Donald Trump is a 21st-century throwback to Erik the Red, the Viking chieftain and explorer who first claimed Greenland and established settlements there one thousand years ago. When President Trump was asked recently if he saw any checks on his power on the world stage, he replied, “Yeah, there’s one thing: my own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
His assertion is consistent with the view expressed by his Domestic Policy Advisor, Stephen Miller, who insists that the world is governed fundamentally by strength, by force, by power, what he calls the “iron laws of the world since the beginning of time,” as if all other laws matter not. The Vikings believed similarly that the strong are destined to overcome and rule the weak, to plunder and even enslave them.
Erik the Red’s sphere of influence was a tiny northern slice of the globe — Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. President Trump’s new National Defense Strategy extends the 18th-century Monroe Doctrine to assert that the entire Western Hemisphere is the domain of the United States, so other great powers should stay out, the so-called “Donroe Doctrine.” Thus, Trump is asserting his claims on Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and even Canada. Trump’s real goal in the western hemisphere is not interdicting illegal drugs in speedboats, nor regime change in Venezuela, nor spreading democracy, but rather old-fashioned plunder. His intent to plunder Venezuela’s resources is now obvious as he takes control of their oil. He also covets rare earth minerals in Greenland and Canada for starters and wants to deny Russia and China any opportunity to plunder in the western hemisphere. It is not enough to add U.S. military bases to Greenland, which the U.S. is free to do under existing treaty. Trump insists that he must own Greenland. We have never before seen a modern President unabashedly plunder other sovereign nations, including our own allies.
Erik the Red and Trump are surprisingly similar. Ancient texts describe Erik as having strikingly red hair with a fiery temper, and a penchant for naming landmarks after himself in Greenland to stake his claim on the land. Trump’s hair color is a chromatic shade off red, but red nonetheless, along with an incendiary temper.
Both Erik the Red and Trump the Red operated boldly and comfortably outside the law. In fact, both Erik the Red and Trump were banned from their homelands — Erik was banned from Iceland for murder twice, and Trump was banned from doing business in New York state. Erik the Red moved to Greenland and Donald moved to the White House.
Both were slick marketers. Erik named the land “Greenland” not because it was green, but because it wasn’t. The name Greenland would lure settlers in hope of lush pastures, better than the truth. Donald’s marketing brand color is gold — gold lettering, interiors, ballrooms, a Golden missile defense shield, a golden class of ships, and gold gifts.
Neither Erik nor Donald cared about what the people already living in Greenland want for their future. Erik sought to create new Viking settlements over which he would reign as chieftain. Donald’s purpose is to own Greenland and plunder it by conquest or by inexorable economic pressure.
Erik’s settlements in Greenland lasted 500 years, but probably climate change, specifically the Little Ice Age, ended the settlements in Greenland. Donald is just as blind to climate change as Erik the Red, who had no science advisors.
Given the world in which he lived, we can still honor the legend of Erik the Red, ten centuries later, as a Viking chieftain, explorer, and colonizer. Donald gets no such pass from history.
Those 1,000 years of civilization since have repealed Stephen Miller’s “iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” We have learned to respect the sovereignty of nations and their right to self-determination. In 1789 we adopted a Constitution that substituted the rule of law for these “iron laws.” Beginning a century ago, two world wars established the well-recognized principle that conquering another nation just because it might make yours more secure, or wealthier, is condemnable. Donald the Red is a dangerous anachronism.
Jim Bruce
St. Michaels
