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The thing is that last year, I saw multiple right wingers say that the Canada stuff and the Greenland stuff was all just trolling, not serious. Now, it seems that acquiring Greenland has been quietly accepted as a serious matter among right wingers, with many good reasonable justifications for it, but now the trolling has shifted to using the military. Since the right wingers were wrong on the first one, there's a chance that the second one is wrong, too. Trump might be more serious next time about it. Or maybe not. Maybe there won't even be a next time.
For me, the possibility exists, yet I see the exact same dynamics of the left's slippery slope existing on the right.
No minors aren't transitioning. Okay they are but only social. Okay they're taking drugs but only prescribed puberty blockers. Okay but I'm also sending them hormones in the mail.
No Greenland acquisition is just a joke. Okay actually it's serious but no military. They don't actually say that using the military would be a bad thing, though, so if the military actually does eventually get used, you don't have to contradict yourself as much to justify it. So, I'll just ask: Suppose you're wrong, it's not just trolling, Trump really does want it, and he deploys the military. Is that a bad thing? Why or why not? I'll just tell you once again that I hate our European alliances with our liberal European comrades, so I personally would be grimly satisfied. But it feels like many right wingers are taking a more cowardly piecemeal approach.
I don't recall hearing or saying that; the interest is genuine and has always been genuine. Canada is not serious in the sense that the possibility is and was extremely remote, but if the US sees the opportunity, I think any president, not just Trump, would try to bring Canada in. It'd be a massive legacy setting achievement. Other presidents haven't brought it up, but either Trump has a different idea of what is or isn't realistic, or thinks what you never ask, you never get. Greenland was a strategic interest of US military, one of their "it would be nice-to-have it" things that no one thought was possible. Anyone who told you that Trump wasn't serious about Greenland probably never knew that the US' been trying to buy it since the 19th century. And it turns out probably still isn't possible, but maybe Trump will get some additional concessions for his military bases there, we'll see.
The part that is the trolling has always been the military intervention.
Hmm... perhaps I am misremembering what people were saying about it. I had the same conception of what people were saying 10 months ago, but nobody really contradicted me on my framing there.
I guess I should specify what I mean by trolling here; it's true that outside of the "military intervention" aspect Trump does some trolling too, like the "51st state", calling the Canadian Prime Minister "Governor", etc... I'm guessing he says that because he finds it funny. I find it funny too. And the performative pearl clutching he sees in return is funny too. But the interest is genuine.
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