Ex but also soon to be president again Donald Trump has said the United States should buy Greenland, currently a territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. In classic Donald Trump style, it could be more of his lunatic ravings, it could be a joke that a world leader should not be making, but here we are regardless. King Frederik fired back by, uh, slightly changing the Danish coat of arms in a symbolic gesture. That’ll show’em!
In a move some are calling a harsh rebuke of Donald Trump and others (me) are calling a silly gesture that accomplishes nothing, King Frederik updated Denmark’s royal coat of arms by removing the symbol of three crowns representing the union between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
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The updated version replaces the crowns with a polar bear and a ram, which were already on there but are now more prominently featured. The polar bear and the ram represent Greenland and the Faroe Islands, respectively.
All of this is seemingly meant as a reminder of the unity of Denmark and its territories or something? And for as much of a “rebuke” of Donald Trump that it is, it’s also kind of a rebuke of Greenland itself.
Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, has recently called for Greenlandic independence to remove the “shackles of the colonial era.” Greenland was a Danish colony until 1979 when it became self-ruling with its own parliament. All of its defense and foreign policy, however, is controlled by Denmark.
Doesn’t seem like a nation is all too keen on having another ruler, especially one in Donald Trump, who seems to want Greenland for its strategic military value and probably because he gets horny at the idea of mining the territory of its minerals. Because where you see an astounding virgin landscape that demonstrates the awe-inspiring beauty of the natural world, he sees dollar signs.
It all makes you wish we had normal world leaders who don’t seem like they were raised exclusively on diets of lead paint and exhaust fumes.
