In the recent past, we might have expected to see foreign critics referring to the United States as a “predator” nation, a label many Americans would have seen as insulting.
But last week, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles appeared on Fox Business, where the scandal-plagued congressman described the U.S. “the dominant predator” in the Western Hemisphere — and he meant it as a compliment.
The larger question, however, is whether Donald Trump shares his perspective.
At a White House event on Friday, ostensibly about domestic oil companies and Venezuela, the president took the opportunity to share some fresh thoughts about his crusade to acquire Greenland, including his insistence that his administration intends to “do something” on the Arctic island, “whether they like it or not.”
The Republican added that he likes Denmark, but “The fact that they had a boat land [on Greenland] 500 years ago doesn’t mean they own the land. I’m sure we had lots of boats go there also.” (As Trump probably ought to know, the United States didn’t exist 500 years ago.)
My favorite moment was when the president said, “If we don’t take Greenland, you’re going to have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.”
It was a comment that suggested (a) he doesn’t know that Russia or China couldn’t seize Greenland without triggering a NATO response; (b) Greenland is not the United States’ next-door neighbor; and (c) Russia already is the United States’ next-door neighbor.
But the pièce de résistance was Trump declaring, “I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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