The Trump Gestapo’s murder of Alex Pretti

I posted yesterday about the need for state and local officials in Minnesota to do what they can to push back against criminal, violent, murderous behavior by federal agencies. And they seem to be doing so. The murder of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 by lawless federal thugs has further dramatized the seriousness of the Trump regime’s war on American democracy.

I would recommend this video by the determinedly level-headed Heather Cox Richardson, the now-well-know historian who comments regularly on current affairs. (1) As she mentions, there was some confusion in the early reports I heard as to whether these were ICE or Border Patrol agents. I'm not sure it makes any practical difference in their willingness to act lawlessly. Maybe a more generic term for both, e.g., "Gestapo" would be more useful.

A reminder: CBP is the agency who checks the passports of passengers arriving in the US from overseas flights.

The historian Rick Perlstein, who has extensively researched the Radical Right in American and in particular its role in the Republican Party, has posted on Facebook on the 24th about the summary execution of Alex Pretti:

Someone asked what I would do were I the governor of Minnesota. I would hope I'd be like Lincoln: with utter honestly with himself as to the stakes, once coming to the realization that there was going to be no way out but war, using all his powers of persuasion to communicate that there will be sacrifice, and deploying every ounce of political capital to mobilized the most resources possible to win--including building new state capacity at historic scale. The analogy is not quite right, of course. because this CAN'T be a clash of arms. But my notional ideal governor/commander-in-chief, in this civic war, has to understand that there is no peace to be had with these lawless brigands outside of direct confrontation. He also has to be 100% on the real. No bullshit (if often strategic and tactical deception, aimed at the enemy).

I also hope he would have the strategic acumen and the discipline to stage confrontations (or avoid confrontations) at a time and place maximally advantageous to the side of liberty. And he would also be working with GREAT determination and creativity (hopefully commanding a capable and valorous staff that can extend his reach) to build a coalition of governors coordinating their action to credibly threaten the crippling of the enemy's political viability, for instance by talking seriously about withholding taxes and refusing to answer to illegitimate demands and [participate] in illegal programs ... serious.non-cooperation. (This is the part that would be most like war.) [my emphasis] (2)

Commentators find themselves tip-toing around the question of political violence. Understandably so. Let me clarify that: commentators, politicians, elected officials and activists who actually care about democracy and the rule of law – which are two sides of the same coin – don’t want to be reckless or encourage others to be reckless. However, that kind of restraint does not apply to the Trump Gestapo and its supporters. And when we think about who the supporters of this are – the people who celebrated the murder of Renee Good because to them she was just a f*****g bitch (in her killer’s words), the people including federal officials defending the Gestapo killer(s) who fired ten bullets into Alex Pretti for no good reason – who are they?

Just ask yourself how many Republican members of Congress, how many Republican state legislators, how many Republican mayors and city councilmembers, how many Republican Party officials have you heard unequivocally condemning the Trump Gestapo killings, beatings, kidnapping, and warrantless arrests and the brutal and illegal conditions in the prisons and concentration camps here and abroad to which the Trump regime is sending so many people? How many reporters or commentators on FOX News or OAN or some of the other hyper-partisan Republican propaganda networks and podcasts are doing so?

Republicans support the Trump/DHS Gestapo and its violent acts. And the exceptions seem at the moment to be few and far between. The more violent ones don’t have to rely on private “Patriot Militia”-type groups to commit violent crimes right now. They can get hired by ICE or the Border Control to commit illegal violence with the President’s Administration insisting that they have “absolute immunity” to do so, to quote our-oh-so-Christian Opus Dei Vice President J.D. Vance.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made a point of saying after yesterday’s murder that what is going on “is a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state.” And he also took a well-deserved dig at the “Second Amendment” blowhards by noting that the murder victim was “a lawful firearm concealed permit carrier, something that I’ve lectured to by Republicans for decades that it’s not only your right, it’s your duty.”

The Second Amendment itself states plainly that it is about the right of states to maintain state militias. The particular original context was that slave states wanted to make sure they could use state militia as slave patrols. Today’s National Guards are state militias. And the Supreme Court has even upheld the idea that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to “keep and bear“ at least some kinds of firearms. In reality, the only groups that maintain substantial private armed groups that could conceivably be considered a militia are criminal gangs, private security companies, or demented rightwing “patriot militia” types (who aren’t yet working for ICE or CPB) of the Cliven Bundy type. There are some local groups who identify themselves as “antifa” who are willing to slug it out with far-right groups. But they are relatively limited, and I haven’t heard of any of them going to work for ICE or CPB.

Liberals and leftists rightly criticized the Obama Administration’s deliberately permissive attitude toward organized local rightwing groups who were even targeting local cops and Highway Patrol. It took repeated armed confrontations with the Bundy thugs for Obama’s Justice Department to start treating them like criminals. “In 2009, [federal official Darly Johnson] wrote an internal Homeland Security report warning that right-wing extremism was on the rise in the US. When the report leaked, the political backlash was immediate and the report was retracted” by the Obama Administration. (3) 

As Gov. Walz reminded us, the “Second Amendment” enthusiasts talk about the need for people to have guns to use to fight government tyranny. But for most of them, “tyranny” is any law that protects the rights of non-white citizens or immigrants or non-heteronormative people or requires antisocial white people to obey the law like everyone else (except the Trump Gestapo) is expected to do.

The Milwaukee Independent this past November published a commentary on this rightwing schtick:

They have armed themselves to the teeth, wrapping violence in the U.S. flag and sanctifying the rifle as a symbol of “freedom.” They said guns were the only thing standing between liberty and dictatorship. That armed patriots would rise up if the government ever turned on its own people.

Now the government under Donald Trump has done exactly that, and these so-called defenders of liberty are nowhere to be found.

What we are witnessing today is not theoretical tyranny. It is real. The federal government, under the Trump regime, has used militarized federal forces and ICE agents like a personal Gestapo. Peaceful demonstrators have been assaulted, journalists detained, and ordinary citizens abducted from streets into unmarked vehicles.

Trump’s allies have celebrated this as “law and order,” while local mayors and governors begged federal agents to leave their cities alone. Instead of resisting authoritarian overreach, Second Amendment conservatives are cheering it on.

This isn’t about policy disagreements or partisan divides. It’s about the raw hypocrisy of a movement that built its identity on the claim that guns were a sacred safeguard against tyranny, yet stands silent as the state’s guns are turned on its own people.

These men and women who once fantasized about “watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants” are now content to let that tree wither under the weight of fascism, because the tyrant happens to be one of their own. [my emphasis] (4)

It’s worth recalling the just last year, a man was arrested for disguising himself as a police officer and murdering former Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman:

“Vance Boelter planned and carried out a night of terror that shook Minnesota to its core,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson. “He carried out targeted political assassinations the likes of which have never been seen in Minnesota. We grieve with the Hortman family and continue to pray for the recovery of the Hoffmans. Today, a grand jury indicted Boelter with the most serious of federal charges for these heinous political assassinations. Let me be clear: Boelter will see justice.”

According to court documents, after extensive research and planning, Boelter embarked on a murderous rampage targeting Minnesota’s elected officials and their families. On June 14, 2025, the defendant disguised himself as a member of law enforcement and traveled to the homes of Democratic elected officials with the intent to intimidate and murder. Early that morning, the defendant traveled to the Hoffmans home in Champlin, Minnesota. By posing as a police officer, Boelter compelled the Hoffmans to answer their door. He then repeatedly shot Senator Hoffman and Yvette Hoffman and he attempted to shoot their daughter, Hope Hoffman.

Boelter then traveled to the homes of two other Minnesota elected officials, only to find that no one at those locations was home. He next drove to the home of Speaker Emerita and Representative Melissa Hortman. There, Boelter repeatedly shot, and killed, Representative Hortman and her husband, Mark. Following a two-day manhunt, law enforcement arrested the defendant near his family residence in Green Isle, Minnesota. [my emphasis] (5)

If this fake “police officer” had tried to force his way into their homes and one of the Hortmanns or Hoffmans had shot and killed him, presumably that would have been legal in Minnesota and maybe all US states. In fact, Republicans and “ammosexual” gun fetishists have been successfully pushing for years in states like Florida to make it easier to murder someone and have it not be considered a crime.

It’s also worth recalling the question from a distressed mother who along with her three young daughters were terrorized last year by the Trump Gestapo in the middle of the night: “What if I would have been armed?” As MS Now reports:

Last week [April 2025], federal immigration agents executed a warrant on a home in Oklahoma City that authorities say is owned by a notorious human smuggling suspect. In the dark, about 20 men stormed into the house with guns drawn, according to a report from KFOR-TV. They swarmed the house, but what they found was not the owners, but new renting tenants, a mother and her three daughters, U.S. citizens freshly arrived from Maryland. The mother described details of the raid as horrifying: a woman and her children forced out into the night, their home ransacked, their property seized. …

The mother, whom NBC affiliate KFOR in Oklahoma City gives the pseudonym Marisa, expressed her fear and outrage at the situation and noted that the outcome could have been much worse: “What if I would have been armed? ... You’re breaking in. What am I supposed to think? My initial thought was we were being robbed — that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped. You have guns pointed in our faces.”

What if they had been armed, indeed? After all, many, many Americans are armed. According to the Pew Research Center, 4 in 10 U.S. adults live in households with guns. And we have been taught to regard those weapons as a right, particularly one that enables us to defend ourselves, our loved ones and our homes. [my emphasis] (6)

There’s no serious question at this point whether such actions are meant to deliberately terrify local communities, both citizens and noncitizens.

That’s what they are, acts of state terrorism, in good-old-fashioned Gestapo style. You know, the “knock on the door in the middle of the night”?

Only in that Oklahoma case the Trump Gestapo didn’t bother to knock. They just busted down the door in the middle of the night and rushed in with guns drawn.

I assume here, too, if the mother had fired at the Gestapo goons doing a home invasion, it would have been a legal act of self-defense. But it’s also very obvious that they would have almost certainly have murdered her on the spot, and maybe her three daughters, too.

Which brings me to the Minneapolis murder victim and his gun. He presumably had a gun with him for self-defense. But the Gestapo thugs murdered him anyway, shooting him ten times according the last news report I hear. Even though he never drew his gun on them.

I don’t mean this at all as a criticism of the murdered man. From what we know, he had no reason to expect that he would be gassed in the face for trying to help the woman the Gestapo had assaulted to get up off the ground. He was an ICU nurse, he might have been able to give her some immediate assistance had she been injured. This may sound banal. But in practice, the reality for any weapon someone is using for self-defense – a gun, a knife, pepper spray, a metal bar, whatever – has to be in the person’s hand at the moment they need it. And they have to know how to use whatever weapon it is.

In other words, Alex Pretti’s gun did not protect him in that moment. And the Gestapo and the Trump regime are using his legal possession of a gun that he did not draw out of his waistband as their alibi for executing him.

Again, this is not in any way a justification for the Gestapo murder or a reason to blame the victim for his own murder. It’s an observation about one of the practical realities of the world in which the Trump Gestapo is operating.

Notes:

(1) The Killing of Alex Pretti. Heather Cox Richardson YouTube channel 01/24/2026. (Accessed: 2026-25-01).

(2)



(3) Daryl Johnson. Exploring Hate PBS Exploring Hate website n/d. <https://www.pbs.org/wnet/exploring-hate/author/daryl-johnson/> (Accessed: 2026-25-01).

(4) Sobieski, Mitchel (2025): Why the Political ‘Arguments Used By Conservatives to Twist the Second Amendment Are a Public Fraud. Milwaukee Independent 11/04/2025. <https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/explainers/political-arguments-used-conservatives-twist-second-amendment-public-fraud/> (Accessed: 2026-25-01).

(5) Vance Boelter Indicted for the Murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman … US Attorney’s Office District of Minnesota 07/15/2025. <https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/vance-boelter-indicted-murders-melissa-and-mark-hortman-shootings-john-and-yvette-0> (Accessed: 2026-25-01).

(6) Elrod, Alan (2025): It’s only a matter of time before an ICE raid goes terribly wrong. MS Now 05/02/2025. <https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/it-s-only-a-matter-of-time-before-an-ice-raid-goes-terribly-wrong/ar-AA1E4xaa?ocid=winp-st> (Accessed: 2026-25-01). <

American Revolution semiquincentennial and the rule of law

This year is the official 250th anniversary (semiquincentennial, i.e., half of 500) of the beginning of the American Revolution, which is understood to have formally begun with the signing of the Declaration of Independence by leading colonial figures in 1776.

We can expect plenty of attempts by Trump and his cult to make public commemorations of the event tributes to Donald Trump, the greatest national leader in all of world history. I will not be surprised if he literally describes himself that way. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it!”

To warm up for it, it’s worth remembering that facts matter. So when Trump gives us new versions of his 2019 classic celebration of the Revolution, that’s worth keep in mind, i.e.:

Trump praised the Americans’ military efforts in the war against Great Britain. “Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory,” he said. (1)

It was 1903 when the Wright brothers successfully tested the first engine-powered aircraft.

Also, for what it’s worth, the phrase “the rockets’ red glare” phrase that everyone knows from the national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner was referring to the experience of the War of 1812 against Great Britain.

I dread my inevitable first encounter this year with the old segregationist trope that the Founders were setting up a republic, which they saw as something totally different from democracy which they allegedly saw as evil and awful. This is an old segregationist trope used to argue against human and civil rights and equal citizenship for African-Americans. As a historical claim, it can technically be describes as horse-poop.

But for people who want to think about more than ditsy fairy tales from an orange wanna-be dictator, there are some substantive matters worth reflecting on that go back to the founding ideals of the Republic.

Trump’s current deployment of the ICE Gestapo to terrorize various cities, currently notably including Minneapolis, has raised a new round of consideration of the meaning of rule of law and the functioning of federalism in the US Constitutional structure.

This is a good, brief Breaking Points report on what happens when the federal government sends out a bunch of masked thugs to terrorize cities. Ryan Grim says in it, “Watching ICE going around brutalizing people on an hourly basis, has done more, I think, to lift the public opinion of local police forces than anything in decades.” (2)

At some point, if this keeps up, local cops will have to start enforcing the laws against kidnapping, battery, illegal entry and even murder against ICE agents acting outside the law. Since most of the ICE goons seem to have very limited training, they will likely find it tough going when well-trained actual police come to arrest them.

In American history, it has often been the case that the federal government had to intervene when states and localities fail to enforce the law, both the Executive branch through the Justice Department and through the courts.

At the moment, we have the situation of professional urban police forces watching masked goons with no badges, with no clear identification as any kind of law enforcement, heavily armed, often driving around in vehicles with illegally concealed license tags, who are beating, gassing, kidnapping, and even killing people with impunity.

Law enforcement agencies are required to obey the law themselves and to enforce the law – including against government agencies breaking it. For all the practical complications involved, municipal police forces need to actively enforce the law against ICE Gestapo criminals.

There’s some real irony in the idea of the Minneapolis police needing to step up to enforce the law against violent and murderous federal agency lawbreakers. George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a Minneapolis police office, choked to death by one officer while three others helped hold Floyd down during the murder. Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter, and the three accomplices were convicted of violating the victim’s civil rights.

It would be a good way for the Minneapolis PD to further restore their reputation by taking the lead in restraining the ICE criminals. It would also be defending the rule of law. The general strike in the city this past week posting ICE was a great development!

Keith Ellison

Minnesota’s state attorney general since 2019, Keith Ellison has been working on rule-of-law for the police, including acting as the lead prosector against George Floyd. His page at the website of the National Association of Attorneys General states:

Attorney General Ellison was the lead prosecutor of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He led the team that successfully convicted four former police officers of second-degree murder or second-degree manslaughter, demonstrating that no one is above the law, and no one is beneath it. He is a national thought leader in the effort to advance constitutional policing that builds community trust and helps bring about true public safety for all people and communities. [my emphasis] (3)

Notes:

(1) Haynes, Suyin (2019): President Trump Said Revolutionary War Troops ‘Took Over the Airports’ in His Fourth of July Speech. Time 07/05/2019. <https://time.com/5620936/donald-trump-revolutionary-war-airports/> (Accessed: 2026-24-01).

(2) MN Cops REVOLT As ICE Harasses Officers. Breaking Points YouTube channel 01/21/2026. <https://youtu.be/b8iXtb28wCI?si=S0QraegB6LphHQR_> (Accessed: 2026-23-01).

(3) Keith Ellison-Minnesota Attorney General. National Association of Attorneys General n/d. <https://www.naag.org/attorney-general/keith-ellison/> (Accessed: 2026-24-01).

Trump’s new lows in diplomacy

“Trump’s imperialism speaks the language of resource extraction—or in the case of Greenland, the language of security. But it is not ultimately about resources. And it’s not ultimately about security either.” – Benjamin Wittes (1)

How does Wittes interpret the motivations of Trump‘s nasty and strange foreign policy?

Trump’s imperialism is about grandiosity. Greenland is big—very big. And the United States would be bigger, a whole lot bigger, if it had the island. And Trump wants America to be bigger. And Trump wants to be the one who made America bigger. Because Trump is derangedly grandiose.

Nobody can actually doubt that the president is deranged. [my emphasis]

The recent Davos gathering may rank up there with the February 2025 verbal “ambush” of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House as a dramatic diplomatic turning point.

The assessment that the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally has come gradually. The scales first fell from Europe’s leaders’ eyes when the Trump administration published its National Security Strategy in early December, in which it vowed to boost “patriotic European parties” to the detriment of the EU. (Which may go some way to explaining why some EU leaders, like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, are still clinging to Trump.)

Then, Trump renewed his rhetoric about taking Greenland, the U.S. ambassador to Iceland called himself the governor of the 52nd U.S. state, and Trump sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, in which he said that his failure to be awarded the Nobel Peace meant he would “no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

One senior EU envoy said they were convinced the letter was a fake. Its authenticity was then confirmed. [my emphasis] (2)

British historian Simon Schama comments on European diplomacy with an demented President that seems Europe as adversaries, maybe even enemies. (3)

Notes:

(1) Wittes, Benjamin (2026): The Situation: “Evident Clinical Symptoms”. Lawfare 01/20/2026. <https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation---evident-clinical-symptoms> (Accessed: 2026-22-01).

(2) Sheftalovich, Zoya (2026): ‘Our American Dream is dead’: EU concedes Trump is not on its side. Politico Europe 01/22/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-donald-trump-greenland-summit-davos-relief/> (Accessed: 2026-22-01).

(3) America is ‘no longer an ally’-Historian Sir Simon Schama. Times News YouTube channel 01/23/2026. <https://youtu.be/c_6MpH-B2wE?si=qs30J0bUsRHljJLC> (Accessed: 2026-22-01).

hallenges to democracy – in Israel and elsewhere (And some thoughts on what "rule of law" means)

Michael Hauser Tov recently addressed the immediate challenges to Israel’s current democracy. Israel’s democracy in any case has always been limited by the fact that Palestinians in the occupied territories dominated by Israel could not vote in Israeli elections.

He quotes Dr. Yael Shomar of the Political Science Department of Tel Aviv University

"Israel is heading toward an authoritarian future," and, in addition to the government's attempts to take over agencies that are supposed to check its power, the "democratic nature of the coming election is at real risk." She says that "all this is taking place alongside a deep failure in civics education. For two decades now, liberal-democratic values have been pushed aside, replaced by a limited nationalist discourse."

Tov lists eleven areas of current concern which I am presenting here in bullet-point form:

• Restrictions on freedom of speech
• Persecution of political opponents
• Trampling the legislature
• The use of the security forces at home
• Violations of court rulings
• Trampling the watchdogs
• Declaring a state of emergency
• Control of the media
• Taking over academia
• Delegitimizing the opposition
• Exploiting the law to remain in power

This is a list that could be used to organize an examination of authoritarian dangers for any democracy. Every democracy has its weaknesses, of course. The biggest being that even the most democratic government are composed of human beings.

If that sounds a bit cynical, it’s actually just a somewhat less gendered versions of James Madison’s famous statement in The Federalist Papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

To be fair, it’s theoretically possible that Madison meant that the problem was specifically that men are not angels. But that would be stretching it!

The specifics matter, of course, so for any given country, the specific interactions of the institutions and their actual performance have to be taken into account. I’d have to say it’s disappointing to see that the list of eleven does not include free and fair elections held under secure conditions.

There is an important distinction between the concept of rule of law developed as a part of democratic theory. Rule of law and democracy are intertwined concepts, i.e., you can’t have one without the other. Rule of law includes: the equal application of the law to all; the idea that government is bound by the law; individual rights including the right to a fair trial; a justice system that is independent, competent, and fair; and – very importantly - democratic participation in the formation of the laws.

Here's a geeky but clear description of this relationship from Claire Gardner:

The Rule of Law is a millennia old principal referring to the way by which states are governed. As compared with Rule by Law, where the government uses the law to govern and is considered to be above the law, Rule of Law means that all entities, including the government, must adhere to the supremacy of the law. ...

The Rule of Law is closely linked with the ideals of democracy. A democratic state under the Rule of Law is a state where citizens elect their own leaders, and the government itself is bound by the law, while also helping to ensure that the law is respected among the citizens of the state. Democracy cannot exist without the Rule of Law, especially the rule that dictates who should occupy public office given the results of elections. However, only supporting the Rule of Law during an election season is not enough. Democratic stability depends on a self-enforcing equilibrium. In other words, political officials must respect democracy’s limits on their actions, particularly regarding the rights of citizens. Institutions that are self-perpetuating and do not operate based on individuality of single actors are powerful actors stabilizing that equilibrium. In a stable, self-perpetuating institution all conflicts are solved according to the institutional rules, and therefore, the Rule of Law stabilizes the democratic society. Rule of Law in a democratic institution allows governments to work their will through general legislation, and then to be subject to that legislation themselves. [my emphasis in bold] (2)

Here is a brief video explainer (3) on the rule of law United States Institute of Peace from 2012, years before it was renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in early 2025.

Notes:

(1) Tov, Michael Hauser (2026): Netanyahu's 11 Moves Taking Israel From Democracy Toward Authoritarian Rule. Haaretz 01/21/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-01-21/ty-article-magazine/.premium/netanyahus-11-moves-taking-israel-from-democracy-toward-authoritarian-rule/0000019b-dbad-d4f5-a7ff-dfbd42160000?gift=85ef0e3d5af2442ca39f215c00f0adf7> (Accessed: 2026-22-01).

(2) Gardner, Claire (2021): Democracy and the Rule of Law. William and Mary Law School Summer 2021. <https://law.wm.edu/academics/intellectuallife/researchcenters/postconflictjustice/internships/internship-blogs/2021/claire-gardner/democracy-and-the-rule-of-law.php> (Accessed: 2026-22-01).

(3) What is the Rule of Law? United States Institute of Peace YouTube channel 03/01/2012. <https://youtu.be/IZDd2v18vfw?si=Q0wNqEs_Fp5HM-iB> (Accessed: 2026-22-01).

US threats against Denmark/Greenland

Anne Applebaum has a useful, brief polemic on the literal looniness of Trump’s threats to seize Greenland by force from the Kingdom of Denmark. She quotes in full his brief letter to Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway, bizarrely citing the decision of the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone other than Donald Trump as justification for US military seizure of Greenland:

Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland. [my emphasis]

(1)
The British Channel 4 has this report on the current situation: (2)

Notes:

(1) Applebaum, Anne (2026): Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw. The Atlantic 01/19/2026. <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-letter-to-norway/685676/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK36YjEx6PWcaiwVCToEIk3KY&fbclid=IwY2xjawPcKgNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe6uPnupD96kWl70mM0emRg7X1MjUTGGNgShCogJ2z-CokIvs39H4H8dZCa6Q_aem_uFMzPyHDQIEXyy9lBJ_FvA> (Accessed: 2026-20-01).

(2) Greenland: Will Europe fight Trump or surrender. Channel 4 News YouTube channel 01/19/2026. <https://youtu.be/rYKKeRyWw3Y?si=R4mdGvDqetdBiXkN> (Accessed: 2026-20-01).

The European Nationalist International and their Trumpista American friends

Far-right parties like Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), and France’s National Rally (RN) are a significant party of European politics. There are two groups of rightwing political parties in the European Parliament, the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group and the Patriots for Europe group, which includes Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz group in Hungary. European parliaments typically use a seating arrangement which groups the parties from left to right. By their seating arrangements, ESN is to the right of the Patriots group.

International cooperation among parties is nothing new. And of course there are laws regulating what the various parties can and cannot do in terms of their relationships.

The idea of cross-border cooperation between hardline rightwing nationalist parties seems like a contraction in terms. And it obviously has its limits. But the idea of a “nationalist international” is inherently self-contradictory at a conceptual level. But cooperation across borders between even hardline nationalist groups is also nothing new. Marin Kristoffer Hamre looks at the 1930s version of this phenomenon in his 2025 book, Fascists of the World, Unite?

Hamre relates how the Italian and German fascist governments both set up groups to promote organizations in other countries that followed their respective political models. Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry even set up a group under a German Nazi supporter, Hans Keller, “the International Action of Nationalists (Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Nationalisten, IAdN) in the spring of 1934. In English, the organization was mainly referred to as the Nationalist International.”

Hamre writes:

The analytical concept of Nazi internationalism is rarely used by historians because of the ultranationalist, völkisch, racist, expansionist, destructive, and ultimately anti-internationalist character of Nazi Germany, which largely denied any 'universal' implications of its Germanic-Nordic-Aryan ideology. Nevertheless, ... several agencies from Nazi Germany became involved in fascist internationalism, though with different visions and objectives. These included the organization World-Service (Welt-Dienst, WD), which attempted to influence and unite various fascist movements based on antisemitism …. Another example is the so-called Anti-Komintern (Antikomintern) led by Eberhard Taubert, which Joseph Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry orchestrated to spread anticommunist propaganda internationally and to unite people, movements, and regimes against so-called Judeo-Bolshevism. (pp. 104-105) [my emphasis in bold]

I recently posted about how various far-right parties in the EU are endorsing Orbán’s Fidesz party April 12 elections in Hungary. Two Politico columnists recently referred to that event as “this year’s most consequential election in the EU.” (1) Orbán brand of authoritarianism is seen as a model by American Trumpistas, in which oligarchs can heavily influence the results of elections in such a way that actual competitive elections take place but the opposition is at a serious structural disadvantage. Politico describes it:

Challengers to the ruling party face a system designed to favor Fidesz. In 2011 Orbán’s government redrew electoral districts and overhauled the voting system to maximize its chances of winning seats.

“There is no direct interference with the act of voting itself, yet the broader competitive environment — both in terms of institutional rules and access to resources — tilts heavily in favor of the governing parties,” said political analyst Márton Bene at the TK Institute of Political Science in Budapest.

In addition to controlling roughly 80 percent of the media market, the government allows ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries (who tend to favor Fidesz) to vote by mail, whereas those living abroad who have kept their Hungarian addresses must travel to embassies to cast their ballots. [my emphasis]

Many of those ethnic Hungarians voting in neighboring countries are in Romania, which includes 1 million ethnic Hungarians, mostly in the Romanian region of Transylvania. One aspect of Orbán’s nationalism is that he rejects the validity of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which established the current international borders between Hungary and Romania after the First World War. In other words, Orbán has ambitions to take part of the legal territory of Romania. So this unusual arrangement of letting ethnic-Hungarian vote in Hungarian elections is not only manipulation of elections. It can lead to actual border conflict at some point between the two countries.

But there are some signs at the moment that some of the far-right European admiration for Trump is bumping against the limits of the nationalist ideologies. After all, Trump is positioning himself as hostile to Europe and the EU and is currently threatening military action against Denmark. It’s a challenge for rightwing parties to pose as superpatriots for their own countries or “patriots for Europe” if they are backing a country positioning itself as hostile and even threatening an old-fashioned imperialist annexation of part of Denmark.

James Angelos reports on recent noises the German AfD has been making, even though Trump and JD Vance have been verbally supporting them:

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has long sought close ties to the Trump administration in its quest for powerful international allies and an end to its political isolation at home.

But as public sentiment in Germany increasingly turns against U.S. President Donald Trump and his foreign interventionism - in particular his talk of taking control of Greenland and his seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro - AfD leaders are recalibrating, putting distance between their party and a U.S. president they previously embraced.

“He has violated a fundamental election promise, namely not to interfere in other countries, and he has to explain that to his own voters,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said earlier this week. …

By distancing themselves from Trump, the AfD leaders are following the path of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in France, whose leaders, due to the American president’s deep unpopularity there, have been far more critical of Trump and view his administration’s overtures to European nationalists as a liability. In response to Trump’s stances on Greenland and Venezuela, for instance, National Rally President Jordan Bardella recently accused the American leader of harboring “imperial ambitions.”

The AfD’s criticism this week, by contrast, was tepid; but even mild disapproval has been rare from the party’s leaders. From the moment Trump began his second term, the German far right has seen American ideological backing — including from billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk and U.S. Vice President JD Vance — as key to boosting the party’s domestic legitimacy< and breaking the “firewall” that mainstream parties have historically imposed to keep the AfD from power. [my emphasis in bold] (2) /blockquote>
The AfD leaders have generally taken a Putin-friendly approach in foreign affairs, as has the French National Rally group. Their positions can’t be taken as some kind of indication of current Russian foreign policy positions. But it’s also worth remembering that the US annexing Greenland as a colony (or whatever it is that the Trumpistas have in mind would mean a new US possession very close to Russia.

Carl Schmitt never goes away

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was a German political theorist known especially for his theories on the “state of emergency” as the most important element of political sovereignty. Lars Vinx writes:

Though Schmitt had not been a supporter of National Socialism before Hitler came to power, he sided with the Nazis after 1933. Schmitt quickly obtained an influential position in the legal profession and came to be perceived as the ‘Crown Jurist’ of National Socialism ... He devoted himself, with undue enthusiasm, to such tasks as the defence of Hitler’s extra-judicial killings of political opponents and the purging of German jurisprudence of Jewish influence. (3)

He was a bad guy, in other words. But he “remained an important figure in West Germany’s conservative intellectual scene to his death in 1985.” His theories are still taken seriously, even by people who find him and his general ideology despicable. His focus on the importance to authoritarian politics of the authoritarians’ strong emphasis on defining their opponents as enemies, not just as opponents. He also focused heavily on justifications for international aggression by Nazi Germany against other countries.

Schmitt’s theories on international relations bear some at least vague resemblance to the “realist” school of international relations. Which means thinkers on the center and left can at least find elements in Schmitt’s views that have some explanatory power of international behavior that may be underplayed in more Wilsonian liberal-internationalist views.

Ian Klinke observes:

Political scientist Herfried Münkler [a respectable and relatively well-known German historian], whose books have found themselves on Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen’s laps, was among the first to point to Schmitt’s geopolitical writings as a key to unlock the present moment. Like others, he sees in a world of regional blocs organized around spheres of influence the realization of Schmitt’s schema.

Centrists like Münkler are not alone. After Nicolás Maduro’s abduction, the German-speaking far right too has flocked to a 1939 pamphlet in which Schmitt proposed an order modeled on America’s Monroe Doctrine. Not just Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)’s hard-liner Maximilian “Mad Max” Krah welcomed a new Schmittian Großraumordnung (an order of great spaces) on X. The Austrian activist Martin Sellner, aka “Mr Remigration,” called for a European Monroe doctrine also … [my emphasis] (4)

The inconsistency of the notion of nationalist internationalism is obvious in the relationship of the Trump Administration and the European far right. While they share a hostility to democracy and the rule of law. They believe in their own version of a “Hobbesian” world in which The Nation is the only political value that really matters.

But Klinke also notes that Schmitt admired the US Monroe Doctrine as a model for regional powers dividing the world into spheres of influence. And that notion is ultimately inconsistent with a system of international law. But any new version of German expansionism of the kind that presumably warms the cold hears of German AfDers would very quickly run into some practical obstacles:

But the new right too is interested in Germany’s “lost territories,” in German minorities in Poland, and in upholding the memory of the German “victims” of the post-1945 European territorial order. Nineteen forty-five was a German “defeat,” Alice Weidel has said, rejecting the dominant postwar narrative that frames the country’s reckoning primarily in terms of German guilt.

Any territorially revisionist agenda will run up against an obvious problem: Poland. German right-wing circles may have many disagreements with their Polish counterparts that could spark conflict between an AfD-led Germany and its eastern neighbor. But the German minority in Poland is small, and it is virtually nonexistent in the other “lost territories,” such as Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, Lithuania’s Klaipėda region, and the Czech Republic’s Sudetenland. Germany’s post-Potsdam refugee population is very elderly and rapidly dwindling. What is more, Warsaw is now Europe’s largest defense spender as a percentage of GDP. It is a peer for the Bundeswehr, not a state to be pushed around or carved up. [my emphasis]

Angelos gives an example of how the AfD can rhetorically use Trump’s foreign policy as a model for Germany:

Germany’s government, Weidel suggested, could learn a lesson about how to put national self interest above other considerations.

Trump’s recent actions were based on “geostrategic reasons,” Weidel declared. “I would like to see the German federal government finally making policies for the German people, in the interest of Germany.”

Notes:

(1) Jochecová, Ketrin & Griera, Max (2026): Hungary: 5 key questions about the EU’s most important election of 2026. Politico EU 01/15/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-viktor-orban-fidesz-peter-magyar-tisza-5-key-questions-election-2026/> (Accessed: 2026-15-01).

(2) Angelos, James (2026): Germany’s far right loosens its embrace of Trump. Politico EU 01/16/2026. https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-donald-trump-afd-greenland-nicolas-maduro-national-rally/ (Accessed: 2026-18-01).

(3) Vinx, Lars, "Carl Schmitt", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2025 Edition). Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2025/entries/schmitt/>. (Accessed: 2026-18-01).

(4) Klinke, Ian (2026): Germans Are Reading Carl Schmitt in the Ruins of Atlanticism. Jacobin 01/17/2026. <https://jacobin.com/2026/01/germany-schmitt-afd-monroe-doctrine> (Accessed: 2026-18-01).

Policing the ICE Gestapo paramilitary goons

The state and local governments in Minnesota are dealing with the serious misconduct of the ICE paramilitary that the Trump regime has sent there. (1)

The ugly and murderous conduct of the ICE Gestapo in Minneapolis has got me thinking more specifically about the authority that states and local governments may have for restraining criminal conduct on ICE’s part.

Despite the title having to do with Greenland, the first part of the following interview has former senior general Mark Hertling talking about the terror tactics being used by ICE. And he rightly says that their obvious goal is to provoke a violent reaction that they can then use as an excuse to declare martial law or something like it. (2) (Trump seems to think invoking the Insurrection Act would be the same as setting up martial law, but it isn’t.)

But he also notes that, no matter how much goodwill and peaceful civic dedication most people have, if the current violent and even murderous tactics of ICE continue the way they are going, it’s inevitable that someone somewhere will react violently. He also has some interesting memories of how the post-2003 Iraqi security forces stopped wearing masks and why.

And anyone who thinks they are not trying to recruit provocateurs should read up on COINTELPRO from the 60s and the feds’ tactics during the post-9/11 period. And those were pre-Trump times!

There has been speculation over the last year is what it might look like in the US if actual civil war conditions were reached. What would that look like? What it will not look like is some kind of Democratic Party armed militia rising up against the ICE Gestapo, because no such partisan militia exists. Nor anything like that in the form of some National Antifa Underground Army or such like.

Robert Reich’s recent weekly podcast noted the fact that the Trump regime has sent three thousand ICE goons to Minneapolis, a city which has a police force of around 600. (3)

The most hopeful approach is the one municipal police and county sheriffs are now starting to use and even openly announce, which is that when ICE goons break the law, as they do regularly now, the local forces will arrest them and charge them. And since it’s now clear that ICE has been heavily recruiting Proud Boy-like “patriot militia” types like the cop-killing thugs who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, there’s a good chance they will be doing more cop-killing. That is even more reason for local and state officials sooner rather than later to enforce the law against the militia goons who are breaking it.

Cops are there to enforce the law, not to break it (even though too many cops do). These ICE thugs are obviously operating on directives to terrorize local citizens, almost certainly as preparation for doing so on a wide scale on election days this year. On this matter, it really is “Support Your Local Police” time - and demand they do their jobs.

It’s important to remember that especially the recent hires among the ICE Gestapo are poorly trained in basic police conduct. It’s one thing for them to shoot an unarmed woman like Renee Good in the face with no warning. Dealing with armed and well-trained police is a whole different matter. And since ICE is reportedly planning to hire hundreds more goons in coming months, the average level of their professionalism will decline even further.

ProPublica just published a report on the use of deadly and banned chokeholds on people they attack. (4) If this goes on, there will be more people killed from this kind of abusive ICE practices:

An agent in Houston put a teenage citizen into a chokehold, wrapping his arm around the boy’s neck, choking him so hard that his neck had red welts hours later. A black-masked agent in Los Angeles pressed his knee into a woman’s neck while she was handcuffed; she then appeared to pass out. An agent in Massachusetts jabbed his finger and thumb into the neck and arteries of a young father who refused to be separated from his wife and 1-year-old daughter. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he started convulsing. ...

ProPublica found more than 40 cases over the past year of immigration agents using these life-threatening maneuvers on immigrants, citizens and protesters. The agents are usually masked, their identities secret. The government won’t say if any of them have been punished.

In nearly 20 cases, agents appeared to use chokeholds and other neck restraints that the Department of Homeland Security prohibits “unless deadly force is authorized.”

If the ICE Gestapo violently resist legitimate local and state law enforcement, then we could see some civil-war-type scenes. It won’t be states seceding from the federal Union 1860-61 style and forming a secessionist army.

But Trump might also be willing to declare martial law, in which case opposition to it would have to take some combination of states and localities enforcing the actual law, federal institutions like the Army refusing to obey illegal orders, and civic society actively protesting. Even something vaguely resembling the Wobblies’ dream of a nationwide general strike is not impossible to imagine.

But we shouldn’t let the Cabinet and Congress off the hook on their responsibilities. The Cabinet can invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office. The Congress can also impeach and remove the President, which would of course require Republican votes. The Democrats also have a responsibility to actively pursue such remedies.

Arresting people at random on the street with no legal cause or arrest warrant, shooting drivers in the face because an ICE thug just feels like it, sending armed masked goons into schools with no actual legal purpose - this stuff is seriously illegal, and the local and state police do have a duty to enforce the law.

That has bit of a "states rights" ring. But it's actually about the basic rule of law. Wearing a black mask and combat-style camouflage does not give anyone the right to illegally beat, tear-gas, assault or murder people. And their black masks certainly do not give ICE criminals the "absolute immunity" Vice President JD Vance says they have.

Reducing the ICE recruits' training from six months to 47 days because Trump is the 47th President pretty much tells us all we need to know about ICE professionalism.

Notes:

(1) Masters, Clay (2026): With limited political power, Minnesota Democrats navigate resistance to Trump. NPR 01/16/2026.<https://www.npr.org/2026/01/16/nx-s1-5678565/immigration-minnesota-democrats-navigate-resistance-to-trump> (Accessed: 2026-16-01).

(2) Taking Greenland Would Trigger a NATO Crisis (w/ Mark Hertling). The Bulwark YouTube channel 01/14/2026. <https://youtu.be/1-6wDWfrJHI?si=QX87aooeICKyoUGE> (Accessed: 2026-15-01).

(3) ICE: The American Gestapo. Robert Reich YouTube channel 01/17/2026. <https://youtu.be/ZVGTmdKoTME?si=Fu2cqe1qOcH2QpUR> (Accessed: 2026-17-01).

(4) Foy, Nicole and Funk, McKenzie (2026): We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing. ProPublica 01/13/2026. <https://www.propublica.org/article/videos-ice-dhs-immigration-agents-using-chokeholds-citizens> (Accessed: 2026-15-01).

Rogues gallery of the Nationalist International

Far-right parties that appeal to narrow nationalism and xenophobia seem on the face of it like the strangest bedfellows in politics. But there is a kind of Nationalist International of the kind of parties Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy refers to as the sort of politicians the Trump regime intends to promote in Europe.

And a number of those parties - including the Israeli Likud - and their leaders are endorsing the Hungarian authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán. The Austrian paper Der Standard reports on eleven of them, listed here with their countries and parties: (1)

• Santiago Abascal (Vox, Spain)
• Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (Ano, Czech Republic)
• Herbert Kickl (FPÖ, Austria)
• Marine Le Pen (National Rally/NR, France)
• Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d'Italia [Brothers of Italy], Italy)
• President Javier Milei (Libertzarian Party, Argentina)
• President Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS, Polen)
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu (Likud, Israel)
• Matteo Salvini (Lega, Italien)
• Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić (SNS, Serbia)
• Alice Weidel (Alliance for Germany (AfD), Germany)

At this point, these are the Trumpistas of Europe. The Guardian reports:

Rightwing leaders from around the world have come together to endorse Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, hinting at the symbolism that the country’s elections hold for global far-right movements even as the populist leader lags in the polls.

A campaign video published online by Orbán this week includes endorsements from nearly a dozen leaders including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s Alice Weidel.

“Europe needs Viktor Orbán,” Weidel, a co-leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), tells viewers.

Le Pen, the former leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, piles praise on the leader who once described Hungary as a “petri dish for illiberalism”. “Thanks to leaders like Viktor Orbán, the camp of patriots and defenders of nations and sovereign peoples is achieving ever greater success in Europe,” she says. [my emphasis]

This is an entertaining image from the November 2025 edition of the German comic book Captain Berlin. The hero has a definite Captain America vibe to him. The cover shows Captain Berlin being shocked by a campaign poster for a candidate named Ilse von Blitzen, who bears a distinct resemblance to Alice Weidel, the current leader of the German far-right AfD party. His reactions is, “Oh, no! Not her!”

Notes:

(1) Sommavilla, Fabian (2026): Kickl, Le Pen, Weidel, Meloni, Netanjahu und "Hollywood-Legende" mit Wahlkampfhilfe für Orbán. Der Standard 12.01.2026. <https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000303803/kickl-le-pen-weidel-meloni-netanjahu-und-hollywood-legende-mit-wahlkampfhilfe-fuer-orban> (Accessed: 2026-13-01).

The curse of “both sides” journalism

The American “quality” press got stuck years ago in a style of reporting that stressed giving both sides of a dispute without passing judgment on their factual accuracy.,

The New York Times this report via its Austrian partner Der Standard reporting on the murder of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent. (1)

The story could have started out giving the background facts, like: There is widespread public outrage over the murder of a Minnesota woman by a masked ICE Gestapo goon who deliberately shot her in the face and killed her and the available evidence strongly indicates it was deliberate murder with no legitimate justification. (An Austrian paper would add that there is a presumption of innocence until the accused murderer is found guilty in court.)

Instead, the NYT story opens with these three paragraphs, with my strikeouts (in italics) and my comments in italics:

Mounting outrage over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s killing [more accurately: apparent murder with no obvious legal or self-defensive motivate] of a woman in Minneapolis spilled into streets across the country Saturday, as crowds of protesters mobilized against what they called the excesses of the Trump administration’s mass deportation [more accurately: campaign of mass intimidation against citizens and voters in Democratic cities].

The "Ice Out for Good" campaign held demonstrations in small towns and major cities, including some that have been central targets of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The protests came three days after an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen at the wheel of a car, during an encounter in South Minneapolis.

Almost immediately, conflicting interpretations of the killing — which was captured in video from several angles — divided the country along ideological lines. State leaders in Minnesota described the ICE agent’s action as an unjustifiable use of lethal force against a civilian who was trying to leave the scene [a characterization strongly supported by the available video evidence]. For their part, Trump administration officials claimed that Good was a left-wing domestic terrorist who tried to run over the ICE agent, and that the agent acted in self-defense. [However, Trump officials have offered no clear evidence whatsoever for those claims.]

The Times proceeds to say, “Almost immediately, conflicting interpretations of the killing — which was captured in video from several angles — divided the country along ideological lines.” Without adding any appropriate clarification that the Trump version is backed by no available supporting evidence.

Gee, what happened? Well, this side says X happened and the other side says Y happened. Who can tell which side is right? We’re just reporters, we can’t bother to explain the axtual state of the evidence available to the public.

Notes:

(1) Hippensteel, Chris (2026): Anti-ICE Protests Spread Nationwide. New York Times/Der Standard 01/11/2026. <https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000303588/anti-ice-protests-spread-nationwide> (Accessed: 2026-11-01).

A mini-explainer about Greenland’s status as a part of Denmark

There is a famous quotation apocryphally attributed to the California writer Ambrose Bierce: “Wars are God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” (With various versions of itself.)

I was reminded of that in the various media discussions about Greenland. “By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?” asked Trump’s Joseph Goebbels clone Stephen Miller recently. (1)

In the Miller-Goebbels world, reality including history is whatever cult leader Trump says it is at any given moment.

Actual information about Greenland is not that hard to find. Chatham House’s Marc Weller gives a brief historical sketch of Greenland’s affiliation to Denmark, which claims to have administered the island since 1721. Norway disputed Denmark’s claim to colonial control over Greenland early in the last century. As Weller notes, “the Permanent Court of International Justice ruled in 1933 that Norway’s Foreign Minister Nils Claus Ihlen had given up any claim to Greenland. He had declared in 1919 that the Danish claim ‘would be met with no difficulties on the part of Norway’.” (2)

The UN recognized in 1954 that Greenland had “become an integral part of the Danish Realm with a constitutional status equal to that of other parts of Denmark” based on changes put in place the previous year. (3) And, as Weller writes:

Denmark ... has progressively increased the level of self-government for Greenland, first in the Home Rule Act of 1979 and then in the Self-Government Act of 2009. This latter instrument was approved in a Greenland referendum by a majority of 75.5 per cent.

The Self-Government Act transfers virtually all powers of governance to the Greenland local authorities, with the exception of defence, monetary policy and external relations. In fact, Greenland can even conclude treaties independently of Denmark. However, this does not extend to agreements affecting its status within Denmark. [my emphasis]

Miller-Goebbel‘s view, of course, is: Trump don’t need no stinking international law. Trump want Greenland so Trump take it!! (The Incredible Hulk theory of international law.)

Encyclopedia Britannica provides a brief quick history of Greenland, though Stephen Miller probably assumes Britannica is just some woke commie propaganda outlet: (4)

The particular status of Greenland within the Kingdom of Denmark is a little odd compared to how most people are used to thinking about sovereign countries. But it also doesn’t take a PhD in international law to understand the quirks, either.

Denmark is a kingdom, a monarchy ruled by King Frederik X since January of 2024. Greenland is a self-governing province. Its population is small, just under 57,000 people, a number which Goebbels-Miller in the clip above cites as 30,000. (Math, apparently is nothing but some “DEI” obsession in his eyes.

Greenland is a self-governing autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, which has a parliamentary government. The Danish parliament is called the Folketag, which has 179 member including two members elected by Greenlanders and one from the Faroe Islands.

The Nordic Co-operation website provides this bullet-point summary:

Greenland is not a member of the EU but has a special fisheries agreement and was accepted as one of the overseas countries and territories with special association with the EU.

• National day: 21 June (longest day of the year)
• Form of government: Self-government, within the kingdom of Denmark
• [Provincial] Parliament: Inatsisartut (31 seats)
• EU membership: From 1 January 1973 to 1 February 1985
• NATO membership: Since 1949 (as part of Denmark’s membership)
• Head of state: King Frederik X
• Head of government (since April 2025): Jens-Frederik Nielsen (5)

But, as noted above, Norway’s king and Folketag are in charge of defense, foreign relations, and currency policy. One oddity is that Greenland can conclude treaties with other countries on its own as long as they don’t affect its legal relationship with Denmark. Although that could be seen as analogous to a US state making a pact with a foreign government, which would not formally and legally be a treaty.

The Self-Government Act of 2009 mentioned above allows Greenland to declare itself an independent nation on the basis of an independence referendum. If a majority votes for such a referendum, the Danish Folketag would have final say on whether Greenland’s independence would be recognized.

Greenland is specifically covered by the NATO mutual-defense treaty, which means any forcible occupation of the island by the US or any other nation would be formal grounds for invoking the collective self-defense clause against the invader. Since Denmark is not technically part of the EU, such an invasion would not necessarily trigger the EU mutual-defense clause.

Huw Paige has a useful summary of the Trump regime’s recent posturing over Greenland:

Arguments [from the Trump Administration] of security threats around Greenland from Russia and China are illogical. Russia has no great presence in the vicinity of Greenland, and China’s motivations in the Arctic center around the reduction in shipping time and costs offered by the Northern Sea Route along the Russian coast. In any case, China has backed off far more in Greenland in recent years than it has in, for example, Alaska. (6)

Notes:

(1) Miller asserts Trump administration’s position is Green should be part of the US. ABC Chicago YouTube channel, n/d, <https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SdhZ9vKGNq0> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

(2) Weller, Marc (2026): Who owns Greenland? Chatham House 01/09/2026. <https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/01/who-owns-greenland> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

(3) UN Resolution 849 (IX)m 1954. <https://docs.un.org/en/a/res/849(IX)> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

(4) Who Governs Greenland? Encyclopaedia Britannica YouTube channel 04/04/2025. <https://youtu.be/u1Q6PZDe9II?si=ygRdK5kWK8pIGUYs> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

(5) Facts about Greenland, n/d. <https://www.norden.org/en/information/facts-about-greenland> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

(6) Paige, Huw (2026): Donald Trump’s Greenland Obsession Is Growing More Dangerous. Jacobin 01/09/2026. <https://jacobin.com/2026/01/trump-greenland-denmark-nato-imperialism> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

Defending against the United States

This is a roughly 45-minute discussion in two parts about Trump’s foreign policy on Venezuela from the MeidasTouch Legal AF “Court of History” podcast with Sidney Blumenthal, and Sean Wilentz (one of my favorite historians) and Jonathn Winer. All three legitimately qualify as “old white guys.” But they are considerably more in touch with reality than Trumpista freaks like Stephen Miller. (1)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Winer’s comments are a reminder that having tremendous oil reserves has been a big blessing and a big curse for Venezuela. An economy so heavily dominated by the oil business struggles with chronic problems, such as strong incentives to neglect less lucrative sectors of the economy (including the public sector) and big temptations for official corruption.

Winer had direct experience at the State Department with US-directed regime change in Haiti, which he discusses here and which like most such operations did not work out well.

The discussion also focuses on what a bonkers claim it is that the (officially asserted) US control of Venezuela “will pay for itself.” And of course Trump’s claim that the US will somehow reap enormous financial benefits from Venezuelan oil is ludicrous in the short or medium term. And profits for oil corporations will depend on their making large-scale, long-term investments. Which at the moment they have little incentive to und,032222222ertake, at least not without massive US governmental subsidies of some kind.

And in another current crisis deliberately generated by the Trump 2.0 regime, the European nations who are technically still NATO allies of the US are working quietly but urgently on how to respond to US military aggression against other NATO allies, with Denmark/Greenland being the most immediate challenge.

Politico EU reports on current developments:

European Union Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has said the bloc should consider establishing a standing military force of 100,000 troops and overhaul the political processes governing defense.

Faced with Russian aggression and the U.S. shifting its focus away from Europe and threatening Greenland, Kubilius argued for a “big bang” approach to re-imagining Europe’s common defense.

“Would the United States be militarily stronger if they would have 50 armies on the States level instead of a single federal army,” he said at a Swedish security conference on Sunday. “Fifty state defence policies and defense budgets on the states level, instead of a single federal defense policy and budget?” [my emphasis] (2)

How to include Britain in a close military alliance without Britain being part of the European Union is a major political and structural issue in changing European defense policies to defend against the US as well as Russia. But international alliances in the face of perceived common threats is hardly a new thing in the world.

Notes:

(1) Trump WALKS Himself into NIGHTMARE Scenario. Legal AF YouTube channel. Part 1 (01/10/2026): https://youtu.be/cgf7OrP-oo8?si=RW4AbM0PGb2yX2FO> Part 2 (01/11/2026): <https://youtu.be/mmvlL_rYsaI?si=yCijfbNMA3xRShUw> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).

(2) Stanley-Smith, Joe (2026): EU may need 100,000-strong army, says defense commissioner. Politico EU 01/12/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-needs-100000-strong-army-defense-commissioner-andrius-kubilius-military-overhaul/> (Accessed : 2026-12-01).

Peace President Trump is on a roll. A bad one.

Anne Applebaum discusses the current status of US-European relations in a podcast from The Bulwark. (1)

Anne Applebaum is a historian and political commentator. Some of her specific perspectives are too conservative for my taste. But she is an insightful analyst on issues of liberal democracy and how autocratic movements undermine it. She makes it clear that she speaks for herself in her public appearances. But she has also been married for decades to Radosław Tomasz "Radek" Sikorski, the current Foreign Minister of Poland’s current center-right, pro-democracy government.

The Bulwark is a non-Trump conservative website, a successor to the neoconservative Weekly Standard.

It's a favorite cliché of American pundits and especially rightwingers to mock Europe as being divided and weak. But what we are seeing right now is Europe adjusting to the new world in which the US is no longer the kind of reliable ally it was for most of the post-World War II period. And they understand that the US under Trump is an actual threat to European security. European foreign ministers won’t be talking about it in the blowhard way Trump does. But they are developing security arrangement appropriate to the Trumpista foreign policy.

Jonah Valdez describes the current situation:

Though Trump campaigned on the promise of ending foreign wars, even before the attack on Venezuela, his second term has been defined by a ruthless and interventionist approach.

He has already ordered military strikes in Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Before abducting Maduro, the U.S. military attacked a Venezuelan port, and killed more than 100 civilians in bombings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In addition, Trump continues to arm Israel as it violates the ceasefire with Hamas, grinding the genocide in Gaza into a third year. (2)

Mere hours before the U.S. bombed Venezuela on Saturday, Trump threatened to attack Iran over its violent crackdowns on protesters, writing on social media that the U.S. is “locked and loaded and ready to go.”

And since carrying out Venezuela raid, the Trump administration has taken aim at Cuba and Colombia, hinted at intervention in Mexico, renewed annexation aspirations in Greenland, and reiterated threats to Iran. [my emphasis] (2)

In a book looking at some of the more “highbrow” Trumpistas in a chapter of her new book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, Laura Field points to an unappreciated aspect of Trump’s foreign policy ideology. (Although calling it an “ideology” may make it sound more sophisticated than it is.)

On an abstract level the dynamic goes something like this: American conservatism, at its ideological core, tends to be isolationist, socially traditionalist, and devoted to small government. This was the basic character of what was called the “Old Right”—which describes the conservatism of the first half of the twentieth century. (The libertarian thinker Murray Rothbard called the Old Right “a coalition of fury and despair against the enormous acceleration of Big Government brought about by the New Deal.”) When conservatives win elections and have to govern, however, this ideological core has to soften: They make compromises and tend to moderate, gradually calcifying into a more centrist, power-wielding “establishment.” …

Barry Goldwater’s movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s took this shape—i.e., of an extremist flank accusing older conservatism of weakness and betrayal, and claiming that they, the true believers, could do a better job. Something similar happened with Pat Buchanan and the Paleoconservatives in the 1990s, and then with Newt Gingrich and with the Tea Party, too. To the extent that such efforts succeed, the party shifts rightward. And often the rhetoric ratchets up: To maintain the affections of the movement, the true believers become more hardened and uncompromising, their rhetoric more militant and violent. (pp. 11-12) [my emphasis]

The brand of far-right anti-interventionism tends to be a continuation of Old Right isolationism. Rhetorically, it tends to be skeptical of foreign interventions. But when we look at its policy orientation, it not about avoiding “foreign entanglements.” It’s about applying a militaristic foreign policy with a complete contempt for international law and for what Democrats and whatever non-Trumpist conservatives are still out there still call “the rules-based international order.”

One of my favorite examples of this often-convoluted perspective is a book from an author who had identified with the New Left criticism of US imperialism in the 1960s and early 1970s but was repositioning himself as rightwing-friendly: Prophets on the Right: Profiles of Conservative Critics of American Globalism (1975) by Ronald Radosh.

Former President Herbert Hoover also wrote a lenghty isolationist treatise published after his death, Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath (2011).

Tucker Carlson recently scolded the British rightwinger Piers Morgan over what Tucker sees as the dastardly British intervention in the Second Worth War. (3) This kind of fascist-friendly perspective is the core foreign policy outlook of the Trumpistas.

And, of course, Trump’s political mentor was Roy Cohn, New York City mob lawyer and hardcore Old Right ideologue. He was celebrated for the dubious prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and served as the chief counsel for Joe McCarthy’s Senate witchhunt committee. Trump’s militaristic isolationist nationalism comes straight out of the Old Right ideological swamp:

Cohn had many high-profile clients, including several organized-crime bosses, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Cohn also served as a lawyer for popular New York City nightclub Studio 54, which he was known to frequent. Notably, Cohn also defended Donald Trump and his father, Fred Trump, against charges of racial discrimination in their apartment rentals in 1973. (4)

Trump likes to drop bombs. And take bribes from foreign leaders. And to make a dramatic show for the news. But global foreign policy strategy? Forget it. We’ve seen that over the past year in his incoherent, bumbling diplomacy over the Russia-Ukraine War.

The German Green Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Sergey Lagodinsky writes in Euronews about Trump’s threats to Denmark/Greenland appearing under the eye-catching headline, “EU troops might be needed to stop a US showdown in Greenland.”

To counter this scenario, European troops, Danish or otherwise, should be positioned in Greenland in advance. This would raise the threshold for presenting Europe with accomplished facts on the ground.

Second, clarity about consequences is essential. No one believes a war between the US and the EU is desirable or winnable.

But a military move against the EU would have devastating consequences for defence cooperation, markets, and global trust in the United States — not just in an administration, but in the country itself. Preparing a list of consequences is grim but necessary. (5)

Notes:

(1) Anne Applebaum: Europe Is Preparing for an America That Turns Hostile-The Bulwark Podcast 01/10/2026. <https://youtu.be/2tw9_2ltdRU?si=_EFqSlg-GO2wlwB9> (Accessed: 2026-06-01).

(2) Valdez, Jonah (2026): The List Countries Trump Is Threatening With War Keeps Growing. The Intercept 01/06/2026. <https://theintercept.com/2026/01/06/trump-wars-venezuela-colombia-cuba-iran/> (Accessed: 2026-06-01).

(3) Tucker Carlson CLASHES With Piers Morgan Over WW2, State Of GREAT BRITAIN. The Hill YouTube channel 12/01/2025. <https://youtu.be/2Ut6Quzxgfc?si=kug13oGkGAZX1ek9> (Accessed: 2026-10-01).

(4) Rosenfeld, Jordana. "Roy Cohn". Encyclopedia Britannica 11/28/2025, <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roy-Cohn> (Accessed: 2026-10-01).

(5) Euronews 09.01.2026. <https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/01/09/eu-troops-might-be-needed-to-stop-a-us-showdown-in-greenland> (Accessed: 2026-10-01).

Trump has an affordability idea – or at least wants to sound like he does

There’s nothing Donald Trump can’t screw up. And I’m sure this will be another one.

But for whatever reason, he stumbled back into populist mode this week and proposed something that on its face is a good idea and, if handled right as an issue, could be a very popular one. CNBC reports:

President Donald Trump said the U.S. should bar large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, arguing that corporate ownership has helped push housing further out of reach for everyday Americans.

“For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the reward for working hard, and doing the right thing, but now, because of the Record High Inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, that American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday.

“It is for that reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations,” he added. [my emphasis] (1)

My guess is that he is responding to the affordability issue which Zohran Mamdani made so popular by his successful run for New York City Mayor.

CNBC immediately went into lobbyist mode in the video accompanying the article by suggesting this would hurt “mom-and-pop” investors in residential real estate.

We need to remember the TACO rule, “Trumpp Always Chickens Out,” which may wind up applying to this. But at least we get to see a short-term dip in the stocks of some of the financial vultures:

Invitation Homes, which is the largest renter of single-family homes in the country, tumbled 6%. Shares of Blackstone, an investing firm that owns and rents single-family homes, dropped more than 5%. Private equity firm Apollo Global Management also declined over 5%.

The national median existing single-family home price was $426,800 in the third quarter of 2025 after hitting a record high of $435,300 in the summer, according to the National Association of Realtors. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is currently at 6.19%, according to Mortgage News Daily.

Blackstone was the largest private-equity owner of apartments in the U.S. with more than 230,000 units, according to data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project released last year. Blackstone in recent years has spent billions acquiring real estate companies such as Tricon Residential, American Campus Communities and AIR Communities. [my emphasis]

Notes:

(1) Li, Yun (2026);Trump says U.S. to ban large investors from buying homes. CNBC 01/07/12026. <https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/07/trump-housing-affordability.html> (Accessed: 2026-08-01.