Donald Trump is the most effective performance artist of all time

By: Rachel Marsden

PARIS — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump should seriously consider taking his act to this year’s Art Basel or Venice Biennale.

The former and near-future Oval Office occupant has mused about buying Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, reclaiming the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. All these things have (or are) major hotties in the geopolitical real estate sense to the career developer, and the former Miss Universe pageant owner is talking like he’s long been eyeing up their wares. And now he wants to grab them by the assets.

Trump isn’t even back in the White House quite yet, but already his public musings are reshaping the global political landscape. Leftists can only dream of actually changing the world on the same scale with their comparatively lame and contrived performance art provocations.

So-called progressives have produced chef d’œuvres like the green “butt plug” sculpture called “Tree” that imposed itself on Paris’ city center about a decade ago.

There was also Russian "artist" Petr Pavlensky’s attempted arson of the Russian security service headquarters in Moscow, resulting in a fine, or the spectacle of him nailing his own scrotum to Red Square, before ultimately moving to Paris, where he was sentenced to prison for setting fire to the Bank of France in yet another presentation.

Way to change the world, guys.

Trump, on the other hand, has managed to single-handedly achieve results, with just a few provocative words, that have long been the dream of populists around the world seeking to reclaim power from globalists running our Western nations. To find a time when Canada’s political class didn’t behave as though the country were already the 51st state, one must look back to 2003, when then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to follow President George W. Bush into the ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

“I called him Governor Trudeau,” Trump said recently of Canada’s prime minister, “Because they should be the 51st state, really. It would make a great state.”

Canada has tagged along on every recent U.S.-led foreign intervention, chimed in to echo every Washington talking point, and has failed to chart any diplomatic or economic course independent of the U.S., making the country vulnerable to U.S. whims and limiting its bargaining position. It’s only now that Trump has openly mused about Canada effectively just being seen as an American vassal that the entire Canadian establishment is suddenly standing up to the idea for the first time in ages.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Trudeau wrote on social media.

“I have the strength and the smarts to stand up for this country and my message to incoming President Trump is that first and foremost, Canada will never be the 51st state of the U.S.,” said poll-leading Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre on CTV News.

At what point did either of these guys realize that Canada’s interests weren’t just a copy-pasted version of America’s? Apparently, it took Trump to spell it out like a drunken guy in a bar instead of deploying the smooth talking that they’re used to from Washington.

Next thing you know, Canada will be asking for a defense pact with its Arctic neighbor, Russia, in light of the threats. Frankly, geopolitical "dating around" should have already long been the case on the trade front, at the very least. It’s only because of a lack of political courage vis-à-vis the U.S. that it isn’t. Other U.S. allies have enjoyed an official policy of non-alignment and deal with everyone and anyone — like India, much of Africa, and Asia. And even America’s southern neighbor, Mexico.

About Denmark and the European Union’s overseas territory, resource-rich Greenland, Trump has said that he wants to buy it – using economic or military force if necessary. For “national security” purposes, of course. Which is like a guy saying that he’s attracted to you for your intellect. His son, Donald Trump Jr., even showed up in Greenland with some political activist pals in tow. Nothing wins over hearts and minds like a dude musing about how much he’s into you while his people show up at your front door.

While Greenland is currently eyeing independence from Denmark, they say that it doesn’t mean that they want to jump into another serious relationship. And they’re certainly not into being treated like some kind of a prostitute.

European leaders initially sat quietly in the corner, watching Trump attempting to make cuckolds of them and musing about having his way with Greenland, before finally reacting.

“No country is the backyard of another, no country should have to fear its bigger neighbors. That is a central part of what we call Western values,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country is literally the backyard of the US, and littered with dozens of bases.

Biden overtly threatened Germany’s economic lifeline of cheap Russian gas through its Nord Stream pipeline, before it was mysteriously just blown up altogether, making Germany and Europe overdependent on pricey shipped American liquified natural gas. But apparently the European establishment didn’t see the problem until Trump put the transatlantic relationship in less flattering terms.

“There is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio. Whoops, too late. Just look at Europe’s inflation and energy crisis driving voters to populism. “But have we entered into a period of time when it is survival of the fittest? Then my answer is yes,” he added.

Europe has long been working against any Darwinist instincts, spending the past several years trying to wedge its head inside the mouth of the lion while their own people yell at them to stop. Thanks to Trump’s world-class theatrics, we might all end up finally having a chance to take our countries back.

COPYRIGHT 2025 RACHEL MARSDEN