Anyone who has spent any time at all in the interior of the United States knows that if the Americans are lacking anything, living space and land is not that thing. Wyoming, for example, has a land area about twice the size of the Island of Ireland, and a population density of about two and a half people per square kilometre. Ireland – which is one of the least crowded countries in Europe in raw people versus land area terms – has a population density of 73 people per square kilometre.
Now before I write this article, I can already predict what some commenters will say: That Donald Trump’s very public desire to acquire Greenland for the United States is a classic case of “take him seriously, not literally” and that even writing about the topic (which Trump has repeatedly raised, off his own bat) is somehow a case of falling for a joke. The problem really is that even if it is a joke, the joke reveals something fundamentally interesting not only about the incoming US President, but also many of those who cheer him on unconditionally.
The essential appeal of “Greenlandism”, for want of a better term, is that it embodies the Trumpian spirit of the new right almost perfectly. It is essentially shorthand for a full-scale rejection of the post World War Two settlement of international relations, in which democratic powers do not pursue territorial ambitions, settle their disputes diplomatically, and reject the idea of conquest and the establishment of foreign empires. If you are a young man of the right, Greenlandism takes you back to a time when young men could win glory and adventure by participating in overseas adventures, and during which the prestige of Kings was determined by how much they had expanded their domains. The world of Greenlandism is a man’s world, in which national interests are pursued ruthlessly and the strongest emerges victorious.
I wrote yesterday that the psychology of the culture war interests me more than just about any other topic. In that context, I was talking about the psychology of the left leaning journalists who are fighting an almost hysterical rearguard action against the growing usurpation of their role in society by the likes of Elon Musk. But the psychology of the right-leaning men who increasingly dominate internet discussion is equally interesting, and in its own way equally troubling.
If you were to aggregate all the various characters who have come to prominence since Elon Musk’s takeover of what was then twitter, and amalgamate them into one single persona, you’d get a person who believes (or professes to believe) some version of the following: That the western world took a wrong turn fundamentally in the second half of the twentieth century. That the sexual revolution emasculated most men to the advantage of a few and made women unhappier. That economic liberalism and globalisation shattered the (mainly white) working class in western countries while empowering and enriching a parasitic capitalist class and wimpy but authoritarian academic and media class. That men have forgotten how to be men, and countries have forgotten that their job is to pursue the national interest above all else. That immortality is to be found not through religion, but through the deeds of men on earth. That the “natural order” must be restored, and that to do so the “liberal order” must be shattered. There’s a reason many of these people have an instinctive sympathy for the Russian view that military might is an acceptable thing to deploy in pursuit of that country’s natural “sphere of influence” in Ukraine.
To make America “great” again (and you can substitute pretty much any western country for America there) you must essentially undo not only the institutions of liberalism but also the settled attitudes of liberalism. One of those attitudes is “we don’t seek territorial expansion”.
Now, talk to any one of the people who believe this sort of stuff individually, and they’ll tell you that Greenlandism is a joke, and that they know Trump is not actually serious about conquering the territory from Denmark. Nor is he serious about acquiring Canada or re-taking the Panama Canal. Ask them if they would stop supporting Trump if he was, however, to launch a war of conquest against Greenland, and you’ll find that essentially none of them would. If the new President thought it important, a lot of them would be secretly or indeed openly thrilled. So, is it a joke, or isn’t it?
The answer to that question – the only truthful answer – is “whatever Trump decides”.
One of the things that fundamentally separates the “new right” from the “woke left” in the culture wars is in the attitude to authority. The left is more authoritarian overall, in that it desires much more conformity of ideas and behaviour in the population. But that authoritarianism is diversified and democratised: The left is much more at home with the idea of rule by a class of intelligentsia, with ideas organically forming behind the scenes in college campuses and NGOs and then being mainstreamed through newspaper columns and internet activism. The right is much more monarchical in structure: Ideas come from one or two leaders. If Trump or Musk endorses something, it becomes holy writ.
The whole thing is apiece with the general attitude that appears to proliferate, psychologically, on the right: Many of the adherents yearn (or at least appear to yearn) for a time of Kings, conquests, battles, and untrammeled masculinity as opposed to the sissified culture in which we now – as they see it – live. That, I think, is what Greenlandism is about. It is an expression of psychological yearning, more than it is a serious proposition.