As Europe reacts to Trump’s Davos rant, America’s capacity for self-delusion remains boundless.
Hey fam: I know that Reddit isn’t everyone’s bag, so I’m going to do an AMA right here tomorrow. Here’s how it’ll work.
The AMA will be here. If you want to go and start leaving questions in the comments, you can do that now. It would help me if, while you’re there, you could scan the questions already submitted and hit the like button for the ones you want me to answer. This will float the most popular questions to the top and make it easier for me to get to them.
I’ll log on tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. Eastern and start answering and I’ll get to as many as I can.
Anyone want to set the over/under line on how many questions we’ll get? I’m going with 700...
(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)
1. Greenland
Many Americans want to believe that Trump’s sudden climbdown yesterday in Davos has resolved the Greenland crisis.
It has not.
The foundation of the crisis is the decadence and degradation of American society. For a decade, Americans have looked at the fantastic prosperity they enjoy and assumed that it was their natural right. That they did not have to take civics, or governance, or the rule of law, or international obligations seriously. That they could elect an aspiring authoritarian, tolerate an attempted coup, endorse the embrace of America’s enemies and betrayal of its allies—and there would be no consequences.
In other words: The Greenland crisis is rooted in our self-delusion.
And Trump’s decision to pivot from (a) the United States must have complete and total control of Greenland; to→ (b) military action is possible; to→ (c) the declaration of a trade war; to→ (d) a soft disavowal of force; to→ (e) never mind—in the space of 108 hours—will enable even more self-delusion in America.
But the rest of the world is not nearly so foolish. Our adversaries in Russia and China have taken the full measure of the American people. And so have our former friends.
After the conclusion of Davos, EU leaders will meet in Brussels to discuss the new realities of the transatlantic relationship. Here are some quotes from these Europeans in Politico:
The sense of dread and skepticism remains, and the summit will still go ahead, despite Donald Trump declaring late Wednesday that he’s struck a deal on Greenland and won’t impose tariffs on European countries after all — underscoring how the gathering has become more than just about the latest blowup....
But the moment for making nice “has ended” and “the time has come to stand up against Trump,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO secretary-general and ex-Danish prime minister, told BBC radio....
“Our American Dream is dead,” said an EU diplomat from a country that has been among the bloc’s transatlantic champions. “Donald Trump murdered it.”...
“After the back and forth of the last few days, we should now wait and see what substantive agreements are reached between [NATO Secretary-General] Mr. Rutte and Mr. Trump,” Germany’s Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil told German broadcaster ZDF. “No matter what solution is now found for Greenland, everyone must understand that we cannot sit back, relax, and be satisfied.”...
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen summed up the mood during her Davos speech Tuesday.
“The world has changed permanently,” she said. “We need to change with it.”...
“We are experiencing a great rupture of the world order,” said a senior envoy from a country that was seen in the EU as a key American ally. Leaders will discuss “de-risking” from the U.S., the diplomat said — a term that has previously been reserved for the EU’s relationship with Beijing. “Trust is lost,” they said....
Two senior diplomats POLITICO spoke with separately compared the current state of the U.S. with the time leading up to World War II.
“I think we are past Munich now,” said one, referring to a 1938 meeting where Britain, France and Italy appeased Adolf Hitler by allowing him to annex Czechoslovakia. “We realize that appeasement is not the right policy anymore.”
What’s done is done. And the fact that Americans will tell themselves that the crisis is over just because Trump didn’t drop the 82nd Airborne into Nuuk is why we’re here in the first place.
2. An Authoritarian State
Another pleasant fiction people tell themselves is:
Things may be bad in America right now, but it’s not actual fascism. Not yet, at least.
Well that depends on who you are and where you live, doesn’t it?
For me, a middle-aged white guy in New York City, my day-to-day life is pretty normal. No actual fascism detected.
But for Renee Good, there was quite a lot of actual fascism. She was killed by a masked agent of the state. The federal government then labeled her a “domestic terrorist” and lauded her killer. This same government is now attempting to prevent any investigation of, or legal accountability for, the killer’s actions.
ChongLy Scott Thao is living with actual fascism. Masked, armed agents of the state showed no warrant before dragging this U.S. citizen out of his house, mostly naked, in the freezing cold, detaining him, and interrogating him before finally letting him go.
Citizens attempting to exercise First Amendment rights in Minneapolis are living with actual fascism:
A protester detained, her bra removed and wedding ring cut off, and some of her clothes never returned. The “gratuitous deployment” of pepper spray. A couple’s car surrounded by agents, who pointed semiautomatic weapons at them at close range.
A federal judge in Minneapolis cited the episodes in an unusually detailed ruling on Friday that found a pattern of misconduct by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and ordered them and other immigration agents to stop using excessive force against protesters while conducting their operations in the city.
Federal officials have unilaterally declared that they don’t need warrants to break into homes. Though I suppose reasonable people could disagree on whether or not this constitutes actual fascism until such time as the Supreme Court rules on it.
The point is: If you live in Minneapolis, right now, you cannot walk the streets without fear of violence being done to you by masked, armed agents of the state. If these agents harm you, you have no redress and they will face no accountability. Your children are not safe from government violence when they are in school. Your home can be invaded at any moment. Armed agents may demand to see your papers. They may shoot you if you are “disrespectful” to them.
That is actual fascism, right here, in America.
The fact that this actual fascism is not everywhere, all at once, does not change its character.
And finally: In societies where actual fascism does exist everywhere, all at once, it always begins as localized episodes. That a majority of Americans does not seem to appreciate this fact is another facet of our self-delusion.
3. ICE Is Different
Radley Balko is always a must-read.
Police agencies in the United States kill more than 1,000 people each year. After many of those deaths, the agencies involved put out statements. Those statements often use what’s known as the exonerative voice to minimize officers’ involvement. The first statement from the Minneapolis Police Department after George Floyd’s death, for example, said that the officers at the scene “noted that he appeared to be suffering from medical distress.” Quite the understatement. These communications often cast events in a light most favorable to the officers involved, sometimes to the point of deception. Too often, they’ll try to smear the deceased by citing a criminal record or suggesting a drug addiction or gang affiliation.
I have been covering policing for more than 20 years and have read and parsed a lot of these statements. The Department of Homeland Security’s response after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this month is something else entirely.
For all their flaws, typical communications from police officials usually include a modicum of solemnity. There are assurances that there will be a fair and impartial investigation, even if those investigations too often turn out to be neither. There’s at least the acknowledgment that to take a human life is a profound and serious thing.
The Trump administration’s response to Ms. Good’s death made no such concessions. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was little empathy for her family — for her parents, her partner or the children she left behind. From the moment the world learned about her death, the administration pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism worthy of praise and celebration.
It isn’t just the lying; it’s that the lies are wildly exaggerated and easily refutable. All the evidence we’ve seen so far, including a meticulous Times forensic analysis of the available footage, makes clear that at worst, Ms. Good mildly obstructed immigration enforcement, disobeyed ambiguous orders or perhaps attempted to flee an arrest. None of those are capital crimes, nor do law enforcement officers get to dole out punishment in such cases. At one point, President Trump justified her shooting by claiming she’d been “very disrespectful” to immigration officers. That isn’t a crime at all.
The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything. They’re a projection of power.