Welcome to the latest episode of 'As the Empire Crumbles,' a reality show where the scripts are written by lobbyists and the plot points are dictated by the ego of a man who views the Earth as a series of underdeveloped golf courses. Scott Bessent, a man who likely dreams in beige spreadsheets and identifies as a 'financial strategist'—which is just Latin for 'professional gambler with a better haircut'—has taken to the airwaves of CNBC to inform us that the United States is 'back.' If by 'back,' he means regressing to a 19th-century state of primitive land-grabbing usually reserved for men in powdered wigs and smallpox-blanket enthusiasts, then yes, we are very much back. The current administration’s renewed interest in purchasing Greenland is not just a policy quirk; it is the ultimate expression of the American psyche. When you can’t fix your own rotting infrastructure, when your healthcare system is three raccoons in a trench coat, and when you can’t stop shooting each other in grocery stores, you do what any failing patriarch does: you try to buy a giant, melting island to feel better about your collective impotence.

Bessent, acting as the high priest of the Church of the Deal, went on television to assure us that this geopolitical hallucination is 'not something new.' He’s right, of course, but for all the wrong reasons. It isn't new because history is a flat circle of idiots trying to own things they don't understand. By framing this as a return to form, Bessent is polishing the hood of a metaphorical rust-bucket and telling the public the engine has never sounded better. It is a masterclass in sycophancy. He treats the acquisition of a sovereign territory inhabited by actual human beings as if it were a distressed property in Atlantic City. The sheer arrogance required to look at a map and decide that a foreign nation's land is merely an uncashed check is the kind of hubris that usually precedes a very loud, very public collapse. Yet, in the sterile studios of financial news, this is treated as 'bold leadership.' It’s not leadership; it’s a toddler pointing at a neighbor’s toy and demanding his parents buy it, while the neighbor looks on with a mixture of pity and terror.

Let’s analyze the prize: Greenland. A vast expanse of ice that is currently transitioning into a liquid state at a rate that would make a snowman weep. The irony here is so thick you could spread it on toast. We have an administration that treats environmental science like a personal insult, yet they are desperate to acquire the world's largest melting asset. It is the ultimate short-sell. We want the minerals, we want the shipping lanes, and we want the 'strategic depth'—a military euphemism for 'more places to put expensive machines that blow things up.' We are watching Manifest Destiny collide with climate change denial in a spectacular display of cognitive dissonance. We want to own the ice while simultaneously ensuring it disappears. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of buying a luxury yacht while you’re actively drilling holes in the hull.

The reaction to this nonsense is, as always, a bipartisan festival of stupidity. The Left has spent the last forty-eight hours in a state of performative outrage, tweeting about 'colonialist undertones' and 'sovereignty violations' as if their own neoliberal icons wouldn't sell their own grandmothers for a three-point bump in the Dow or a strategic base in the Arctic. They love the theater of moral superiority because it saves them from the messy work of providing an actual alternative to the madness. Meanwhile, on the Right, the MAGA faithful are likely already ordering 'Make Greenland Great Again' hats, convinced that owning a frozen wasteland will somehow bring back the manufacturing jobs that left their hollowed-out towns thirty years ago. They see a map being redrawn and mistake it for progress. It is a symbiotic relationship of idiocy: one side performs a fainting couch routine, the other side drools over a globe, and the reality of a declining superpower remains unaddressed.

Denmark, for its part, is playing the role of the exhausted adult in the room. They have repeatedly stated that Greenland is not for sale, a concept so simple it apparently requires a Treasury Secretary to go on cable news and explain why 'no' actually means 'let’s talk about the financing.' This is the American gift to the world: the inability to accept a boundary. To the American mind, everything is a commodity, every relationship is a transaction, and sovereignty is just a line item that hasn't been properly leveraged yet. We have commodified the very concept of nationhood. We no longer see countries; we see REITs with flags. If the Danes won't sell, we'll just ratchet up the 'tensions,' which is diplomatic speak for 'making everyone’s life miserable until we get what we want.'

In the final analysis, this isn't about Greenland, or Scott Bessent, or even the man in the Oval Office. It is about the terminal vanity of a culture that believes it can buy its way out of obsolescence. We are watching the ghost of a superpower haunt its own house, rattling chains and demanding the deed to the neighbor's yard to prove it’s still relevant. The 'U.S. is back,' Bessent says. And he’s right. We’re back to being the loudest, most obnoxious tenant in the global apartment complex, demanding the penthouse while we haven't paid the rent in years. It’s a pathetic display, really. I would say I’m disappointed, but that would require me to have expected something better from a species that still thinks drawing lines on a melting rock constitutes a legacy. It’s all just noise, a frantic distraction from the fact that the ship is sinking and the captain is busy trying to buy the iceberg.