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Today: Editor and writer Maria Bustillos.
Issue No. 488
The Peacekeepers
Maria Bustillos
The Peacekeepers
by Maria Bustillos
Donald Trump’s promised invasion or takeover or purchase of Greenland—which would have portended the end of NATO—appears to be off the table for now, the result of a united front of opposition presented by the EU democracies. Trump’s belligerent and erratic threats against a NATO ally had sounded so deranged as to be meaningless—weird, outlandish, grandiose ravings—until troops arrived from France, Germany, the UK, Norway, and Sweden on January 15 to join the Danish forces already there to defend the Arctic island.
World leaders trying to deal with the Trump administration have begun to resemble characters in that queasy phase of a horror film where the innocent-looking alien specimen (that is about to devour everyone) is still being looked after and warily humored, but in an atmosphere of increasing dread. People have begun taking this president at his word.
The White House’s threats of invasion, as well as their kidnappings and deportations and establishment of secret police and concentration camps and pardoning of felons and hiding Venezuelan oil revenues offshore and the wholesale demolition of academic, public health, and scientific institutions all appear chaotic and insane, but everyone still has to try to somehow make sense of them. Possible explanations floated by pundits, politicians and other observers for the wildly destructive behavior of the White House include:
- Distraction from DOJ refusal to release all the Epstein files
- Trump’s dementia
- Stupidity and incompetence; out of their depth
- Greed: Doing the bidding of oligarchs
- Fascism/eugenics, often in connection with Project 2025 and Christofascism
But there is another reading of far-right Republican behavior that explains it all better than any of the above, and dovetails with them all.
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