It is a rare and perverse delight to watch the serpent eat its own tail, especially when the serpent in question is the global populist movement—a disorganized writhing mass of xenophobia, bad haircuts, and incoherence. We have arrived at the inevitable singularity of stupidity: The moment when the “America First” agenda collided violently with the “Denmark First” agenda over a giant, frozen rock that nobody actually wants to live on.

Let us dissect the carcass of this diplomatic absurdity. President Donald Trump, a man whose understanding of geopolitics is derived entirely from Manhattan real estate closings in the 1980s, decided he wanted to buy Greenland. Not visit it. Not form a trade agreement with it. Buy it. Like a distressed asset in a bankruptcy auction. In the fever dream that constitutes the modern executive branch, this made perfect sense. It is big, it is white, and he could probably put gold lettering on a glacier before it melts into the North Atlantic.

But the true comedy here isn’t the purchase offer itself—it is the reaction of Trump’s European cheerleaders. For years, the European far-right has functioned as a sort of trans-Atlantic fan club for the American President. They have modeled their rhetoric on his, mimicked his disdain for international norms, and essentially begged to be the junior partners in his war against the so-called “globalist elite.” They envisioned a grand alliance of nationalists, a “Nationalist International,” which is a concept so fundamentally oxymoronic that you have to be brain-dead to think it could work.

And then, the reality of nationalism actually happened. Trump, operating on the pure nationalist logic that “I am big, you are small, give me your stuff,” attempted to annex the sovereign territory of a European ally. Suddenly, the Danish People’s Party and other European populists found themselves in a bind. They realized, perhaps for the first time, that the logical endpoint of “America First” is “Everyone Else Last.”

The irony is suffocating. These European figures have spent years eroding the cohesion of the European Union, celebrating Brexit, and praising Trump’s transactional view of the world. They wanted a return to the 19th century, where nations were islands unto themselves, unburdened by Brussels bureaucrats. Well, congratulations, you morons. You got exactly what you wanted. You got a 19th-century American president treating you like a 19th-century colonial outpost. You wanted the jungle? Welcome to the food chain.

Watching the Danish far-right sputter with indignation was the height of unintentional comedy. Søren Espersen of the Danish People’s Party—usually a man who would happily deport his own shadow if it looked too foreign—was forced to call the idea “proof that he has gone crazy.” It is a delicious moment of cognitive dissonance. They love Trump when he is insulting Mexicans or Muslims or the media. They love the brutality when it is directed outward. But the moment the Eye of Sauron turns toward Copenhagen, suddenly they are clutching their pearls and invoking the sanctity of national sovereignty.

This incident exposes the fatal flaw in the populist dream. You cannot build a global coalition based on the principle of extreme selfishness. There is no “honor among thieves” when the thieves are also narcissists. A “League of Nationalists” is doomed to fail because, eventually, one nationalist is going to want the other nationalist’s lawn furniture. Or in this case, their semi-autonomous arctic island.

The limits of this with-me-or-against-me politics are now starkly visible. To the American populist right, Europe is not an ally; it is a shopping mall or a museum, depending on the day. Trump’s supporters in the U.S. looked at the map, saw a big piece of land, and felt entitled to it. The European populists, who hallucinated a kinship based on shared white grievance, forgot that in the eyes of an American imperialist, they are just tenants.

We are witnessing the utter intellectual bankruptcy of the modern right-wing resurgence. It is not an ideology; it is a mood disorder. It is a collection of grievances looking for a target, and when they run out of external enemies, they will inevitably turn on each other. The Greenland debacle is not just a diplomatic gaffe; it is a forecast. It is a preview of a world run by toddlers who refuse to share their toys.

So, spare me the outrage from the Danish politicians or the European nationalists who feel betrayed. You bought the ticket. You applauded the clown. You cannot feign shock when the circus comes to your town and the elephant sits on your house. This is the world you agitated for—a raw, stupid contest of power devoid of principle. Enjoy the cold.