The Tamesis
One night recently, I heard something I couldn’t believe I would hear a year ago:
“I didn’t like critical posts about Trump. Imagine if we wanted to go to America again soon?”
My partner said this and he sounded embarrassed. But in Copenhagen, there are rumors that some people have their phones checked at passport control or are being denied entry if they speak out against the US president. We talked about how crazy it was that we were having this conversation—that expressing one’s opinion of all places in America could be a problem.
But we agreed, enough was enough. If any change is to be made, we have to make our voices heard – even if it’s just a little like. So when Fashion When asked whether I would write about how we Danes feel about Trump’s takeover of Greenland – which has been part of the Kingdom of Denmark since the 19th century and has operated independently since the 1950s – all I could say was “yes.”
I grew up with this idea of an American hero. Partly because you are heroes—you helped save us from Nazi Germany—and partly because Hollywood assures me that if everything went wrong, Tom Cruise would be jumping out of a plane to fight the bad guys.
Deep down, I’ve always believed this. We only have a population of six million, and if someone wanted to harm us, we had no chance – at least not without an alliance. We have such close relations with the EU, NATO, and with the United States that our Prime Minister jogged with President Bush in Washington in the 2000s (the coverage in our media was much greater than the coverage in yours). Danish soldiers have also fought alongside American soldiers, including in Afghanistan.
When I was growing up, I also felt like everything you did—from wearing Uggs to doing Pilates—was at least two years ahead of us. When I was editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine in the 2010s, I convinced management that the magazine couldn’t actually be published unless I attended New York Fashion Week every season. Sitting at Pastis in the Meatpacking District and watching well-dressed New Yorkers is as inspiring as watching a Marc Jacobs show. This was before Norma, Gunny Girl, Scandinavian fashion and Copenhagen was named the coolest city in the world.
Our media and dinner tables are filled with people trying to understand Trump. “If you listen to some of the podcasts that were recorded on Thursday about Trump on Greenland, it might be out of date by Friday,” said the father of one of my son’s classmates when we met at a supper club last week. Is he exaggerating what he wants to do now so he can do something else later? Should people take him seriously, but not literally? Is this all just a diversion from what’s going on in America?
I asked a friend who works in communications if she had ever believed Trump would take over Greenland by force. “No,” she said. “It’s not just the land that the United States is taking over, it’s the people. Are they going to become American citizens against their will? I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
But one thing we all know for sure is that Trump and his administration are saying a lot of things that are factually incorrect, and that makes us uncomfortable. “It reminds me of a manipulative friend I had in school who would lie about everything so convincingly that I almost started to wonder if I was the crazy one,” my friend said.
