The Politics of Domination, From Greenland to Minneapolis

How Trump’s Threatened War on Denmark and ICE’s Murder Spree Are Two Faces of the Same Psychology

Trump has been vowing to invade, seize, or force the sale of Greenland since 2019. But his lust for the Danish territory has grown more intense since the beginning of this year. However, as we’ve seen recently, when there’s pushback from other world leaders or the stock market dips, he retreats into strategic ambiguity. He may even temporarily back away from his threats, as he did during his cringy hour of lies and word salad at Davos. He may say there’s a “concept of a deal.” But whatever he does, he’ll claim victory. He may claim ownership even without an invasion, as he has with the Gulf of Mexico.

However, if he follows through, as he has with other threats, like the Nicaragua invasion and political revenge prosecutions at home, the consequences will be catastrophic, and not just for Greenland. The moment American boots and bombs hit that frozen island, the US will become an instantaneous and permanent global pariah state. That, combined with MAGA’s ethnic cleansing at home, the murder of protesters, and their war against half the US population (citizens as well as immigrants), the Stars and Stripes will continue their mutation into the swastika.

Fun fact, this image was found on the bulletin board in the office of a red-faced Ohio Republican Representative, who was shocked, shocked to discover there was fascism going on there, and promised an investigation.

If Trump does eventually pull the trigger on Greenland, American military bases, companies, and citizens will be banished from Europe. China and, especially, Russia will happily take advantage of our weakness. Putin, already delighting in the extent of Trump’s demolition of the US, will make full use of the missing American deterrent in Europe, and could lay claim to Poland and the Baltic States like he has with Ukraine.

The EU, the world’s largest single economic market, could call in US debt and sell off dollars, ending our history as the global currency reserve. America will instantly go from the greatest ally of the planet’s democracies to their most despised enemy. In other words, an attack on Greenland would be a Trump-fashioned suicide vest for the US. Yes, it will demolish others, but it will also blow up what little remains of American moral authority.

In my last post, I called Trump’s foreign policy the Dom Doctrine. Unfortunately for him, few nations are willing to be his subs. No problem, because, as in all matters Trump, force is more gratifying than consent. Why negotiate or even persuade when you can grab what you covet by the pussy, as he famously proclaimed. It’s what he wants to do to other countries, and what he’s been trying to do to American democracy for a decade.

To paraphrase the journalist Stephen Marche, the animating logic of MAGA is rape.

Unlike the administration’s rationales for stealing Greenland, the stories immigration and border patrol officials tell about the murders committed by their agents require far less debunking. The entire world witnessed both Minnesota killings. We have all read numerous eyewitness accounts and viewed many videos shot from multiple angles.

Little has been left to the imagination. There’s been no ambiguity to soften the horror that unfolded before our eyes.

In fact, the clunky and utterly implausible nature of ICE and DHS lies about their assaults, abductions, and killings of Americans and immigrants tells me that they have little investment in persuading people that their actions are just. Perhaps the regime thinks it can count on the confirmation bias of the MAGA base – their willingness to see what they want to see. Afterall, no one forces Republican voters to watch Fox News. They do so because it mirrors the tribe-friendly view of the world they want to be true. Unlike authoritarian tyrants of the past or in other countries, Trump does not have to censor news that contradicts his funhouse mirror depiction of the world, though he does try. For the most part, he can count on his followers to do the censoring themselves, gladly putting on the blinders and avoiding sources of disturbing information.

The fact that DHS and other federal agencies openly confiscate evidence and make undisguised efforts to prevent state and local officials from conducting independent investigations confirms that they really couldn’t care less about winning the hearts and minds of the public beyond their tribal core of followers.

We certainly should not misread personnel changes, like demoting cosplaying Nazi wannabe Greg Bovino because of his bad press, as a meaningful retreat from the regime’s policy of gratuitous but systematic cruelty. And we should not view it as a belated expression of conscience. One anonymous but widespread social media meme captured the cosmetic nature of replacing Bovino with Tom Holman by saying it was akin to “shitting in your pants but changing your shirt.”

If Trump’s poll numbers on immigration sink even further and more Republicans defect from the cult, we may see other symbolic heads roll – Kristi Noam, Stephen Miller, or more likely, the dismissal of so-called rogue agents who failed to follow some vague protocol. This amputation tactic might remove a gangrenous limb, but it will leave behind the rotten body of an ethnic cleansing campaign disguised as immigration policy. We can expect Holman’s “draw down” in Minneapolis to be just another ICE police state shell game; it’s terror campaign will move from blue city to blue city, advancing or retreating with the labile moods of his boss.

The administration and its paramilitary force speak the loudest and with the least ambiguity in their actions, which say, in essence, “We can do whatever the fuck we want, to whomever we want, and no one can stop us.” JD Vance announced, falsely, of course, that soldiers in Trump’s paramilitary death squads have “absolute immunity.” While that is certainly a legal fiction, in MAGA world, the law itself has become a quaint anachronism. Because the Department of Justice works for Trump and his capos, not the country, judicial rulings and warrants have all the coercive power of memos dropped in a Mafia suggestion box.

While the anti-fascist movement is growing stronger in the wake of events in Minnesota and elsewhere, MAGA is not yet in retreat. In fact, as I record this, a major escalation is underway.

Pete Hegseth has begun the process of establishing a forward operating base near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to supply their war against the people of Minnesota.

Lost in the reassuring polling showing that most of the country disapproves of ICE’s actions is the data revealing that most Republicans, after the murder of Renee Good, thought that ICE was doing just fine, or to put a finer point on it, she had it coming.

And in a poll conducted right after Alex Pretti’s killing, nearly half of GOP respondents approved of the level of force used by ICE.

And more than a fifth of Republicans thought ICE has not been harsh enough. I’m not sure what could be harsher than murder, but there you have it.

So now we come to the underlying psychological dynamics that link Trump’s new imperial ambitions and the ICE murders being perpetrated with his blessing. Driving both is the conservative preoccupation with dominating others. It is what animates right-wing leaders and moves their followers. As I described in my last post, domination is about the effort to subjugate, to deny, and crush the agency of others. It translates into the entitlement to steal – steal another’s freedom, labor, bodily autonomy, land, health, resources, and recognition. If that last item, recognition, seems abstract, don’t forget all the awards Trump hates others for earning – the Nobel Peace Prize, ratings, applause, attraction, admiration, and, of course, election victories.

To manage the murderous envy so central to his malignant narcissism, Trump is more than happy to steal what he can’t earn. His compulsion to acquire – whether kitschy gold adornments, female arm candy, or the resources of others – seems driven by a desperation to fill the emptiness at his core. But having the power to rob, con, intimidate, assault, or murder to get those things is, for him, a special thrill all its own.

Of course, theft and domination are aims that drive far more people than Trump. Taking from others is the logical extension of the zero-sum mental world in which right-wingers reside.

No doubt, some never-Trump Republicans will recoil at that assertion, but there is a reason he was embraced and given impunity by the GOP and not the Dems. For centuries, conservatives, whether flying under the flag of Democrats or Republicans, have wanted to conserve one thing more than any other – hierarchy – hierarchy based on class, race, gender, sexuality, religion, and national identity. MAGA is unmistakably part of that lineage; they can’t conceive of power as anything other than a zero-sum game. In their minds, to be a top, there must be a bottom. They love to fight, as long as they’re punching down.

However, after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s sobering and forthright speech at the Davos conference, and the arrival of NATO countries’ soldiers on the shores of Greenland, there is a growing possibility that other nations of the world might put muscle behind their mutuality, refusing both domination and submission.

But, of course, the ultimate responsibility to resist lies with us. One of the most robust findings in the psychology of groups is the power of others’ example. It’s called social proof. When our fellow citizens appear passive, compliant, and cowering, we tend to adopt that behavior. On the other hand, when members of our community declare their outrage, demand justice, and defy corrupt and cruel authority, we are emboldened to stand with them and fight back. On March 28 of this year, the third No Kings event will be held in nearly every major city and small town across the country. Be there and inspire one another. Bravery is contagious.

Lastly and perhaps more importantly, the next midterm elections, if allowed to occur, may be our final opportunity to wrest democracy and mutuality from the slavering jaws of MAGA fascism and their project of making domination the driver behind every government policy. For those who think they are too comfortable, wealthy, or white to be affected by the outcome, I will leave you with a slightly modified version of Pericles’s ancient admonition: You may not be interested in elections, but elections are interested in you.