It’s been six long years since I was last here thinking about Greenland. Somebody had to do it back then, and since I’m the author of a novel called “No One Thinks of Greenland,” naturally, it fell to me.
Now, it seems, I must do it again. Think of Greenland, that is. Because we all must. Again.
Six years ago, the 45th president of the United States was talking — and thinking, if that’s possible — about Greenland as a great real estate deal. He saw himself as a great real estate deal-maker.
The 45th president admitted back then he couldn’t stop looking at property. “Even as president,” he told an assembly of real estate agents, “I ride down streets and I say, ‘Wow! Is that place nice. Wow! What could you do with that? Look at that site.’ ”
Six years ago, he had these thoughts about the site known as Greenland, and he’s having them again. Although I’m certain he has never actually ridden down a Greenland street to look out the window and say Wow!, he recently had his son, Junior, do that by flying in the family jet to Greenland and saying Wow! and taking selfies on the tarmac. A goodwill gesture, I guess. Or maybe he was softening up the target.
In any case, the Greenlanders, and the Danish government, which holds Greenland as an autonomous territory, said what they said six years ago: Nothing doing. No deal.
Six years ago, things settled down. We moved on to other questions raised by 45. Questions like, Should we treat a deadly virus with injections of bleach? Or, Why is there a hangman’s scaffold in front of the Capitol so soon after the holidays?
And also the big question, Is it true that 45, now also 47, is going to make us think of Greenland all over again?
Well, yes, he is.
Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t even want to title my novel “No One Thinks of Greenland.” My brilliant idea was to name it after a Greenland Inuit word — “Qangattarsa” — that translates roughly as, “Let us fly out of here.”
Made sense to me.
My editor saved me from what could have been a fatal self-inflicted publishing wound and suggested I change the title to something one of the characters says. I did. Thank goodness.
Let me say the book has nothing to do with real estate. A reviewer called it “a military screw-up novel.” He meant that in a nice way.
In my story, our hero accidentally gets assigned to a secret, sinister U.S. military base in Greenland. He screws up. So does the military. The novel did OK. It’s a comedy. Sort of.
Speaking of the military, 47 has grown in his thinking of Greenland. Sure, he’s interested in a real estate deal, but he now says Greenland is strategically important. Plus, it’s got lots of nice, rare metals. When asked recently if he’d consider taking Greenland by force, he said he wouldn’t rule it out.
You want a military screw-up novel? Hang on.
The thing is, we’ve tried to acquire Greenland before. As recently as 1946, Harry Truman (President 33), offered $100 million in gold for Greenland.
No deal, said the Danes.
No doubt, if 47 ever hears about this, he’ll just say Harry didn’t give them enough hell.
It’s not like we haven’t bought an island from the Danes before. We’ve bought several. In 1917 during the administration of President 28 (Woodrow Wilson), we bought the Virgin Islands, then known as the Danish West Indies, for $25 million.
The New York Times recently published a breakdown of how the deal might go if 47 actually does buy Greenland. He could run us up a tab of anywhere between $12.5 billion and $77 billion. When we’ve got mass deportations and huge tax breaks for the rich on the agenda, buying an island that’s mostly ice (which, psst!, is melting thanks to climate ch— Oh, let’s not think about that), buying that island would probably amount to a rounding error. And if not, well, there’s always war.
Forty-Seven looks at Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal — all sites that make him say Wow! — as trophies. But all these places are bound to us, and we to them, by treaties. Treaties, unlike trophies, involve give and take, and only one of those words is in 47’s lexicon.
I guess right about now you’re probably saying, OK, you think of Greenland, 47 thinks of Greenland. This has been going on for six years. You got anything new to say?
Well, I confess, No, not really. Me, 47, Greenland? It’s all same-old/same-old.
Except for this. Now, besides Greenland, I have California to think about. Because of the wildfires, I have family members who have lost a home and others who are waiting to find out if they’ll be able to return to the one they evacuated. I have a 5-month-old grandson whose family is moving around, keeping him ahead of the fires and the toxic smoke.
And I have a president with the feral instinct to pick on a victim and beat the victim into a trophy. Forty-Seven spent the worst days of the fires attacking California — a state that voted against him — and impugning its politicians, officials and firefighters. He sees California wobbling under the burden of this disaster and he makes up nicknames to call the governor and he threatens to withhold aid.
I think that’s a warning to Greenland. Keep thinking of us, Greenland. And keep saying, No deal.
John Griesemer is a writer, actor and filmmaker. He lives in Lyme.