30 LISTENER SEPTEMBER 7 2019

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iscussing President Donald Trump’s recent attempt

to conduct US international affairs as if he were still

a New York real-estate hustler, Real Time talk-show

host Bill Maher put this question to Democratic Sen-

ator Sheldon Whitehouse: “Do you think it’s crazy

to say, ‘I want to buy Greenland’?” Whitehouse

turned his palms upward, the universal gesture of

fatalistic bemusement. “Not by his standards.”

Quite. And by that yardstick, the subse-

quent diplomatic spat wasn’t crazy either.

“Greenland is not for sale,” said Danish

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “I

strongly hope this is not meant seriously.”

To talk about buying and selling Greenland,

an autonomous territory, she added, would

be an “absurd discussion”.

Trump, who combines an utter disregard

for civility with a gossamer-thin skin, wasn’t

going to stand for having his absurdity

identified as such: he cancelled an

upcoming state visit to Denmark,

for which preparations were at an

advanced stage.

“I thought that the Prime Minister’s

statement that it was ‘absurd’ ... was

nasty,” he said. “All she had to do is

say, ‘No, we wouldn’t be interested.’”

ABSURD

PERSON

SINGULAR

Nothing US President Donald Trump does or says, no

matter how ludicrous, offensive or reckless, seems to give

his base pause for thought. But he might be vulnerable if

the economy loses steam. by PAUL THOMAS ● illustration by ANTHONY ELLISON

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ESSAY

Or, as Frederiksen did say, “Greenland is not Danish. Greenland

belongs to Greenland.”

However, even by Trump’s debased standards, some of the stuff he

has come out with lately prompts the thought, “If that’s not crazy,

what is?” He said liberal Jewish Americans are bad Jews because good

Jews would support only a political party that gives Israel a blank

cheque in its dealings with the Palestinians and the Arab world. He

described himself as “the chosen one” and retweeted cultists’ claims

that he’s the “king of the Jews” and “loved

like the second coming of God”. When

he visited survivors of mass shootings, he

said, “the love for me was unparalleled”. He

threatened to turn thousands of captured

Isis fighters loose on the streets of France

and Germany.

THE SHADOW OF OBAMA

There was a suggestion that Trump’s cancella-

tion of his state visit to Denmark was more

about ego maintenance than petulance: his

predecessor, Barack Obama, is planning a

trip to Denmark at the end of the month

and Trump supposedly feared he’d be on

the wrong side of an invidious comparison.

“Trump was scared of the likely contrast,”

said David Frum, an anti-Trump conserva-

tive who served in George W Bush’s White

House. “Trump knows Obama is bigger than

he is, around the world as well as in the United

“Trump knows Obama

is bigger than he is,

around the world as well

as in the US, and that

knowledge tortures him.”

Mette Frederiksen and Barack Obama