Behold the latest chapter in the American Psychosis: The Purchase of Greenland. It’s a story so profoundly stupid it could only be birthed in the humid, intellectual vacuum of modern Washington. Donald Trump, a man who views the world as a series of failing golf courses and un-leveraged assets, has once again set his sights on the world’s largest island. Because why not? We’ve already ruined the lower forty-eight; why not expand the franchise to a place where the sun doesn’t shine for half the year? It’s the ultimate fixer-upper: mostly ice—though decreasingly so thanks to our collective refusal to stop burning dinosaur bones—and populated by people who have the audacity to think they aren't for sale. This isn't diplomacy; it's a hostile takeover bid directed at a sovereign nation that isn't even in receivership.

The real comedy, however, isn't the orange emperor's delusions of grandeur. It’s the sudden, miraculous appearance of a spine within the Republican Party. Like a rare, slightly wilted orchid blooming in a dumpster, the GOP has decided that 'military pursuit' of an ally’s territory might—just maybe—be a bridge too far. They are pushing back. They are contemplating votes. They are whispering in hallways about 'diplomatic rifts' and 'strategic concerns.' It’s touching, really, to see the party of 'might makes right' suddenly clutching their pearls over the feelings of the Danes. It’s not that they’ve discovered a sense of ethics or a sudden respect for international law; it’s that they’ve calculated the optics and realized that invading a NATO ally for a giant ice cube might be difficult to spin to anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex.

The GOP’s 'resistance' is as performative as a Broadway revival of a play nobody liked the first time. They aren't worried about the moral implications of treating a sovereign nation like a distressed property on Zillow. They’re worried about the paperwork. They’re worried that the international community—that collection of 'allies' they usually treat with the disdain a teenager shows for their parents—might actually stop returning our calls. The rift with the Arctic Council is apparently the one thing that keeps a senator up at night, which is fascinating given their usual apathy toward anything that doesn't involve a corporate kickback or a culture-war skirmish. This pushback is a desperate attempt to look like the adults in the room while the room itself is on fire and the floor is made of dynamite.

And let’s not forget the Democrats, who will undoubtedly spend the next week crafting the perfect hashtags while doing absolutely nothing of substance. They’ll decry the 'insanity' of the move while privately wondering if they could get a decent deal on a summer home in Nuuk if the deal actually went through. It’s a bipartisan festival of incompetence. On one side, we have a man who thinks he’s playing a high-stakes game of Monopoly with real people’s lives; on the other, a group of enablers who are only now realizing that the guy holding the dice is trying to eat them. The Left will posture about human rights while the Right postures about 'fiscal responsibility,' and neither will address the core issue: the American ego has grown so bloated it now requires its own tectonic plate.

The sheer narcissism required to look at Greenland—a territory with its own culture, government, and, you know, people—and see a 'strategic asset' to be acquired is breathtaking. It’s the logic of the 19th century dressed up in a 21st-century spray tan. We are watching the ghost of Manifest Destiny wander into the Arctic Circle, shivering and confused, looking for a place to build a hotel. The Republicans' attempt to 'defuse' the situation is less about statesmanship and more about managing the tantrums of a man who equates 'no' with a personal insult. They are trying to legislate against an impulse that is fundamentally beyond the reach of the law: the desire of a bored billionaire to own everything his eyes touch.

But let’s be honest: the pursuit of Greenland isn’t about national defense or rare earth minerals, though those are the excuses they’ll use to satisfy the gentry and the defense contractors. It’s about the desperate need for a 'win' in a world that is increasingly laughing at us. If you can’t fix the healthcare system, the crumbling infrastructure, or the fact that half the country thinks birds are government surveillance drones, you might as well try to buy an island. It’s a distraction, a shiny object to keep the base salivating over the idea of 'American Greatness' while the rest of the planet moves on without us. The irony is that by even suggesting military action, we’ve already lost. You don't threaten to annex your friends unless you’ve already run out of actual ideas.

In the end, this pushback will likely succeed, not because of some grand triumph of democratic institutions, but because the logistics of buying a country from a nation that doesn't want to sell it are, quite frankly, too much work for a group of people whose primary skill is posturing for C-SPAN and fundraising on Twitter. Greenland will remain Danish, the GOP will go back to being a collective doormat for the next whim that emanates from Mar-a-Lago, and we will all be left waiting for the next absurd demand to drop from the clouds. Perhaps next week we’ll try to trade Florida for a used aircraft carrier and a bucket of fried chicken. At least that would be a fair deal for everyone involved. I’m tired, you’re tired, and the Arctic is melting. Let’s all go back to sleep.