Trump, if nothing else, knows how to read the room. The problem is that he doesn’t govern alone. He can say he’s pulling ICE agents out of Minnesota because it’s cratering his popularity, but nobody in his own party takes that seriously. What makes Greenland unique is that it would take Trump’s approval to launch an invasion, and Trump knows what it would do to his popularity.

To be absolutely clear this isn’t an defence of Trump in any way. It’s just “he knows how to read the room” and nothing else.

To add to this correct answer, NATO allies were sending military assets to Greenland. Not even trump can destroy THAT Imperialist dragon.

Get your head out of this “the media does this or that” gutter where they are maybe part of a big conspiracy by the man to keep us docile. Media has never been perfect, reporting on all stories fairly and balanced and all that. That’s an unattainable ideal. You have to pick and choose what you read. They always jump on the big stories and neglect the smaller ones, especially if they operate under a need to generate profits.

47 came up through reality television. He will stay on topic as long as it generates headlines. Whether he is heel or hero doesn’t matter. There is also the behavioral pattern of TACO, he looks to play chicken with the world but backs out of it again quite quickly. And BTS he works to make himself and other rich people richer. Anything he does can pretty much be explained through this prism, after the fact.

Greenland, like wanting Canadian anschluss, generated headlines. He looked like he had a grand plan, the real estate developer in him came through. There was opposition and with it attention, which he likes. And then even members of his cult were sceptical to critical about this neo-imperialist bullshit. If the world had rolled over and let him have it, he would have took it. But European leaders managed to group up on him and gave him the most face saving out out of this bullshit. And it took away attention from other things, like the famous pedophile case.

He is not a details guy. They say anything that cannot be put on a single page with lots of pictures he will not take in. The agreement the US has with NATO ally Denmark already allows for 99% of his grand plan. They packaged the info he never absorbed into something that looks like a win for the great deal maker. And they probably awarded him the clubman of the year trophy to please his ego. Good enough, for now at least. Now, let’s escalate tensions in Iran or kidnap a south American dictator.

If you dig for European sources, you can read about developments that are the long tail of this failed Greenland grab. Officially, no European leader but maybe Spain’s Sanchez will be on record saying the US are no longer a reliable partner for anything. But off the record, that’s their tune. Efforts are underway to de-Americanize the defense industry and spending. Another slow building wave is the European desire to break free of dependence on US tech firms. These stories maybe would made the news in North America, if there wasn’t the bigger so-called AI bubble inflating at the same time.

i listened to a couple of interviews where they suggested that trump’s personal business interests were threatened if he kept pushing for it; so he dropped it.

doom scrolling Lemmy, Facebook, Instagram, X, Grindr, Tinder, imgur…etm