No to Greenland, no to appeasement, no more deals.

There's more than one way to cultural suicide, but we're definitely taking the express lane

They say that men never stop thinking about the Roman Empire. Something about the fall of western civilization draws us in.

Death of Odoacer, Killed by Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths by Tancredi Scarpelli.

Many historians would put a pin in the year 476 as the beginning of what is generally called the “Dark Ages,” which lasted for another four and a quarter centuries. These times in Western Europe were marked by an end to effective central government administration, mass illiteracy, brutal sanitary conditions, the collapse of trade, and a general cessation of things that had flourished under the Roman Empire like engineering, art, and law.

In 475 AD, Roman Emperor Julius Nepos was deposed by his own general, Orestes. Only a year earlier, Nepos, the Byzantine supreme magistrate in the Italian peninsula, proclaimed himself emperor of Rome. Orestes was a Roman citizen, but owed his allegiance to Attila (the Hun). Nepos assumed the throne by deposing the western emperor Glycerius, acting on the orders of Byzantine emperor Leo I.

In order to seize power, Orestes promised his Hun troops land in exchange for their loyalty. But Orestes didn’t want the empire for himself; he had the troops put his 14-year-old son, Romulus, on the throne. Also, he welched on his land deal, which infuriated the German warrior Odoacer, who led the troops in revolt; they caught Orestes on August 28, 476, executed him, and sent the young Romulus to live with his relatives in Campania, granting him a generous pension.

Odoacer, for his part, utilized the legal apparatus of Rome, a pliant senate, to fulfill Orestes promise of land to his troops. Then he commenced a protracted and pointless battle with the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, which had the support of the Eastern Emperor Zeno, who succeeded Leo I. Losing in war, Odoacer was forced to surrender in Ravenna. In what must be one of George R.R. Martin’s inspirations for Game of Thrones, the Ostrogothic King Theodoric invited the defeated Odoacer to a banquet, and there, murdered him. With the end of Odoacer, the curtain was drawn on that particular chunk of history.

It’s not hard to draw direct comparisons from the Huns and the Byzantines to the populist liberals and socialists steering the Democratic Party, and the populist MAGAs running the Republicans. Both of these groups have made bold, bombastic promises to their supporters, and both are inciting those supporters to turn on the traditions, institutions, and infrastructure that built the United States into the world’s most advanced superpower. It was 338 years from Hadrian, at the pinnacle of Roman rule, to Odoacer. You can’t make these kinds of specific, direct comparisons, but let’s say that 1789 might be the pinnacle of the governmental ideals and aspirations of the United States. This is when George Washington, who could have been king, assumed the elected office of President of the United States. On March 4, 1797, Washington willingly (happily!) left public service to return to his Virginia estate.

It is only 229 years from that date until the day when President Donald Trump has threatened our allies with military and economic war to take the icy expanse of Greenland. We’ve managed to arrive at the gates to our own Dark Ages 109 years faster than the Romans. Some would call that “progress.”

The United States, globally, is a good stand-in for the Roman Empire, as it was to Western Europe at its peak: the Mediterranean, from the Iberian peninsula, through North Africa, the Levant, the Bosporus, west and north across the English Channel all the way to the borders of Scotland. There’s practically nowhere on the planet that is outside American influence, either by military force projection, economic sway, or our cultural juggernaut. And one reason we’re so globally integrated is because we have friends in many places. Unlike the Romans, in the past century, we do not like to think of ourselves as conquering, pillaging, taxing, and subjecting other places to our government.

At least we didn’t.

President Trump sent a text message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and Finnish President Alexander Stubb complaining about his not getting a Nobel Peace Prize, and looping that around Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland.

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a "right of ownership" anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT

Let me begin by saying there is only one fitting response to this message, which is the one Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, of the 101st Airborne, addressed to “the German commander”: NUTS. To say that Trump’s message is unhinged is to give it more credit than it deserves. The president has been told many times that the government of Norway has no sway with the independent Nobel Committee. And Norway has had no claim against Greenland since the Treaty of Kiel, in 1814 (though they tried again in the 1930s). As for Finland, that’s just batty.

But for the fact that Mr. Trump had to get his Nobel Peace Prize second-hand, he is left pouting, and threatening to destroy NATO over it. Greenland should not be had by hook or by crook, not by the United States. I’d say appeasement is a test of western civilization, and it’s a simple pass-fail.

Should Denmark, and the Greenlanders, decide to appease Mr. Trump, or offer him half a baby, or some such garbage, perhaps a certificate saying the U.S. has unfettered interest in Greenland, with “crossies” because it has no legal force, that would mark an “F” on the report card. Such an appeasement would only stir up the appetite of the man they seek to appease. He would have 50,000 troops guarding the frozen wastelands in a week. Not that they’d stay, because the U.S. has toyed with large permanent facilities in Greenland for 70 years. Anything carved out under the ice gets crushed by the continual melting and movement of millions of tons of frozen water. Anything put on top of the ice requires enormous amounts of energy to keep from freezing. The U.S. Army even tried to place portable nuclear reactors in Greenland in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War to support under-ice missile launchers. The idea was abandoned due to these problems.

For any serious analysis, Greenland is a stupid flex for Trump, and stretches the imagination as to why he would want that particular place. The best reason I can conjure (besides questioning Trump’s sanity) is that this is a conveniently stupid pressure point to get the European NATO powers to bend to his will—to appease him. It is appeasement itself that Trump wants, like he got from Maria Corina Machado, who would like to be president of Venezuela. The current acting president of that nation, Delcy Rodriguez, is also appeasing Trump, but Rodriguez is acting disingenuously, while Machado is acting with grace and candor.

With Greenland, there is no solution that will appease Trump: appeasement itself is the point, so the next thing will naturally present itself (whatever that is). The solution is to not appease. The answer on Greenland must be “no” and “stop asking.” So Trump will impose his tariffs on Europe because they said “no”. Let him do it. Let him go all the way up his threat tantrum pole to the top, because at the top is where the other test comes in: American appeasement. Republicans have long learned to live with Trump’s extreme statements and his weird wants. They’ve taken advantage of those when it helps them politically, and distanced themselves when it’s simply too radioactive to touch.

But the Greenland thing, made real by threats of military action, is one that just about all Republicans can oppose. Such a universally rejected issue is something politicians can leverage to stand up to Trump and not appease him. One report claimed “Senior Republicans are warning Trump that any move to invade Greenland would instantly end his presidency.” It would be, as David Thornton wrote, “the end.”

Of course, we all know the options our government can easily access: the 25th Amendment, which is when the men in white coats come in and lead Mr. Trump to get some needed intensive mental therapy, away from the White House, while Congress puts its permanent stamp on the removal; or actual impeachment and conviction. What happens then? J.D. Vance becomes president. It’s hard to say that he would do any better, or different. But I have to believe that Vance, a former Marine, would not waste American lives to get the world to bow to him.

I do not believe that Trump will commit troops to Greenland. I don’t think he wants that blood on his hands, because the Greenlanders and Danes will fight us. I think it will be sufficient for Trump to crack NATO in other ways that don’t involve actual war-fighting, though it may approach that. I don’t think sabotage or commandeering facilities or ships is beyond him. Or simply declaring that Greenland “belongs” to the United States. Any of these things would instantly create a major crisis within NATO, and possibly end the organization’s treaty in any practical sense.

But why?

Some believe that Trump is playing to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin, who hates NATO and wants it out of the way to finish his takeover of Ukraine. Some other organization of former NATO nations acting in Ukraine could give Putin what he wants, without the dreaded “Article 5” mutual defense pact. It’s not overthinking to see how Trump would want to set up a Europe without NATO, or at least NATO without the U.S., so we could be free to cut our own deals with Russia.

The key phrase in Trump’s message is: “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” I never thought Trump ever thought purely of peace, only his own (and by extension, the will of the nation’s) security. If this means being free from immigrants which complicate our cultural landscape, or forcing our allies to capitulate and appease, or supporting despots in other nations, then so be it. Morality was never a factor in Trump’s world of deals, and it’s clear that any pretense of morality has now been stripped away.

The problem here is that morality, the tenets and foundations that hold peace, liberty, and the quiet pursuit of happiness to be our highest ideals, is what has enabled western civilization to flourish for so long. During the western Dark Ages, eastern cultures flourished. China’s Six Dynasties period, the Sui Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty elevated their culture to heights that rivaled or surpassed the Romans while Europeans were living short, brutish, uneducated lives. While the west abandoned the infrastructure and institutions of Rome, its law, trade, and knowledge (which never went away, but was hidden in places like Ireland), the east developed those things.

The blunt instruments and unenlightened policies our nation is adopting to fulfill its leaders’ lust for power—both parties in opposition to one another—are putting us on the express lane to another dark age. The collapse of trade, the abandonment of knowledge, and the pursuit of raw power in the form of endless appeasement must end, and quickly.

Congress must take hold of its power and end it. If that means the end of Trump’s presidency—well, he brought that on himself. Appeasement is only the path to further lust for power. We’ve seen what happens when the militarized elements of a political state become the operational arm of a self-made emperor bent on being appeased in all things (that’s not just a reference to Germany; it’s happened in many places and times).

No to appeasement. No to Greenland. No more deals.

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