Trump's call with Denmark's prime minister was a 'horrendous' fountain of threats and delusions

We'd heard rumors of this before but the newest reporting paints the first telephone conversation between The Criminal and the Danish prime minister in bleak, bleak terms. The Financial Times version quotes "current and senior European officials" who called the call "horrendous," and "a cold shower" to anyone still not taking Donald Trump's insistence on capturing Greenland for himself seriously.

Nope. Trump demanded Denmark sell Greenland to him and threatened consequences if the country doesn't. He was dead serious.

"It was a very tough conversation. He threatened specific measures against Denmark such as targeted tariffs," says a "former Danish official" quoted by FT.

What we have on our hands here, then, is at best a madman. It is unclear why Trump's on-again, off-again obsession over Greenland was kicked into overdrive within days of his election win—it roughly coincides with America's Greatest Conman, Elon 'Ketamine' Musk, plastering himself to Trump like the world's richest barnacle on the world's creakiest boat—but it's now apparent that seizing both Greenland and, ffs, Canada is a true priority for the convicted felon.

Short of an actual military invasion, Trump's ability to threaten Denmark into handing Greenland over is nearly nil. Trump can impose tariffs; Denmark's retaliatory tariffs would make easy losers of us there. Trump can threaten the rest of NATO; NATO already considers him an enemy and at this point would likely be more willing to cut the U.S. out of the coalition than cede territory to the world's newest top fascist.

Mostly, however, Europe is hardly powerless when it comes to imposing crushing sanctions on the United States. The billionaires that have backed Trump most vocally are among the most exposed, if that comes to pass; the European Union long ago lost patience with privacy-abusing U.S. tech and social media firms.

As to whether the United States military would agree to mount a hostile invasion of an allied power, that one's up in the air. I can't envision it, no matter how many military leaders Trump fires before he finds officers willing to become international criminals for his sake. After the first several dozen admirals and generals refuse the order, at that point we have a constitutional crisis that dwarfs all others on our hands.

At this point I think the first best move by European officials is to simply refuse to take Trump's private calls. He is delusional, insulting, threatening, mocking, and impossible to negotiate with. There no negotiated agreement he will not immediately turn around and break, offering up some new delusion as half-justification. He will simply lie about any conversation you have with him.

So let him spew in public, but shut down private calls so that he can only make those threats in public, for all the world to hear.

So far, I don't expect NATO will be taking any preventative measures to protect Greenland from fascist invasion. The relationship between U.S. military leaders and their NATO counterparts is considerably better than Donald Trump's relationship with either, and behind the scenes there may or may not be evasive conversations going on that hint that top U.S. soldiers don't intend to follow illegal orders no matter how many brainworms Trump leaks onto Oval Office floors. Maybe.

It looks increasingly likely, however, that the Republican Party's fascist enablers will mount a full-on world trade war, crash the world economy into rubble, and produce a new Great Depression that makes the previous one look like a mild stomachache in comparison.

The Republican senate, in particular, has the power to end all of this nonsense anytime they want to. Would they impeach Dear Leader rather than sending the United States to war over Greenland? Would they impeach him rather than abide an economy-destroying trade war that will end every one of their careers anyway?

It would require more integrity than figures like Mitch McConnell has ever shown in his pathetic, party-over-country life, so perhaps not. But it's not going to be possible to hide Trump's status as a delusional, violence-seeking madman for much longer. The chaos Trump is already unleashing will affect every corner of the nation--in weeks, not months. It will either destroy the Republican Party or destroy the party and nation both; there is no third possibility.