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He's selling Trump 2028 merchandise in the official White House gift shop. Administration staffers don't feel able to say "Of course Trump won't run in 2028 - the constitution limits presidents to two terms" on the record, because Trump wouldn't like it.
Trump is deliberately maintaining strategic ambiguity about whether he will run for a third term. (Even if he wants to, he won't, because age is catching up with him). That is a good reason for people who care about the survival of American democracy to be worried.
In addition, Vance running the show doesn't fix the problem if Vance is also committed to using false allegations of voter fraud to undermine American democracy. And Vance was chosen because he is, indeed, committed to using false allegations of voter fraud to undermine American democracy.
He's literally just trolling. One time he was meeting with Dem congressional leadership and offered them the hats.
Which is also what you would do if you really were planning to run for a third term and trying to normalise the idea.
If anyone who wasn't Trump was selling official merch with "Candidate Year" on it, you would say they were running.
You are the kind of person Trump is trolling.
Greenland was joking until it wasn't. Gaza was joking (really funny joking, actually) until it wasn't. Since the patterns were the same, Canada and Panama were likely not joking either.
It's the same thing I've noticed /pol/ or even certain communists on Discord do. Make "jokes" targeted in a certain direction. If you press on it at all, it's announced that it's just a joke. It's really boundary pushing, and if circumstances ever became more favorable, you'd find that the sentiments were real.
After Greenland, I am pretty tired of the "just trolling" defense. If he is trolling, it's fundamentally indistinguishable from when he is not trolling. He's lost all right to be trusted about whether he's "trolling" or not. I'm not even entirely opposed to getting Greenland, or other expansions, but in hindsight, it obviously was not just jokes, and I hate the lies being peddled about that.
Not joking, trolling. And if it wasn't... why isn't Greenland under US occupation?
What joking?
It's indistinguishable to you because you were successfully trolled. Trump never had any intention of invading Canada or Greenland; he just made ambiguous remarks and let the media get hysterical when he refused to rule it out.
The deal didn't go through. Were you paying attention? Why has there been rather significant talking about it multiple times over the last year and bragging about the framework of a future deal if it's just trolling?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/us-military-option-acquire-greenland-denmark-territory-nato-rcna252669
So is all of that trolling, or just the military part of it? This isn't the first time that Greenland has been talked about extensively. What about next time? How much will the military be suggested next time? Does trolling often take the form of multiple officials stressing "vital national security" multiple times over several months? Why troll harder on Greenland and stop trolling on Canada?
The Trump Gaza AI post was made in response to his earlier talks about acquiring it and making it awesome. Don't worry, though, there was nothing to it. That's why Jared Kushner totally didn't seriously suggest putting skyscrapers in it during the Board of Peace presentation. Well, at least they're not talking about making it a state.
Are you sure that it's not indistinguishable to you, too, and you just confidently make assumptions about what it is?
This is the right's version of "it's not happening but it's a good thing". Up until it actually happens, you'll claim "it's not happening". If it were to actually happen, you'd justify it. It's apparently an effective strategy.
Personally, though, I think he should just go for it. I hate Europe. Perhaps if he nuked NATO (figuratively!), then Europe would stop being such a good friend towards the American left.
Wait, so for you the outrageous thing about it was that he offered to buy it?
No. I actually don't think any of it was ultimately that outrageous, though I was briefly offended at the thought of using the military. What I hate, as I've said, is that people think the whole thing was just trolling and that Trump wasn't really serious about getting it. Pretty much all the evidence points towards him being serious about getting it, and if not, then you can't trust the words anyone in his administration is saying, which is even worse.
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