The takeover of Venezuela has made us a colonial power. Trump is now the dictator of Venezuela for the indefinite future. It has also led to new rhetorical heights about spheres of influence and how we should be able to use our superpower status to take whatever we want from anyone. So seizing Greenland from a NATO member is our perogative by right.

We’re telling all nations of the Americas that their independence is only for as long as we like it. Outside the Americas we’re threatening NATO’s existence by seizing territory. More generally we’re legitimizing the use of military force by anyone with the power to do it. History shows where that goes.

And what we’re getting for all that is oil. Oil that for the most part is not going to become available without billions of dollars and years of development. Even without climate change that’s a shaky prospect; with the reality of climate change it’s nuts.

Climate change denial is not just a matter of sabotaging the Paris agreement and killing research funding.; t’s fundamental to everything they do. The rest of the world is going to get its act together without us. It will have to, since on climate there is no other choice. China may be a dictatorship, but it values competence. Europe at least tries to get its act together. Even Putin is an autocrat, but he’s clearly no fool. We’re off in our very own never-never land farther and farther from reality.

We’re going nowhere. The only question is whose sphere of influence gets us.