One of my great peeves of the Trump era is the Greenland effect.
I belong to a small group of people who think America should peacefully acquire Greenland. It’s an old idea. The State Department pitched buying the vast arctic island in 1946, but the Danes didn’t want to sell their colony, alas. But given its strategic and economic value, it’s worth revisiting.
When it was reported in 2019 that then-President Trump was interested in the scheme, it immediately became a punchline.
Of course, buying Greenland was always going to be a heavy lift politically, but Trump’s embrace made it infinitely heavier.
The Greenland effect doesn’t just apply to obscure and quirky good ideas, but also to good — or simply popular — ones. As president, when Trump embraced a policy, that policy became less popular.