As a U.S. citizen, I’m beginning to ask myself how to take more meaningful measures to help bring an end to this behavior. I’m not a political activist and generally try to mind my own business, but that mindset only worked when I felt I could trust the system to self-correct. It seems our judicial system can barely keep up, and Congress is doing next to nothing.
jleyank1 day ago
As in any region's system: pay attention, vote, donate, organize even protest. Not voting votes for the winner, which might not be what you want.
DustinEchoes1 day ago
We are rapidly approaching the point where that isn’t enough.
jleyank1 day ago
Protest is ill-defined and open-ended. The other alternative I didn't mention the first time is to get outta Dodge.
TurdF3rguson1 day ago
Oh you didn't hear? They're also cancelling the midterms.
Insanity1 day ago
And when this happens, about half the country still will support this demagogue.
Jensson1 day ago
Depending on your state you vote for the winner regardless who you vote for since its winner takes all.
aebtebeten1 day ago
Have you called your members of congress yet?
afterburner1 day ago
Don't let the people in your life casually get away with promoting fascism. Punish them socially.
smilliken1 day ago
That strategy may be cathartic, but it will have the opposite of the desired effect. If there's any hope of changing someone's mind, it has to start by respecting their opinion no matter how wrong you think it is. If you start a fight you'll get a fight.
bicx1 day ago
I agree. Trying to punish will just deepen resentment, and they will live in their echo chamber while you live in yours. Then it's just side vs side, with the pundits leading the dialog.
We have to remember that we aren't all working from the same perceptual or moral framework. This is a struggle for me, as I love my parents but our believes have diverged considerably.
I think the challenge right now in the U.S. is that for many, it doesn't feel socially safe to question your own side. In reality, we need to feel free to judge actions individually, and judge leaders as a true accumulation of their actions. If we fear rejection from our party/family/friends for not walking in lock-step with the official party stances, that influences a lot of our thinking. No one wants to feel continually guilty about their own views (especially when there are social consequences for changing them), so we often shove aside conflicting details, make jokes, and signal to others that we're still a part of the tribe.
It sucks.
tremon3 hours ago
I'm sorry, but some opinions are not worth respecting. People who e.g. excuse the genocide in Gaza, deny what happened in Tiananmen Square or who insist that the Jan6 insurrections were "just tourists" should not receive a participation trophy.
kcplate1 day ago
Start holding the opposing party responsible to run good candidates for office and adopt a platform that can appeal to independents.
The knee jerk reaction is to run your party’s candidates and platform to the opposite extreme. Instead you should move towards the center. I really hope the democrats realize this (some do and are speaking out) soon.
kurtis_reed1 day ago
Protest
kcplate1 day ago
To what end? I think this has become the “feel good that I am doing something about it” approach but it literally has almost zero effect beyond creating rhetoric from the politicians.
You need to hold your political leaders responsible with your vote. Don’t just automatically vote for the politicians that are “saying” the right things. Find out what your representatives are “doing” and hold them responsible for their actions or more importantly, inactions.
morkalork1 day ago
Call your senator and congressman /s
Avicebron1 day ago
I think we have to acknowledge the grievances of people who got us into this position in the first place and don't stop making those grievances and the tangible steps being taken to solve them known on every public platform available.
A_D_E_P_T1 day ago
What does Greenland have to do with anybody's grievances? That's a serious and non-rhetorical question.
donkeybeer1 day ago
Some people are just so stupid they are beyond all help. They are eternally offended and will always have made up "grievances". For example one really funny "grievance" is that intermarriage is equal to violent murderous genocide. Its best to laugh these "grievances" out the room.
lostmsu1 day ago
Move to a swing state and vote.
tzs1 day ago
One thing that could help would be for Democrats who live in congressional districts where there is no way a Democrat will ever get elected because there are too many people there who just vote for the candidate with the 'R' by their name on the ballot without actually looking into either candidate's positions to switch their registration to Republican.
That way they could vote in Republican primaries. Many if not most of those districts actually have Republican candidates in the primaries who are center right but they lose because primary turnout is very low, largely consisting of just the most extreme voters.
For example consider Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG). In the primary the first time she ran against a perfectly normal Republican. I don't remember all the details, but I believe he was a decorated military officer who after the military was a successful businessman and who had server in state offices.
MTG was a full on QAnon and other conspiracy theorist believer. But it is mostly the fringe that votes in primaries so she won. And it is a heavily Republican district with many people who don't really follow politics so she got their vote in the general election because they always vote R.
Register as a Republican if you are in such a district and vote in the primaries and then maybe we can get back to having sane Republicans winning those districts.
For safe Republican districts where they do elect sane Republicans, it is still worth switching registration. Let the current representative from that district know that you are doing this, and promise that if Trump gets upset at their vote on something and bankrolls a primary challenge, you will vote for them in the primary.
JeremyNT1 day ago
I live in a district like this and the primary is determined by who is endorsed by the President.
Also these voters are dumb but they aren't that dumb. Unless you know a person who actually has presented as a Trump supporting republican for the last decade and is secretly willing to switch sides after the election, you're not going to trick them.
tzs1 day ago
The point is not to trick anyone.
The point is that center right Republicans (the kind that used to win most Republican districts before 2012) could still win if they could make it to the general election. They often can't because most Republican voters, like most Democrat voters, aren't into party politics enough to bother voting in the primaries.
It is the voters who are most likely to be to be farthest from the center who vote in the primaries, and these are the ones who don't want a normal center right representative.
If Democrats switched parties and voted in the primaries they might be able to counter the usual extreme primary voters so a center right Republican could win.
cdrnsf1 day ago
Getting involved at the local level is a good place to start. Local governing bodies, city councils and other civic organizations represent meaningful opportunities for change.
Congress is too beholden and scared of Trump on the GOP side to do anything meaningful. The democrats are generally spineless.
The federalist society and GOP have created a severe ideological imbalance on the supreme court that will have serious ramifications for years to come unless there's a serious effort to pack or reform the institution.
It’s a pure political discussion. It will get flagged by enough people who don’t want to see politics to remove it from the page.
Aqua01 day ago
The importance of military development in sovereign states with reference to China.
Simulacra1 day ago
That's as diplomatic as it gets
lifetimerubyist1 day ago
Canadian Prime Minister recently said that he stands by Canada’s NATO Article 2 and 5 obligations with our Eureopean allies.
A subtle signal that war with United States is a possibility.
Trump will use this as a pretext to not only take Greenland but to invade Canada as well.
He has gone utterly mad. Congress needs to act. Yesterday.
cdrnsf1 day ago
The GOP controls congress and will do nothing. They've already caved and prevented any effort at restraint with respect to the Venezuela debacle.
bediger40001 day ago
How would a standard invasion work? The news about DoD preparing invasion plans for Greenland have an invasion done by Special Operations, not the infantry, armor and air. Special operations probably wouldn't work for the population of Canada.
After a short time, and some casualties, I think the US military would have real problems internally, not counting that popular support would disappear.
Flundstrom21 day ago
In the theoretical case of US actually invading Greenland (whatever that would mean, considering the largest city Nuuk is the size of a middle-sized town), the question isnt about potential casualties on Greenland.
The question is what would happen to the US staff land-locked on NATO bases within the EU. They will automatically become under siege, vastly outnumbered by European counterparts.
Since any attack on Greenland is an attack on the EU country the Kingdom of Denmark, and any attack on any EU countries automatically trigger EU Article 42.7, which mandates the full support from all members, to which all EU countries have committed, it would imply full-scale war.
orwin1 day ago
What are the US ground capabilities in extreme weather? Because from where I stand, I'm under the impression a Greenland invasion is off limit 8 months out of 12, and realistically the window is quite short, no?
Also if any french military asset is present when the US attack, we will see how determined the french military is following it's own doctrine (which dictates a 'warning shot' 24 hours before sending the tactical nukes).
Flundstrom21 day ago
For Canada and the Nordic countries, the weather on Greenland is business as usual, for all branches of the military.
My guess is as yours - the US military's focus on middle east and east Asia is of great disadvantage for them. Do they even get below -20 C for any longer periods at any base located on US mainland? Alaska, and some regions close to Canada, perhaps, leaving them with only some 10.000 personnel having anything near arctic experience, majority of which are based at the bases, not trained for front-action in artic climate.
The US wouldn’t attack in an invasion. It would simply start building bases - it doesn’t need the south of Greenland. Just southern enough for a port that can stay open.
If we build a Rammstein-
sized base the US would already outnumber the native population.
Would the Danes or French open fire on us while the US is setting up shop? Highly unlikely.
Trump is pushing a total takeover but I suspect he would rather leave a small pocket of southern Greenland to the Danes to continue supporting the indigenous people, and then taking the bulk of the rest for mineral rights, arctic sea lanes, and defense.
holowoodman1 day ago
> The US wouldn’t attack in an invasion. It would simply start building bases
Greenland is an island full of a vast nothingness, there is enough space for those kinds of bases. Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said as much, and allowed the US to build any number of bases of any size. Building bases is totally possible, and always was possible, because Greenland and Denmark have always allowed it and would have continued to allow that.
I mean, they even turned a blind eye towards the US loosing a nuclear reactor and contaminating quite a bit of ice while trying to build tunnels for their ICBMs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century
jemmyw1 day ago
This is the madness of the whole thing - the US could already build more bases in Greenland if they wanted to.
This isn't about building bases or military strategy or even resources. If it were about those things then the US could take over Greenland slowly with little effort. My understanding is the population there would have welcomed investment. The US could have done some minor leg work and in 10-20 years Greenland would have been closer / keen to join, or whatever.
windowpains1 day ago
The best thing these countries could do would be to increase military spending to protect against Trump (and actual enemies like Putin whom they’ve enabled by their idiotic energy deals and “not my problem” approach to defense spending). I doubt they will, so US will get Greenland ceteris paribus.
Chance-Device1 day ago
I’ll put myself in the minority here by saying that I think Trump is probably right. Greenland can’t be credibly defended by Denmark, the EU or even NATO. Article 5 is an untested foundation myth. Greenland is far away. Political will matters. We might be heading towards an independent Greenland if we continue following the status quo, which would be influenced strongly by adversaries and would be a US security nightmare.
I’d say that I prefer him to go about it a different way, except that I can’t see what that different way looks like when you want territory from another country that doesn’t want to give it to you.
And I say this as a European. Europe is not credible from a defense perspective and lacks the will to do very much of anything quickly or effectively. The best you can expect is a series of talking shops and some policy documents to be drawn up while the ice continues to melt.
mna_1 day ago
>Article 5 is an untested foundation myth.
See:
>NATO invoked Article 5 in response to Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001
Then scroll down to "Dead". Those Europeans died for the United States.
Incipient1 day ago
If trump is actually deranged enough to use military force against Greenland we'll see how capable the EU is of defending it - and I suspect they'll put on a good show.
What the EU wouldn't be able to handle, I suspect, is would be a full ground invasion by China, not that China would/needs to do that.
If the US was genuinely concerned about the security of Greenland they should have discussed this with the EU and encouraged them to reinforce the island, and/or offered a joint base.
optionalsquid1 day ago
> If the US was genuinely concerned about the security of Greenland they should have discussed this with the EU and encouraged them to reinforce the island, and/or offered a joint base.
This is where it gets stupid... well, stupider.
The US already has a base on Greenland, namely the Pituffik Space Base / Thule Air Base [1].
The US used to have a larger military presence in Greenland, including other bases, but choose to downscale their presence following the end of the cold war [2].
This presence was predicated on the 1951 Defense of Greenland agreement between Denmark (and later the autonomous government of Greenland) and the US, which allowed the US great freedom in establishing their military presence in Greenland [3].
If Trump had just wanted a stronger military presence in Greenland, then all he would have had to do was ask, and Denmark and Greenland would most likely have agreed. Denmark, in particular, has done its best to align itself with the US, and Greenland, prior to Trump, was also interested in a closer relationship with the US as part of their move towards greater independence from Denmark.
That requires Denmark and the EU to be reliable defense partners. They had decades to invest in Greenland and its defense and what we end up with is a 12 member dogsled patrol armed with bolt action rifles, so they can defend themselves against polar bears.
The EU response to the rhetoric from Trump is to send 30 men and put out a press release telling everyone how harmless they are. The action “Poses no threat to anyone”. Their military show of force, poses no threat to anyone.
We have to remember that we aren't all working from the same perceptual or moral framework. This is a struggle for me, as I love my parents but our believes have diverged considerably.
I think the challenge right now in the U.S. is that for many, it doesn't feel socially safe to question your own side. In reality, we need to feel free to judge actions individually, and judge leaders as a true accumulation of their actions. If we fear rejection from our party/family/friends for not walking in lock-step with the official party stances, that influences a lot of our thinking. No one wants to feel continually guilty about their own views (especially when there are social consequences for changing them), so we often shove aside conflicting details, make jokes, and signal to others that we're still a part of the tribe.
It sucks.
The knee jerk reaction is to run your party’s candidates and platform to the opposite extreme. Instead you should move towards the center. I really hope the democrats realize this (some do and are speaking out) soon.
You need to hold your political leaders responsible with your vote. Don’t just automatically vote for the politicians that are “saying” the right things. Find out what your representatives are “doing” and hold them responsible for their actions or more importantly, inactions.
That way they could vote in Republican primaries. Many if not most of those districts actually have Republican candidates in the primaries who are center right but they lose because primary turnout is very low, largely consisting of just the most extreme voters.
For example consider Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG). In the primary the first time she ran against a perfectly normal Republican. I don't remember all the details, but I believe he was a decorated military officer who after the military was a successful businessman and who had server in state offices.
MTG was a full on QAnon and other conspiracy theorist believer. But it is mostly the fringe that votes in primaries so she won. And it is a heavily Republican district with many people who don't really follow politics so she got their vote in the general election because they always vote R.
Register as a Republican if you are in such a district and vote in the primaries and then maybe we can get back to having sane Republicans winning those districts.
For safe Republican districts where they do elect sane Republicans, it is still worth switching registration. Let the current representative from that district know that you are doing this, and promise that if Trump gets upset at their vote on something and bankrolls a primary challenge, you will vote for them in the primary.
Also these voters are dumb but they aren't that dumb. Unless you know a person who actually has presented as a Trump supporting republican for the last decade and is secretly willing to switch sides after the election, you're not going to trick them.
The point is that center right Republicans (the kind that used to win most Republican districts before 2012) could still win if they could make it to the general election. They often can't because most Republican voters, like most Democrat voters, aren't into party politics enough to bother voting in the primaries.
It is the voters who are most likely to be to be farthest from the center who vote in the primaries, and these are the ones who don't want a normal center right representative.
If Democrats switched parties and voted in the primaries they might be able to counter the usual extreme primary voters so a center right Republican could win.
Congress is too beholden and scared of Trump on the GOP side to do anything meaningful. The democrats are generally spineless.
The federalist society and GOP have created a severe ideological imbalance on the supreme court that will have serious ramifications for years to come unless there's a serious effort to pack or reform the institution.
A subtle signal that war with United States is a possibility.
Trump will use this as a pretext to not only take Greenland but to invade Canada as well.
He has gone utterly mad. Congress needs to act. Yesterday.
After a short time, and some casualties, I think the US military would have real problems internally, not counting that popular support would disappear.
The question is what would happen to the US staff land-locked on NATO bases within the EU. They will automatically become under siege, vastly outnumbered by European counterparts.
Since any attack on Greenland is an attack on the EU country the Kingdom of Denmark, and any attack on any EU countries automatically trigger EU Article 42.7, which mandates the full support from all members, to which all EU countries have committed, it would imply full-scale war.
Also if any french military asset is present when the US attack, we will see how determined the french military is following it's own doctrine (which dictates a 'warning shot' 24 hours before sending the tactical nukes).
My guess is as yours - the US military's focus on middle east and east Asia is of great disadvantage for them. Do they even get below -20 C for any longer periods at any base located on US mainland? Alaska, and some regions close to Canada, perhaps, leaving them with only some 10.000 personnel having anything near arctic experience, majority of which are based at the bases, not trained for front-action in artic climate.
For some real-life insides:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Msfrit12u0M&lc=UgwDlvf-UEzzhBzZJ...
https://youtu.be/DygiGQPGDPY?si=qxE5-7X8PC2eIeZS
https://youtu.be/3pwcZx1_KTA?si=d92vf4kqdDow0a-m
If we build a Rammstein- sized base the US would already outnumber the native population.
Would the Danes or French open fire on us while the US is setting up shop? Highly unlikely.
Trump is pushing a total takeover but I suspect he would rather leave a small pocket of southern Greenland to the Danes to continue supporting the indigenous people, and then taking the bulk of the rest for mineral rights, arctic sea lanes, and defense.
Greenland is an island full of a vast nothingness, there is enough space for those kinds of bases. Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said as much, and allowed the US to build any number of bases of any size. Building bases is totally possible, and always was possible, because Greenland and Denmark have always allowed it and would have continued to allow that.
I mean, they even turned a blind eye towards the US loosing a nuclear reactor and contaminating quite a bit of ice while trying to build tunnels for their ICBMs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century
This isn't about building bases or military strategy or even resources. If it were about those things then the US could take over Greenland slowly with little effort. My understanding is the population there would have welcomed investment. The US could have done some minor leg work and in 10-20 years Greenland would have been closer / keen to join, or whatever.
I’d say that I prefer him to go about it a different way, except that I can’t see what that different way looks like when you want territory from another country that doesn’t want to give it to you.
And I say this as a European. Europe is not credible from a defense perspective and lacks the will to do very much of anything quickly or effectively. The best you can expect is a series of talking shops and some policy documents to be drawn up while the ice continues to melt.
See:
>NATO invoked Article 5 in response to Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001
https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/coll...
Now take a look at the European countries who helped the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
Then scroll down to "Dead". Those Europeans died for the United States.
What the EU wouldn't be able to handle, I suspect, is would be a full ground invasion by China, not that China would/needs to do that.
If the US was genuinely concerned about the security of Greenland they should have discussed this with the EU and encouraged them to reinforce the island, and/or offered a joint base.
This is where it gets stupid... well, stupider.
The US already has a base on Greenland, namely the Pituffik Space Base / Thule Air Base [1].
The US used to have a larger military presence in Greenland, including other bases, but choose to downscale their presence following the end of the cold war [2].
This presence was predicated on the 1951 Defense of Greenland agreement between Denmark (and later the autonomous government of Greenland) and the US, which allowed the US great freedom in establishing their military presence in Greenland [3].
If Trump had just wanted a stronger military presence in Greenland, then all he would have had to do was ask, and Denmark and Greenland would most likely have agreed. Denmark, in particular, has done its best to align itself with the US, and Greenland, prior to Trump, was also interested in a closer relationship with the US as part of their move towards greater independence from Denmark.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituffik_Space_Base
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#United_States_and_th...
[3] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/den001.asp
The EU response to the rhetoric from Trump is to send 30 men and put out a press release telling everyone how harmless they are. The action “Poses no threat to anyone”. Their military show of force, poses no threat to anyone.
This is who you’re dealing with.