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Notes -
You really don't need to overthink it. Annexing territory is based. It's the kind of thing a STRONG MAN character would do on TV. It's swinging your dick around. It makes the right people excited and the right people angry. And it's not so implausible that, like annexing Canada, it just reads as a joke whenever you say it. Donald Trump is the chief executive of the executive branch and the commander in chief of the military, he's the one making the decision to pursue this, and this just is how he thinks (alternate hypotheses fail to explain his behavior, eg the events around Liberation Day). He's the first Simulacra Level 4 President.
And it's not like there's not strategic logic to the US acquiring Greenland. It should've already happened (gwern link). All else equal, more land = more power. The US's past land purchases seem like good ideas in retrospect. You would prefer to directly control land rather than just lease military bases. I would prefer the US to control greenland (and canada) than not. Even if only to make travel simpler. This is part of why the idea's plausible enough for Trump to push this hard for it, it's not by itself stupid (though the way he's been pursuing it is) but it's not, I think, really why he wants it.
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