US-owned Greenland and Gulf of America? What a weird week

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

>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.

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.

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.

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.

> "already promised to allow an independence vote"

Exactly, an _independence_ vote.

What would your response be if Russia paid each US citizen $1mmm to vote for allowing it to annex Alaska?

“Why can’t China give each person in Guam $1 million to vote for independence and then ratify joining PRC, what’s stopping this”

Expansionism is bad. The suggestion to manipulate the population against their normal wishes by supplying them with helicopter money is depraved.

> Why can't the US pay each Greenlander $1mmm to vote for independence and then ratify joining the US?

God hated Esau because he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. It never made sense to me but now I kinda get it.

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.

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?

Because Danish voting law, having been written with a bit of insight, outlaws bribing the electorate.

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"

Why should the U.S. steal 2 trillions in minerals from the EU just because Denmark is incompetent?

> 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.

Psychological operations designed to shift the overton window have been going on longer than you have been alive.

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!

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.