The Life in My Years

January 8, 2025

There are still 12 days until inauguration day and the fatigue is already mentally and emotionally crushing. There’s a name for it. It’s called Trump Fatigue (let’s call it TF for short). TF was particularly taxing yesterday as Trump expanded on his plans for a revival of American imperialism.

His proposals range from the annoying to the frightening. All of them seem to have roots in that good old American tradition of jingoism and nostalgia for the days of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.

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Ranked from the bothersome and the petty to the insane, following is a list of Trump’s proposals for remodeling the world’s geopolitical map.

Renaming Denali back to Mount McKinley
A purely domestic issue, this is probably the most doable for him.

Between 1917 and 2015, North America’s tallest mountain was named for the 25th president. In 2015, under President Obama, the peak was given the name Denali, an Athabascan word meaning “the High One”; the State of Alaska actually predated the official U.S. name change by forty years.

There are probably two reasons at play for Trump. McKinley is something of a hero to Trump, likely because McKinley was particularly friendly to the “robber barons” of his time – the 19th century Elons.

The other reason is that Athabascan is a Native American language, and, well, you know, too much melanin.

All Trump needs to do is have a sit down with Doug Burgum, his Secretary of the Interior and the deed can be done.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
To answer the obvious question, yes, he can do this but he needs the approval of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which is a division of the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS operates under the direction of the Department of the Interior. Enter Doug Burgum again.

The proposal, “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Gulf of America — what a beautiful name,” had barely left Trump’s lips when Representative and Trump groveler Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she had directed her staff to draft legislation to begin the process.

While the United States can unilaterally change the name, the international community doesn’t have to recognize the change.

Annexing Canada as the 51st state
Here is where Trump’s proposals change from the petty and embarrassing to the menacing.

There is some history attached to the United States coveting its neighbor’s sovereignty. Thomas Jefferson contemplated sending American soldiers across the border during the War of 1812 in what could’ve been a prototype for Stalin’s gobbling of Eastern Europe in 1945.

At other times during the 19th century, American politicians floated the idea of annexing Canada, arguing that Canadians would welcome the change. Just musing here, but I’m not sure that Canadians would be thrilled to downgrade their healthcare system or be willing to adopt the insanity and the butchers bill that come with unfettered gun ownership.

Trump suggested that if Canada doesn’t come along quietly, he would consider using economic pressure to force compliance. Death by a thousand tariffs that Americans would simply ignore. No troublesome protests in the streets.

Would Canada cave in? Likely not, but Trump’s economic aggression would cause long term arimony. But when has collateral damage to anything but Donald Trump himself ever bothered Donald Trump?

Using Special Forces to stop Mexican drug cartels
The idea is to classify the cartels as terrorist organizations which would grant the executive the power to take military action against them. It’s an idea that has buy in from Lindsey Graham, Chip Roy, and incoming border czar Tom Homan who said in July that Trump would wipe the cartels “off the face of the earth.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem would have some say in the matter and, well, she drags dogs into gravel pits and kills them.

It’s an idea from a Don Winslow novel – or Ronald Reagan’s Central American policy.

Acquisition of Greenland
In a press conference on Tuesday, the 7th, Trump was asked if he could make assurances that he wouldn’t use economic coercion or military power to acquire Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Trump responded in the negative. Everything is on the table.

As I wrote about this I pondered the notion of the United States invading the territory of a NATO ally and wondered if Title IX of the NATO treaty, that stipulates, “An attack on one is an attack on all,” would go into effect. Would that put the United States at war with most of Europe and Canada? Would that absolutely thrill Vladimir Putin?

Taking control of the Panama Canal
Trump has of late been threatening to use force to take control of the Panama Canal, an act that would be in violation of the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977.

This threat is the one that, for me, is the most alarming. Trump has never disguised his contempt for the nations of Central and South America as they fall into the category of what he has termed, “shit hole countries.” I could easily see Trump ordering a carrier group into the Caribbean Sea, issuing ultimatums to a nation that couldn’t begin to defend itself against a superior force, yet would certainly not cave in. It’s the classic chain of events which would ultimately lead to an invasion by U.S. Marines. We’ve seen that movie time and again throughout history.

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In the instances of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, Trump is using the excuse of national security. Strongmen and belligerent leaders with an imperialist bent can always conjure up an excuse.

When Hitler annexed Austria in what was termed the Anschluss, he cited the mistreatment of Germans in Austria (it was a long smoldering goal of Hitler’s to “reunify” Germany with the land of his birth ). Later when Hitler eyed Czechoslovakia he cited mistreatment of Germans in the pocket of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, and when the French and British showed no stomach for a fight, Hitler figured why take a slice when the whole pie was there for the taking. His stated need for “Lebensraum” or living space for Germans was the excuse for invading Poland.

Eighty-four years after the Anschluss, Putin used the same sort of justification; the mistreatment of Russians in the Donbass and support support for separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, as justification for the invasion of Ukraine.

In 1964, it was Lyndon Johnson and the fabricated Tonkin Gulf Incident that ultimately mired the United States in Vietnam.

For George W. Bush it was phantom weapons of mass destruction.

Yesterday, when discussing Panama, Trump dusted off the belligerent’s often used treaty violation alibi. “They (Panama) violated every aspect of the agreement and they’ve morally violated it also,” said the president-elect.

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Are there any cool heads in Trump’s sphere?

In his party?

If there are, they’re keeping silent and remaining incognito. Par for a decade’s long course.

I watched a short debate on CNN last night. When faced with the basic, unambiguous, moral question of whether the United States, or any nation, can simply absorb a sovereign nation just because they want it, two Republicans on the panel continually reverted to ‘America’s national security.’ Why was I aghast? Why did I scream at the TV, asking, “Are you insane?” Isn’t this what I should have expected? Abject acceptance of MAGA madness.

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All the ingredients for disaster and tragedy are in the national pantry. A lame duck president in Trump (assuming he doesn’t decide to hang on for an unconstitutional third term) with nothing really to lose, who demands unquestioning loyalty. Advisors, hangers-on and a proposed cabinet of unqualified boot-lickers. A major “news” outlet that emphatically backs him. A national media being cowed into submission. A Democratic Party that dismisses Trump’s threats as “shiny objects.”

And where is the current sitting president? Not a word. Short timer’s syndrome?

And an apathetic nation.

As I got ready to turn in for the evening I wondered if Americans will take to the streets in the event that Trump decides to make good on his warlike threats. So far they’ve shown no stomach for confrontation.

I remembered back to the days when the world hated America for it’s imperialism, and angry demonstrators chanted and burned American flags and effigies at the gates of American embassies. It was a time when it wasn’t always safe for Americans to travel to what, in normal times, were friendly countries. Will Cora and I travel if Trump marches down the imperial highway?

Before I fell into a fitful sleep it occurred to me that TF doesn’t stand for Trump Fatigue. It stands for Trump Fear.

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“I gobbled down some breakfast and went out into the streets to see how the German people were taking the coming war. They struck me as apathetic.” ~ William Shirer in Berlin on September 1st, 1939 after news had broken that Hitler’s army had invaded Poland. “The Nightmare Years: 1930 – 1940.”

In 1986, William L. Shirer’s, “The Nightmare Years 1930 – 1940,” was published. Shirer, an American correspondent, best known for his book “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” wrote a memoir of his time in pre-World War II Europe. It was a dangerous, unsettled time not just in Europe but around the world.

With the reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency, I feel that the coming four years (or more) may be the most volatile and dangerous in American and world history.

After reading Shirer’s memoir, I’m considering a new blog, a sort of personal journal of my own, a chronicle of the days that loom before us. It would be a site separate from this one (which may put the future of this site in doubt). Not a simple rehash of the news, but my own personal thoughts and feelings.

At this point a new site to be named “47 – America’s Nightmare” is only in the consideration stage. To be quite honest I don’t know if I could stomach a daily (or semi-daily) dive into the MAGA swamp. For now “47 – America’s Nightmare” will be a series on this particular site.

Stay tuned.