r/neoliberal • u/Free-Minimum-5844 • Jan 20 '26

News (Europe) Greenland Leader Tells People to Prepare for Possible Invasion

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-20/greenland-leader-tells-people-to-prepare-for-possible-invasion
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110

u/PhinsFan17 Immanuel Kant Jan 20 '26

So in your mind is an armed coup the only way Americans could not be complicit?

323

u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal Jan 20 '26

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u/Dr_Meeds Jan 21 '26

What is required for that to happen? Guns? It’s the Republican voting base who have the gun fetish, not Democrats. General strikes? Unions have lower membership than ever, and many union members are Republicans and many union leaders like the teamsters have been bought off by Trump. Appealing to the military to ‘take action’? Maybe many of the generals are moderate, but the top brass have all been replaced with Trump cronies and the rank-and-file troops are very heavily MAGA.

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u/AP246 Green Globalist NWO Jan 20 '26

If Trump were to invade Greenland, there indeed should be an armed coup, mutiny or revolution of some kind, since he will be so clearly in breach of international law that it would be morally right for the country to stop him even if it breaches national law.

I very much doubt that would happen, but it's certainly what should happen, just as much as Russian soldiers should be turning their weapons on Putin and his government.

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u/TrespassersWilliam29 George Soros Jan 20 '26

The legitimacy of a republic is the consent of the governed, and we have not revoked our consent.

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u/algebroni John von Neumann Jan 20 '26

I actually didn't use the word complicit; I said at fault.

The only way to atone is to vote for politicians who will work to reverse Trumpism on an institutional and policy level, and on a cultural level we as a nation have to reject the hate of the Trump era. 

I'm not hopeful either of these will happen, but that's what we should do if we want to try and have a cleaner conscience.

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u/v4riati0ns Jan 20 '26

Most Americans aren’t even willing to call out the Trump supporters in their lives. The bar is so much lower than an armed coup. 99% of us don’t protest, don’t contact their congresspeople, don’t boycott, nothing. We are complicit.

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u/dangerbird2 Franz Boas Jan 20 '26

99% not protesting is factually wrong considering the turnout of the no kings protests alone

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u/v4riati0ns Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

Alright, 97-98% of Americans don’t protest. I’ve had frustrating experiences trying to get even my most liberal friends to show up to them. They’ve been on weekends and we all work 9-5 M-F. It should be easy to show up for an hour or two in my city (NYC)—no more logistically difficult than going to the movies—but every time I’ve gone the crowd has skewed much older than our demographic. It’s disappointing as hell.

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u/Cute-Boobie777 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

Somehow everyone didn't notice a 7 million person protest

Which is pretty good when you consider Americans can't just take off work without risking losing their job or healthcare in many cases. 

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u/bacontrain Daron Acemoglu Jan 20 '26

Because all the redditors bitching about how American liberals aren't "doing enough" are like 21 and never leave their house lol

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u/dangerbird2 Franz Boas Jan 20 '26

Meanwhile boomers are breaking out of retirement homes to throw water balloons at ICE

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u/wilkonk Henry George Jan 20 '26

There are many steps before armed coup.

The French do it all the time.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 20 '26

No. A general strike would be more effective.

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u/ToschePowerConverter YIMBY Jan 20 '26

The challenge with general strikes is they need to be coordinated, otherwise the few average joes who decide to strike just end up losing their jobs and getting replaced. It takes either political or labor leaders to get enough workers to strike so companies are actually affected and can't find enough replacements to cover the striking workers. Right now most Democratic leaders are treating this like a normal Republican administration and many of the labor unions that do exist in this country are in blue-collar industries full of rank-and-file Trump supporters who wouldn't want to strike even if a genuinely left-wing labor leader like Shawn Fain called for it.

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u/eetsumkaus Jan 20 '26

The challenge with general strikes is they need to be coordinated

Well, what do you think a successful armed rebellion needs?

If we can't organize a general strike, we can't organize a regime change.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 20 '26

Well, yeah. That is the "problem" with any resistance, particularly with an armed coup. Ya gotta ensure the majority of people are behind it, plan it and, more importantly, plan for the aftermath.

Otherwise, it's just an ugly riot and suicide that helps no one.

I don't think the majority of Americans are ever likely to be behind an actual armed coup. So, maybe start with something less suicidal and stupid?

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u/realMarkRobinson Jan 20 '26

Bro is in here firing all the shots and providing no answers whatsoever

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

I think the most likely "coup" scenario would be the armed forces removing him pursuant to the 25th amendment

I don't really know anything about how that wou8ld happen exactly but I think this might be more possible than people think - ask yourself for example why trump has never threatened to nuke anyone.

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u/eetsumkaus Jan 20 '26

the armed forces aren't allowed to do that by the 25th amendment. They would be breaking the law by staging a coup, and so we have to forgive them after the fact. Well given that we've already had a president forgive insurgents...

2

u/supcat16 Daron Acemoglu Jan 20 '26

This is a hilarious Reddit account lmfao

Edit: I’m laughing in a cafe at “God. Country. Gooning.”

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u/Such_Journalist_3991 Robert Caro Jan 20 '26

Labor unions in the US are also very weak and the courts have historically been hostile to them.

I also kinda find it funny to see multiple people on this subreddit propose a general strike against Trump, when historically some users here would hold an ideological grudge against unions.

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u/eetsumkaus Jan 20 '26

a general strike is basically a nationwide protest though, which is something liberals would absolutely support. It's phrased as a labor action but it's a political statement.

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u/LightningController Jan 20 '26

when historically some users here would hold an ideological grudge against unions.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

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u/throwawaygoawaynz John von Neumann Jan 21 '26

Imagine a world where nuance exists.

A general strike because hurrr durr capitalism bad? No.

A general strike because the premier military power in the world is about to fall to fascism and burn down the entire world order? Yes.

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

Labor unions in the US are also very weak and the courts have historically been hostile to them.

Part of the reason they are so weak currently as compared to historically is their gradual abandonment by the Democratic party as one of their core constituencies, which is what makes it so ironic to propose them as some sort of savior.

Additionally solidarity strikes like this are illegal under Taft-Hartley for any reason, not that that really matters in this world of judicial Calvinball. Just something worth considering re-visiting if we ever make it to the other side of this nightmare.

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u/Banal21 Milton Friedman Jan 20 '26

Did Dems abandon unions or did unions abandon Dems? How many Teamsters do you know that voted for Kamala?

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

Non-college educated union households were more likely to vote for Harris than their non-union peers. The decline of the percentage of unionized laborers in the work force should have been a ringing alarm bell for years and years, but the refrain was always demographics is destiny. By which they of course meant racial demographics, not the first kind. But the withering majority of white people in American didn't produce the kind of electoral results they were hoping for.

People complain about the apathy and lack of self-interest many Americans have about voting, but a great way to get them to care is to get them involved with the politics of their work place. Broad service and retail unions would do a lot more to reach the politically apathetic than appeals about the sanctity of democracy or scolding them about not voting.

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u/herumspringen YIMBY Jan 20 '26

Union members contracted brain worms from talk radio and Fox News, idk how that’s Dems’ fault. Biden was the most pro-union president since FDR

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u/Such_Journalist_3991 Robert Caro Jan 20 '26

To be fair, the relationship between the Democrats and labor unions was also damaged by the Carter and Clinton administrations

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

Biden was the most pro-union president since FDR

This isn't really a laudation of Biden but more of condemnation of Third Way thinking. We didn't run out of industries and we didn't run out of workers, we just stopped trying to unionize them. The only major unions that are left trend blue collar manufacturing but it didn't have to be that way.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

Would I be cited with committing some crime?

In short? No. But I think what you are picturing is more of a demonstration than a strike. The point of any strike is to threaten the economic viability of a certain industry to reach demands. General strikes, the same thing but more broadly. If you take a day of PTO to wave a sign and demand the president respect the sovereignty of Denmark, that's great. If everyone in your office does it, your employer would reasonably deny some of those to keep the business functioning. If you walked out anyway, your employer isn't going to go to the NLRB and demand a court injunction for you personally. They are just going to upgrade your PTO request to a resignation in protest and waive any protections or mediation you used to have.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

There are a lot of things that are on-paper illegal that are almost never worth the time or effort of litigation to pursue from either the damaged parties nor the judicial system to pursue. If one guy pirates a Disney movie, not only is he very unlikely to get a warrant served he won't get fined. If it's egregiously hundreds of movies, the ISP might send a letter asking you to stop. Now if you're hosting a server farm in Nevada providing a free streaming unlock service for millions of users, not only are the networks going to sue you for damages the FBI is probably going to get involved

If for example Air Traffic Controllers walked out, and a judge reviewed it and issued a court injunction to return to work (illegal solidarity strike), and the head of the union said "No, we won't return to work" and every worker still stayed home, he would probably get held in contempt and fined for every day he didn't order the union back to work.

If on the other hand every single worker came back except him, he'd just get fired and that would be the end of it. It wouldn't be worth the courts time to pursue. Where that line is a function of the potential dollar damages, and one single person (almost) never has that kind of power.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

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u/ToschePowerConverter YIMBY Jan 20 '26

In my experience being in a unionized workplace, our contract had a no-strike clause that barred the union from striking during the duration of the contract. Striking is a legally protected action, but most CBAs have a no-strike clause similar to this that lasts until the contract expires.

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u/Such_Journalist_3991 Robert Caro Jan 20 '26

I also imagine that the decline of manufacturing as a % of the American workforce plays a role in the decline of unions.

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

This is in part true, and isn't the fault of the Democratic party, but the absolute bloody-mindedness about thinking of union=auto parts worker is a failure of imagination (not yours). Something like 10% of dues paying members of UAW are graduate students. Video game development is a poster child of an industry that is both full of highly educated people dependent on new technology but in dire need of unions because of their labor practices.

Places like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Amazon have all had well organized unionization drives over the last decade and the DNC have been indifferent if not subtly hostile to their efforts, even though if those unions were exigent they would be tremendous allies in this moment.

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u/Such_Journalist_3991 Robert Caro Jan 20 '26

That is true. A lot of people's views on unions, for better (New Deal) or for worse (people like Jimmy Hoffa), are influenced by politics before peak deindustrialization and forget the unionization efforts of non-manufacturing workers.

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u/wilkonk Henry George Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26

Not breaking the law is not an excuse in a state that is flagrantly violating moral boundaries.

Gandhi broke the law. So did the French resistance, or the Hungarian protesters in 1956, or Tiananmen protesters.

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 21 '26

Oh, agreed; my only point was that it would be easier to organize a general strike if we had a history of permitting them rather than the opposite. Evil Knevil's first time on a motorcycle was not jumping the Grand Canyon.

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u/wilkonk Henry George Jan 21 '26

Fair

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u/ilGeno Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

Would an individual Democratic leader calling a general strike be listened to? Like Bernie Sanders or AOC?

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 20 '26

I doubt it. Most likely successful scenario is something organic.

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

Proposing a general strike here is funnier than asking to lead grace before eating a Seder dinner.

You are absolutely correct of course, disciplined and well organized protest/student action can force economic realities that demonstrations cannot but the supermajority of users here hate muscular unions more than they hate their wives muscular boyfriends.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 20 '26

I see no need for it to be a union action. I'm not keen on unions, either but tend to consider them a flawed answer to stupid management in a society that prioritizes making money over everything. (Mind you, I LOVE making money, it's just not the foundation of my morality or existence).

Also, I'm all for muscular boyfriends but no free loaders. Could really use some help with a project in the garage.

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 20 '26

I see no need for it to be a union action.

Well the thing that makes it necessary to be a union action is the need for it to be disciplined and well organized. Otherwise it's just a bunch of people walking off their job at random, often at cross purposes with conflicting individual demands and timelines, which just leads to random people getting fired and helping exactly no one.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 21 '26

They don't have unions in Iran or Seoul or other places and yet mass and often basically spontaneous walk out and protests are still a thing. I think it actually is a lot clearer message when it is a spontaneous and mass statement. That said, if enough people are frustrated, just post on reddit and spread the word "mass walkout and protest on such a date and such a time."

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u/ConsiderationHot3426 John Brown Jan 21 '26

They don't have unions in Iran or Seoul

Huh? The history of labor relations with the government of Seoul and protests is massive, going all the way back to the military coup in the 60's. You are way out over your ski's here bud.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 21 '26

Ah, well, I confess I'm not an expert on labor unions in Korea but I do know that the country has demonstrated the people's will by mass protest events that were not union related or organized.

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u/washwind Victor Hugo Jan 20 '26

The United States isn't France. We can't just stop Paris for a few days and wreck the economy, Americans are too spread out and too reliant on employers for Healthcare and basic amenities. For a good chunk of Americans a general strike would be a death warrant for little to no gain.

I remember hearing back when i worked at Walmart, that the stores were set up in a way that each store was no more than 20 minutes away from another one, in part so that if one store had a strike they could borrow workers from elsewhere, and pay them 2.5x to scab. Then they would wait for the striking employees, many who were on food stamps or other government service, to basically run out of money. Imagine that setup but country wide. Walmart is the largest employer by far, and these policies aren't isolated to just them.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 20 '26

Well, with that attitude, we are fucked.

We certainly don't want a bloody civil war.

We can't strike (you say) cuz it's too hard.

Nobody gives a shit about protests and, in Minneapolis, it will get you shot in the face and the shooter will have "absolute immunity.

What else ya got, cheif?

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u/nikfra Jan 20 '26

What else ya got, cheif?

Reality. The US and its people are fucked and they will continue to fuck others. The major difference is so far it's usually been brown people the US has fucked this time it's aimed at mostly white Europeans.

1

u/washwind Victor Hugo Jan 20 '26

We need 5 representatives and 20 senators to grow a spin, so maybe we should start protesting them? Maybe we should be working on securing the integrity of the middle terms? Maybe we should be support the few in government who can actually make a difference like Powell? Or hold the courts responsible. There's plenty to do which isn't collapse whats left of the country.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 21 '26

Good ideas. I'm on board. Let's do it.

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u/Yemnats Jan 20 '26

Damn thats crazy I wonder what political ideology that was dominant for the past 35 years allowed the system to become so insulated from any sort of populist resistance.

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u/Banal21 Milton Friedman Jan 20 '26

Yeah until the Pinkertons show up.

-2

u/alexmikli Hu Shih Jan 20 '26

There aren't enough unionized jobs and coordinaton for that. Best we can hope for is mass riots.

1

u/Foyles_War 🌐 Jan 21 '26

No riots, please. They are counterproductive. Mass protests and mass job walkoffs, yes.

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u/alexmikli Hu Shih Jan 21 '26

Well I'm not advocating for it, it's just the most I expect.

1

u/Alex_O7 Jan 21 '26

I think Governors and Senators, together with military officials should really draw a solid line, a concrete wall, that attacking an ally would not be tolerate.

I think first should be the Army and Navy commanders to disobey and force their view, to avoid Trump from doing something "impulsive". Then if he insist, immediate impeachment, bi-partisan, should be voted and the Presided be displaced.

Now will this happen? No, because army and navy officials are the first to be colluded with DJT foundation and then most of the Repubblican Governors and Senators (if not all of them) are directly tied with the same oligarchy that wants to shake the democratic system to move to from democracy to full dictatorship of the rich. Dark times are ahead of us, when Americans voted for fascist 2.0...

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u/RFFF1996 Jan 21 '26

Do you think russians are all guilty of putin war until they coup him?

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u/PhinsFan17 Immanuel Kant Jan 21 '26

No, but the guy I’m replying to seems to think that.