GOP senator says Trump is 'crazy like a fox' for picking a fight over Greenland

Republicans are still trying to spin Trump’s nonsensical idea about buying Greenland as some sort of chess master move.

The latest attempt comes from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who drafted an op-ed for the New York Times praising the idea on Monday. Cotton declared Trump is “crazy like a fox” for wanting to purchase an entire country that has adamantly insisted it is not for sale.

Cotton spends the first part of the op-ed on what feels a bit like a high schooler’s book report on past America-Greenland relations. He’s not wrong that America explored the idea of a purchase back in 1867, nor is he wrong that the Truman administration tried to buy the country in 1946. Those things, however, are entirely beside the point. Greenland doesn’t want to be bought. The Danes do not want to sell, saying definitively that Greenland belongs to Greenland.

No amount of Cotton’s meandering thoughts about the strategic importance of Greenland or the history of Greenland will change that. Cotton seems to believe that simply because Greenland is gaining in strategic importance, and China has expressed an interest in putting bases there, that means the country can be bought and sold.

Regrettably, it’s not an unsurprising position from someone like Cotton — or from Trump, for that matter. They’re both people that see geopolitics in terms of whether they can win, rather than whether sound choices are made. Witness, for example, Cotton’s threatening and unsolicited letter to Iran’s leadership during President Obama’s tenure.

No high-profile GOP elected or party official has come forward to say what we all know: Buying Greenland is not going to happen, and shouldn’t be encouraged. Instead, both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Nevada GOP fundraised off the effort, offering hastily designed T-shirts that show Greenland as a 51st state.

Unsurprisingly, Fox News is all in favor of the idea, simply because the idea is Trump’s. Marc Thiessen slammed Denmark for not exploiting the Greenland landscape to dig for minerals and bragged that a purchase of Greenland would “put those strategically valuable minerals in U.S. hands.”

Again, the disregard for what the people of Greenland might want is astonishing. Fox’s Greg Gutfeld engaged in what passes for comedy on the right, praising Trump for turning the presidency into a “talk show on wheels” and calling Denmark “a rainy little monarchy.”

This idea should never have made it this far, but Trump is surrounded by people who tell him his every impulse is brilliant. Expect more op-eds like Cotton’s if this story doesn’t die down soon.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.