4 ms·

> which you can't post on HN because it offends Americans They may be loud, but the actual percentage of Americans who want to force Greenland to become a part

> which you can't post on HN because it offends Americans They may be loud, but the actual percentage of Americans who want to force Greenland to become a part of the US is similar to the percentage of Greenlanders who want Greenland to become part of the US.

dh2022 10mo ago
This is also equal to the percentage of Americans who wanted to forcefully depose Maduro. And the low percentage did not stop Trump. Unfortunately this same low percentage by itself will not stop Trump from attacking Greenland. (On a side note, I was quite surprised when during Trump’s inaugural speech on Jan 20 2025 he said America will expand its territory. I had no idea he really meant to attack other countries. How little did I know)
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > This is also equal to the percentage of Americans who wanted to forcefully depose Maduro It’s not. Maduro’s removal is supported by roughly a third of Americans [1]. It’s vastly more popular than a military engagement over Greenland. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/only-33-americans-approve-us-strike-venezuela-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2026-01-05/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/only-33-americans-app...
- beloch 10mo ago
  Invading Venezuela is not even remotely the same thing as invading a fellow NATO country, and most Americans know it. If Trump tries to invade, he'll trigger a domestic crisis. i.e. Will congress block it? Will the military obey orders? How severe will the protests be? If Trump quells all that and his invasion goes ahead, he'll trigger an international crisis too. Does NATO simply implode, or do the EU and other former-NATO countries form an anti-U.S. alliance? What kind of insurgency forms in Greenland? Does what's left of the old world order turn against the U.S. with economic sanctions? Does China take advantage of the moment to finally invade Taiwan? How loudly will Putin be laughing during all this? We can only hope Trump is merely trying to distract people from the Epstein files with a bluff.
  - ffsm8 10mo ago
    If Trump does something it will be the same as with Venezuela. This invalidates most of your pointed questions against it happening. These questions would at most be raised after it already happened, and after watching a few political influencer like Zack who routinely gets 50k+ viewers I suspect your trust in "most Americans know the difference" to be exaggerated, sadly. This scenario also strongly reminds me of an old fable from the Middle ages, where the king reassures the peasant that the noble will be punished if he kills the peasant... But what meaning does such a punishment have for the peasant who'd be dead? So yeah, there will be political fallout once Trump's invades it's ally Denmark, at it will invalidate NATO entirely. But does that matter to the annexed people? They'll still have lost their sovereignty to be exploited by American mega corporations.
    - beloch 10mo ago
      Take a second look at Venezuela. Congress passed an act limiting Trump's ability to operate in the country. The U.S. is currently not occupying or controlling the country. They have not effected regime change. The former VP has taken over and may take some pro-U.S. actions due to threats of being kidnapped but, with Maduro gone, she could be replaced at any moment. Meanwhile, U.S. oil execs are balking at doing anything in Venezuela and all Trump can do to keep Venezuela on the front page (instead of the Epstein files) is continue pirating oil tankers. Venezuela could realistically come out of this with their sovereignty intact and no significant U.S. takeover of their oil industry materializing. If anything, the lesson we should learn here is that Trump is so inept that, should he try to take over Greenland, he may trigger all the negative consequences of doing so without actually accomplishing much of anything. Someone living in Nuuk, far from any American military base, might be forgiven for not noticing when they wake up in an American territory. A couple of leaders might get a promotion and the cheques may start coming from Washington rather than Copenhagen, but the Americans may have no interest in governing Greenlanders and American mining companies may refuse to get bogged down in another one of Trump's swamps.
      - dh2022 10mo ago
        What may happen to Venezuela is not the point. The point is how little control American people have on this Administration (which BTW last week started effectively giving immunity to ICE agents who kill Americans)
oneneptune 10mo ago
I hear this a lot from Americans, that the percentage of Americans that align with the current right-wing party is actually low. Sometimes you'll see people state that a lot of the right-wing posts you see online are mostly bots. It's curious to me though, that: The majority of state governorships, The majority of state congresses, The majority of law enforcement, The majority of military members, The majority of the US house, The majority of the US senate, The majority of the US labor unions, The majority of the US corporations, The majority of the US media organizations; both legacy and new, The majority of the US Supreme Court, and of course the US Executive branch.... ... all belong to the right-wing party we're supposed to believe, according to online rhetoric, is actually only backed by ~30% of Americans. You'd expect a more broad and public resistance if that were true? Supposedly the centrists and left-wing party members are the silent majority while the right-wing party enacts their agenda with no resistance? I think the reality is; what we see and hear in the real world is who the US truly is.
- jdboyd 10mo ago
  In quite a few areas you mention (control of congresses, senates, president) the system has been optimized to allow less densely populated areas to have outsized control. Less densely populated areas historically were the ones that wanted slavery and currently are the areas dominated by Republicans for a number of reasons. The majority it the supreme Court reflects who was in power when people died it retired, not an actual reflection of the people. If a state has a Democrat governor it probably means most of the state is left wing. If that same state has a Republican Senate and a Democrat governor (like mine does) it means that more people are left, but the right has disproportionate control do to low population areas getting disproportionate control I think for law enforcement and corporations, there is more money and power to be found in supporting the right, so it requires strong leadership to try to do what is best for the population instead of themselves. On the corporate side, this isn't helped by the view pushed into the legal system that corporations only social responsibility is to make the most money for their shareholders in the short term. We seem to have a system of democracy that may be inferior to many other countries and the cracks are showing. On the not so positive other hand, countries that I would have said have a more robust system are also starting to show cracks, and I don't think it is only because of the influence of foreign big money.
fastasucan 10mo ago
Well, but a majority voted for these people. Twice.
- hn_throwaway_99 10mo ago
  Agreed (mostly, but going into the Electoral College debate is a whole other rabbit hole, and regardless a majority voted for these people at least once, with full prior knowledge), and in a democracy we get the government we deserve. But still, I saw a good clip from Bernie Sanders arguing that when people voted for Trump, they weren't really voting for giant tax breaks for billionaires, or making health care much more expensive, or kicking lots of people off food stamps (though I'd argue they should have realized these things were coming if they had paid attention). What they were voting for was a fundamental shake up of the system, and (for better or worse) Trump was the only one offering fundamental change, vs. the incremental anodyne "can't we all just get along" milquetoast plans from the Democrats (or at least the "elite" Democrats). Also, for this imperial expansionism issue in particular, I'd argue that this really does feel like a 180 flip flop from Trump after all his "America First" and isolationist rhetoric. For a lot of other issues, for example the immigration crackdown or tariffs, I was truly baffled that some people were surprised how dumb or extreme his policies were, as he basically laid out that this was exactly what he was going to do in the campaign. But putting us in the path of more global conflict and territorial expansionism was actually the exact opposite of what he said he'd do. I'm not that surprised because he's such a transparent malignant narcissist, but again, at least on this issue he flip flopped.
- margalabargala 10mo ago
  Well, no, 30% voted for these people. This turned out to be a majority of the people who bothered to vote. The invasion of Greenland was not a topic of discussion during the election.

dh2022 10mo ago

This is also equal to the percentage of Americans who wanted to forcefully depose Maduro. And the low percentage did not stop Trump. Unfortunately this same low percentage by itself will not stop Trump from attacking Greenland. (On a side note, I was quite surprised when during Trump’s inaugural speech on Jan 20 2025 he said America will expand its territory. I had no idea he really meant to attack other countries. How little did I know)

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> This is also equal to the percentage of Americans who wanted to forcefully depose Maduro It’s not. Maduro’s removal is supported by roughly a third of Americans [1]. It’s vastly more popular than a military engagement over Greenland. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/only-33-americans-approve-us-strike-venezuela-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2026-01-05/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/only-33-americans-app...
beloch 10mo ago
Invading Venezuela is not even remotely the same thing as invading a fellow NATO country, and most Americans know it. If Trump tries to invade, he'll trigger a domestic crisis. i.e. Will congress block it? Will the military obey orders? How severe will the protests be? If Trump quells all that and his invasion goes ahead, he'll trigger an international crisis too. Does NATO simply implode, or do the EU and other former-NATO countries form an anti-U.S. alliance? What kind of insurgency forms in Greenland? Does what's left of the old world order turn against the U.S. with economic sanctions? Does China take advantage of the moment to finally invade Taiwan? How loudly will Putin be laughing during all this? We can only hope Trump is merely trying to distract people from the Epstein files with a bluff.
- ffsm8 10mo ago
  If Trump does something it will be the same as with Venezuela. This invalidates most of your pointed questions against it happening. These questions would at most be raised after it already happened, and after watching a few political influencer like Zack who routinely gets 50k+ viewers I suspect your trust in "most Americans know the difference" to be exaggerated, sadly. This scenario also strongly reminds me of an old fable from the Middle ages, where the king reassures the peasant that the noble will be punished if he kills the peasant... But what meaning does such a punishment have for the peasant who'd be dead? So yeah, there will be political fallout once Trump's invades it's ally Denmark, at it will invalidate NATO entirely. But does that matter to the annexed people? They'll still have lost their sovereignty to be exploited by American mega corporations.
  - beloch 10mo ago
    Take a second look at Venezuela. Congress passed an act limiting Trump's ability to operate in the country. The U.S. is currently not occupying or controlling the country. They have not effected regime change. The former VP has taken over and may take some pro-U.S. actions due to threats of being kidnapped but, with Maduro gone, she could be replaced at any moment. Meanwhile, U.S. oil execs are balking at doing anything in Venezuela and all Trump can do to keep Venezuela on the front page (instead of the Epstein files) is continue pirating oil tankers. Venezuela could realistically come out of this with their sovereignty intact and no significant U.S. takeover of their oil industry materializing. If anything, the lesson we should learn here is that Trump is so inept that, should he try to take over Greenland, he may trigger all the negative consequences of doing so without actually accomplishing much of anything. Someone living in Nuuk, far from any American military base, might be forgiven for not noticing when they wake up in an American territory. A couple of leaders might get a promotion and the cheques may start coming from Washington rather than Copenhagen, but the Americans may have no interest in governing Greenlanders and American mining companies may refuse to get bogged down in another one of Trump's swamps.
    - dh2022 10mo ago
      What may happen to Venezuela is not the point. The point is how little control American people have on this Administration (which BTW last week started effectively giving immunity to ICE agents who kill Americans)

oneneptune 10mo ago

I hear this a lot from Americans, that the percentage of Americans that align with the current right-wing party is actually low. Sometimes you'll see people state that a lot of the right-wing posts you see online are mostly bots. It's curious to me though, that: The majority of state governorships, The majority of state congresses, The majority of law enforcement, The majority of military members, The majority of the US house, The majority of the US senate, The majority of the US labor unions, The majority of the US corporations, The majority of the US media organizations; both legacy and new, The majority of the US Supreme Court, and of course the US Executive branch.... ... all belong to the right-wing party we're supposed to believe, according to online rhetoric, is actually only backed by ~30% of Americans. You'd expect a more broad and public resistance if that were true? Supposedly the centrists and left-wing party members are the silent majority while the right-wing party enacts their agenda with no resistance? I think the reality is; what we see and hear in the real world is who the US truly is.

jdboyd 10mo ago
In quite a few areas you mention (control of congresses, senates, president) the system has been optimized to allow less densely populated areas to have outsized control. Less densely populated areas historically were the ones that wanted slavery and currently are the areas dominated by Republicans for a number of reasons. The majority it the supreme Court reflects who was in power when people died it retired, not an actual reflection of the people. If a state has a Democrat governor it probably means most of the state is left wing. If that same state has a Republican Senate and a Democrat governor (like mine does) it means that more people are left, but the right has disproportionate control do to low population areas getting disproportionate control I think for law enforcement and corporations, there is more money and power to be found in supporting the right, so it requires strong leadership to try to do what is best for the population instead of themselves. On the corporate side, this isn't helped by the view pushed into the legal system that corporations only social responsibility is to make the most money for their shareholders in the short term. We seem to have a system of democracy that may be inferior to many other countries and the cracks are showing. On the not so positive other hand, countries that I would have said have a more robust system are also starting to show cracks, and I don't think it is only because of the influence of foreign big money.

fastasucan 10mo ago

Well, but a majority voted for these people. Twice.

hn_throwaway_99 10mo ago
Agreed (mostly, but going into the Electoral College debate is a whole other rabbit hole, and regardless a majority voted for these people at least once, with full prior knowledge), and in a democracy we get the government we deserve. But still, I saw a good clip from Bernie Sanders arguing that when people voted for Trump, they weren't really voting for giant tax breaks for billionaires, or making health care much more expensive, or kicking lots of people off food stamps (though I'd argue they should have realized these things were coming if they had paid attention). What they were voting for was a fundamental shake up of the system, and (for better or worse) Trump was the only one offering fundamental change, vs. the incremental anodyne "can't we all just get along" milquetoast plans from the Democrats (or at least the "elite" Democrats). Also, for this imperial expansionism issue in particular, I'd argue that this really does feel like a 180 flip flop from Trump after all his "America First" and isolationist rhetoric. For a lot of other issues, for example the immigration crackdown or tariffs, I was truly baffled that some people were surprised how dumb or extreme his policies were, as he basically laid out that this was exactly what he was going to do in the campaign. But putting us in the path of more global conflict and territorial expansionism was actually the exact opposite of what he said he'd do. I'm not that surprised because he's such a transparent malignant narcissist, but again, at least on this issue he flip flopped.
margalabargala 10mo ago
Well, no, 30% voted for these people. This turned out to be a majority of the people who bothered to vote. The invasion of Greenland was not a topic of discussion during the election.