House Republicans have been on the hunt for opportunities to do some PDA for the incoming president before he’s officially sworn into office — recognizing that theatric fealty does numbers with Donald Trump, no matter how unserious the content may be.
This is to be expected. House Republicans who have accepted Trump as their party leader the last few years have long followed this playbook to keep themselves publicly in Trump’s good graces: Trump mumbles about something in public (or all caps screams about it on Truth Social). The MTGs of the world turn his vision into incoherent or impassable legislation. The proposals go nowhere — and often do some work in exposing the Republican Party’s dysfunction in Congress along the way — but they succeed in helping to make a news cycle out of Trump’s most deranged fixations. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The difference this time is that Republicans have a trifecta and some of the most unserious stuff currently being utilized as a performative loyalty test for Trump’s imperialist hallucinations could actually make a dent.
Take Trump’s ongoing fixation with the idea that the U.S. could somehow purchase Greenland once Trump is sworn in in a few days. Trump has been raising the idea for some time and recently outlined this and other half-baked visions for an expansive American empire during a “foreign policy” press conference last week.
Just a few days later, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, introduced legislation that would give the president the authority to “seek to enter into negotiations with the Kingdom of Denmark to secure the acquisition of Greenland by the United States.” The bill is cartoonishly titled the “Make Greenland Great Again Act” and was first reported by Fox News. Ogles has 10 co-sponsors joining him in proposing the bill.
While Danish and Greenlandic leaders have vocally criticized, condemned and combatted the notion that the U.S. should acquire Greenland, Trump has not backed down, and has even suggested that using some kind of economic or military force to pull it off may be on the table.
In the same press conference last week, Trump outlined other imperialist priorities for his administration, like acquiring the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
In turn, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Dusty Johnson (R-SC) both introduced proposals to legislatively move those fever dreams along. Greene introduced a bill that would change the name of the gulf to the “Gulf of America” on maps and other official documents in the U.S. Johnson introduced a bill that would authorize the beginning of talks about purchasing the canal.
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If our country is so deep in debt, where are we gonna get the money to finance Trump’s imperialist boondoggles?
The middle and working classes have been milked dry, and Trump’s oligarchic friends are more interested in acquiring more filthy wealth than part with it, so who’s gonna pay the bill?
snafubar.
Trump’s return puts Medicaid on the chopping block
… … … …
Because why should government give a shit about the health of potential voters? I mean really… why??
It’s performative shadow-play which, in Trumplandia, gives dimension to illusion. Showbiz!
Can we make that snowbiz, from “snow job?”