  Is that madness or mere con-artistry?

[grumbler]

While no one really knows what Bo Schembechler meant by a "Michigan Man," I don't think this is what he had in mind: (snip)

Bo didn't invent the term, Fielding Yost did.  Probably his best definition was in his retirement speech:

"My heart is so full at this moment, I fear I could say little else.  But do let me reiterate the Spirit of Michigan. It is based on a deathless loyalty to Michigan and all her ways.  An enthusiasm that makes it second nature for Michigan Men to spread the gospel of their university to the world's distant outposts.  And a conviction that nowhere, is there a better university, in any way, than this Michigan of ours."

As with any accolade, if you use it to describe yourself, it doesn't apply.

Doubly so in the case of Trump.

[The Brain]

Wasn't that a Eurythmics song?

[grumbler]

Wasn't that a Eurythmics song?

  From Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[jimmy olsen]

While no one really knows what Bo Schembechler meant by a "Michigan Man," I don't think this is what he had in mind:

President Trump repeats dubious claim he was Michigan's 'Man of the Year'.



This caught my eye since I had never heard of Michigan's Man of the Year award; and, upon reading the article,no one else (other than Donald Trump) has either.  It looks like he made that up at a 2016 rally in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights and has expanded on it since.  JD Salinger was supposed to talk about his characters like they were real people and Dickens talked about living with David Copperfield (no, not the magician, honestly); but what happens when you're your own fictional creation and you start to believe in that fiction?  Is that madness or mere con-artistry?

It's simply the behavior of a compulsive liar

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eglrXu7BL98

Shell union employees told to show up at Trump rally or not get paid.

[Solmyr]

I see he is taking lessons from Putin.

[Zoupa]

Fascism is in fashion. What a mess.

[garbon]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/how-trump-reshaping-american-opinion/596335/

The Longer Trump Stays in Office, the More Americans Oppose His Views

One of the most enduring descriptions of presidential power comes from Teddy Roosevelt, whose description of the office as a "bully pulpit" reflected his conclusion that its true worth was not its constitutional powers, but the ability to speak with and persuade voters. A century later, political scientists had largely debunked Roosevelt. It turns out, Ezra Klein wrote in The New Yorker in 2012, that presidents don't actually possess much power to sway public opinion.

But maybe Roosevelt was right after all. Recent polling shows that Donald Trump has managed to reshape American attitudes to a remarkable extent on a trio of his key issues—race, immigration, and trade.

There's just one catch: The public is turning against Trump's views.

A Reuters poll released today contains a trove of interesting data on race. Trump has long sought to use racial tension to gain political leverage, but this summer he has become especially explicit about exploiting and exaggerating racial divisions, with a series of racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen, and then on their colleague Elijah Cummings, as a strategy ahead of the 2020 election.

But the Reuters poll casts doubt on that strategy: "The Reuters analysis also found that Americans were less likely to express feelings of racial anxiety this year, and they were more likely to empathize with African Americans. This was also true for white Americans and whites without a college degree, who largely backed Trump in 2016."

Among the details, the number of whites who say "America must protect and preserve its White European heritage" has sunk nine points since last August. The percentages of whites, and white Republicans, who strongly agree that "white people are currently under attack in this country" have each dropped by roughly 25 points from the same time two years ago.

It isn't entirely clear what is motivating these changes. As Ashley Jardina, a political scientist at Duke, told me recently, there has been a 10 percent drop in the number of Americans who espouse white identity politics since Trump entered office. Many members of that group interpreted the election of Barack Obama, the first black president, as a threat to their group, and with Obama out of office, they may feel less threatened. Jardina also noted, though, that Trump's most explicit racist rhetoric turns off voters who may feel threatened but don't exhibit classical racial prejudice.

But the Trump era has also radicalized Democrats, and especially white Democrats, who by some measures are actually more liberal on race than fellow Democrats who are minorities. Reuters found that more Democrats say blacks are treated unfairly at work and by the police than in 2016—remarkable given how coverage of police violence toward African Americans has dropped in the past few years—while Republican attitudes have remained unchanged.

Meanwhile, opinion shifts like the ones on race appear elsewhere. Consider immigration, which is Trump's signature issue—though it is also inextricable from race, especially given Trump's focus on and rhetoric about Hispanic immigration.

Reuters found that white Americans are 19 percent more supportive of a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants than they were four years ago, and slightly less supportive of increased deportations. Other polls find related results. A record-high number of Americans—75 percent—said in 2018 that immigration is good for the United States. Although the Trump administration took steps last week to limit even legal immigration, the Trump presidency has seen an increase in the number of Americans who support more legal immigration—not just among Democrats, but even slightly among Republicans.

Trump, like other presidents but arguably more so, exerts a special type of gravity by virtue of his ability to set the topic of conversation. His fearmongering on immigration has led even Trump critics to argue that if moderates and liberals do not limit immigration, it will embolden hard-liners like Trump. Yet far from suggesting a large appetite for greater immigration restrictions that's being unmet, the polling data suggest a large appetite for more immigration that's going unfulfilled thanks to Trump's aggressive rhetoric. Moreover, there's been evidence of a backlash against the president's invective since the first months of his term. Trump has managed to force a national conversation around immigration, but rather than bring people to his side, he has convinced them he's wrong.

...

[Syt]

[The Larch]

They could gold plate that huge building in Nuuk that hosts something like 10% of the whole population of Greenland and call it a day.