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Comment by verzali | Hacker News Reader

I don't see how it would actually work in practice. Can Trump really destroy Greenland's democracy via executive order? Surely Congress or the courts would have something to say about it? And even if not, how are you going to deal with all the people there? If Trump is ruling Greenland via executive order, then he is just a dictator, what happens to the people? It would end up as a long running sore and a terrible blemish on America's reputation.

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Yeah, for what its worth I agree. But I can't see how those arguments would apply to abolishing Greenlands law, but not to invading and claiming ownership in the first place.

If the US doesn't have checks and balances to stop it invading a democratic ally with no cause, then I don't know what checks and balancing meaningfully can be said to exist.

Hopefully we won't find out.

> Surely Congress or the courts would have something to say about it?

my sense is that Trump feels to be above the law right now, having ordered the operation to seize Maduro without Congressional approval (illegal under U.S. constitutional law). Trump's reasoning was that "Congress has a tendency to leak", and so to him congress seems little more than background noise.

> Surely Congress or the courts would have something to say about it?

The entire mode of operation for the current administration is to ignore such things whenever they don't blindly rubber stamp or get out of the way. It has been very successful for them.

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