Americans spent last week cringing over President Donald Trump’s behavior, both at home and abroad in Davos, Switzerland, especially as the wanna-be king asserted he will take Greenland one way or another, even admitting that his personal desire to obtain it played a bigger role in his decision than national security.
But while one must absolutely hold Trump accountable for his never-ending insane bullying on the world stage, everyone best entertain the strong possibility that it is less Trump flailing away as a man experiencing cognitive decline than being crazy like the proverbial fox. It sure appears that Trump is willing to look like a self-absorbed maniac on the world stage, so long as his inanity blocks Americans’ focus on the potentially-explosive revelations in the Epstein files.
No scandal has hit Trump harder, none posing a greater risk, than what might explode from those FBI files against a man who places his personal interests over everything else, in every context. It all forces us to lay much of the blame or explanation of Trump’s dangerous Greenland talk as merely a convenient distraction, buying Trump valuable time, even at the expense of further trashing the country’s reputation with neighbors and former allies.
Almost as an aside, but very related to Esptein, it’s worth noting that Trump has never sounded more like a brute than when asserting an American right to take Greenland. He asserts all American rights or interests in Greenland as wrapped up in military dominance and wealth. As a nearly untouchable, powerful man nonetheless hearing the word “No,” from both Greenland and Denmark, Trump responds with little more than a version of, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
It is almost impossible to not see how the same discussion might have occurred with a woman who continues to say, “No.”
In Davos, Trump’s behavior forced experts to question his sanity at levels over and above the torrid past. He stumbled, using “Iceland,” instead of “Greenland” at least three times, while ripping Canadian leadership and the EU’s defense of Denmark, while rambling about his grievances.
Trump even admitted he felt little need to act peacefully because he believed that he had been “overlooked” for the Nobel Prize — behavior no different than a 13-year-old failing to get what he wants and responding with over-the-top rebellious behavior.
He isn’t doing this in a vacuum.
Congress notes that it has received a mere one percent of the Epstein documents — a near-stupefying fact, forcing everyone to wonder what can possibly be in those files, material so damaging that career officials like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have put their own legal fates on the line by withholding materials the law clearly mandates be released.
There is a tendency to get lost amidst Trump’s history of attacking clear truth — attempting to overturn an election, reversing the January 6 narrative, etc — such that we cannot even see the Epstein matter at its most basic level, in its shocking corruption and criminality.
Simply consider that we have a president who may be implicated as at least knowing of and perhaps participating in the biggest, most notorious child sex-trafficking ring in American history, and that the same president is personally interfering in the investigation, to protect himself and his friends as assailants.
Clear out all we know about Trump and lay the above out as a purely objective matter. It would be extremely tough to name anything more damning, more deserving of bipartisan questions regarding impeachment, than interfering with an investigation of powerful people engaging in child rape. Yet he’s doing all he can to cover the investigation up, even calling victims “Democrats.”
Commentators have long noted that Trump will do nearly anything to “wag the dog,” to fog over Epstein headlines. We noted that he might declare martial law or invoke the Insurrection Act, even cancel elections, anything to distract. We all knew it was coming. Nonetheless, it’s hard to see it play out in real time.
So while it is critical to hold Trump accountable for his insane behavior on the world stage, it is also critical to never forget that he has proved willing to do nearly everything necessary to generate outrage that doesn’t flow from Epstein.
The Department of Justice has released a tiny fraction of its files, even sitting under the sword of Damocles that Congress put in place, forcing everyone to ask, Why?
Only one answer makes sense. Hold that fact and it becomes obvious why Trump is willing to make a joke of himself on the world stage, or invade Venezuela, or investigate Fed Chair Jerome Powell, occupy Minnesota, even to state that the Insurrection Act makes everything “easier,” implying he simply wants to “rule.”
It all appears planned. It is also working.
Everything is on the table — Greenland, insurrection, tariffs, Cuba, everything — so long as those files stay under the table. We should never forget and never stop pushing. Ultimately, Epstein may explain all.
- Jason Miciak is a past associate editor of Occupy Democrats, an author, and an American attorney. He can be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter @JasonMiciak, or Bluesky @jasonmiciak.bsky.social
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