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.”
In September, when the Trump administration went after late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, the president’s Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, appeared on a far-right podcast and mentioned his agency’s role in granting broadcast licenses. Referring specifically to Kimmel’s monologue related to Charlie Kirk, Carr added, “When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Marveling at Carr’s choice of words, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas described Carr’s threats as reminiscent of organized crime. “He says, ‘We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” the senator said on his podcast, quoting Carr. “And I’ve got to say, that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’” Four months later, the president is using virtually identical phrasing in pursuit of Greenland. In November, The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer labeled Trump’s second term as the “mafia presidency,” in which the Republican essentially tells his targets, “If you don’t want to get hurt, you’ll do what I say.” The president continues to prove the thesis true.
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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