The Daily Populous Friday January 23rd, 2026 night edition
Authored by wired.com and submitted by wiredmagazine

Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?

In fact, the split-screen juxtaposition of three events this week—Trump’s own nearly two-hour commemoration of his one-year anniversary as president; the gathering of defiant, rattled global elites in snowy Davos; and the spectacle of Denmark and its European allies building up a military force in Greenland with the express purpose of deterring a US military takeover—might someday be seen as heralding the official end of the grand experiment in a rules-based international order that has kept watch since World War II.

In the first three weeks of 2026, Trump’s Mad King rantings about Greenland have accelerated into something far more stunning and alarming: A superpower is choosing to self-immolate and torch its remaining global trust and friendships, including and especially NATO, the most potent geopolitical alliance in world history, at the precise moment when it had been reinvigorated and renewed and at its strongest and largest ever in the wake of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trump’s interest in Greenland is as inexplicable and personal as ever a presidential side quest was. Seeking control from the Danes of a territory holding just 57,000 people and land mostly covered by mile-thick ice is not some long-held conservative shibboleth; it’s not something long lectured about in international-relations classrooms or even the fringiest of far-right media; it’s not a territorial acquisition that Wall Street has clamored for and coveted over decades; there’s no well-funded astroturf “Build Green in Greenland” lobbying campaign by shadowy business interests working the halls of Capitol Hall, and there’s no rebel freedom and independence movement indigenous to Greenland that’s whispering at cocktail parties in DC desperate for US aid; nor even, like so much of America’s onetime Manifest Destiny era, is it a territory that large numbers of American settlers are desperate to homestead. None of that—quite the opposite.

In fact, given the very strength of the United States on the world stage and its network of alliances like NATO, effectively everyone in the United States who had any desires about Greenland at all could act upon them already. The US already has a military base there—and, in fact, once had far more military bases there and has chosen to wind them down over the years. Sure, it may have some valuable rare earths and its access routes to the melting Arctic might help trade move more easily in the future, but even all of that would have been accessible to any of the dreamy plutocrats who hoped to access its riches given that Denmark was, until just hours ago, among our nation’s closest and most reliable allies. Just about anyone who ever wanted to move to Greenland has already done so.

Annexing Greenland is as unpopular with Americans as almost anything ever polled—just 17 percent of Americans support Trump’s push, and an astounding 4 percent think it’s a good idea for America to take Greenland by military force. To put that in context: According to a 2022 survey, about 13 percent of Americans believe in Bigfoot.

softwaredoug on January 22nd, 2026 at 14:08 UTC »

I think its not quite that simple, the US has a lot of runway to immolate itself (see also Iraq War)

The US economy won't be going away, and people will want to trade with it

Trump is not forever. Arguably a lot has to do with Trumps *personal style*, even a far-right Vance presidency will at least be *predictable* and a reliable negotiating partner (as in not reneging last minute)

And EU being stronger and self sufficient may ultimately be the best outcome of all this.

Golda_M on January 22nd, 2026 at 14:06 UTC »

Realistically, the US is not in the same position as Russia. The US is very strong.

The free world alliance is, seemingly, dead. Divided west incoming.

wiredmagazine on January 22nd, 2026 at 13:24 UTC »

With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States.

Read the full article: https://www.wired.com/story/donald-trump-has-fully-set-fire-to-what-made-america-great/