This week I had the great privilege of interviewing the inimitable social commentator Fran Lebowitz. If we ever needed a scribe to help us translate these harrowing times with wit and humor and brazen courage, it is now and it is her.
As we settled into our cushioned seats on stage, about to speak to an audience of her fans, I knew I wanted to ask her about something in particular I’d seen this week.
I said, “Fran, did you see that Emanuel Macron, the French President, just sent troops to Greenland. And they’re joining NATO troops that are already there from Germany, Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands…”
“Yes,” she said.
“Can you believe,” I started…
And then we both said, at the exact same time, with the exact same inflection, our voices rising as we turned to face one another…
“That they’re there to defend it AGAINST US!?”
We uneasily chuckled and the audience roared as we had naturally and excitedly arrived at the same punchline.
And then we went on with the night, which was a fantastic conversation.
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But the “joke” we told wasn’t actually funny…nor was it meant to be a joke. And I know Fran doesn’t think so either.
It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful. It’s sickening. It’s disgusting.
As a child of the 80s it’s hard to reconcile this America with that one. And for all her flaws, America was still then a shining city on a hill, a beacon of freedom for the world to look up to.
It wasn’t just because Reagan had commanded Gorbechov to “tear down that wall,” essentially ending the cold war. It wasn’t just because we were the leaders of the free world, with the biggest armies and muscles.
But it was because we honored our word and defended our allies.
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Now, as Trump threatens to invade – or simply take – territories belonging to other countries, clumsily foisting his “Don-Roe Doctrine” on the world, crassly invoking “Manifest Destiny,” a term I’m sure he’s never really studied or considered, it’s clear we are no longer the force for good we once were. We are no longer that shining city on a hill.
Our closest neighbors to the North, Canada, no longer trusts us. And why would they? Trump’s been threatening to invade them, mocking them as our 51st state, and weaponizing tariffs to bully them into whatever he wants.
In Venezuela, Trump marketed the operation as ending an illegitimate regime. And yet, Maduro’s regime still stands. The opposition party got nothing. But Trump got their leader’s hand-me-down Nobel Prize, and their oil.
The kooks and cosplaying cowboys in the Trump administration are giddily cackling about invading Cuba, Colombia, Panama, Mexico and others, because now we are the bad guys, the bullies, the thugs.
Even as Trump insisted he’d deliver the kind of democracy to Iran that he’s ripping away from Americans here at home, that “help was on the way,” he’s backed away from that promise.
Who are we? What do we stand for? The world no longer knows.
France’s senior diplomat Olivier Poivre d’Arvor said of the troop deployment to Greenland, “This is a first exercise…we’ll show the US that NATO is present.”
Just think about that sentence…France will show America that NATO is there. It’s chilling to imagine how thoroughly Trump has overthrown the world order in just over a single year — just because he can — and to think about what else he could do with the rest of his term.
Unsurprisingly, he is sounding defiant, insisting the US needs Greenland, and will get it eventually.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that she didn’t think the NATO troops would impact Trump’s decision at all. “Nor does it impact his goal of the acquisition of Greenland at all.”
Earlier in the week, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said that the territory was in the midst of a geopolitical crisis. “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
Do we care? Not even a little. In Trump’s America, everything and everyone is his for the taking.
Our grandparents and parents know how chilling this is. And many of us know.
But it makes me wonder if kids today will ever understand how insane this all is, if they know why NATO formed in 1949, if they understand who America used to be and is no longer…and if they’ll care at all.
