{"id":89266,"date":"2026-01-19T07:35:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T07:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=89266"},"modified":"2026-01-19T08:11:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:11:23","slug":"saying-please-nicely-is-not-going-to-work-with-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/19\/saying-please-nicely-is-not-going-to-work-with-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying ‘please’ nicely is not going to work with Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

This comes from the Mail<\/a>, yesterday afternoon:<\/p>\n

\n

President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/span>\u00a0is preparing to counter Chinese influence in\u00a0Canada<\/span>\u00a0as his 'Donroe Doctrine' for the Western Hemisphere expands beyond Latin America,\u00a0 his former campaign architect Steve Bannon has told the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

'The next big thing is going to be Canada. Canada is the next\u00a0Ukraine<\/span>\u00a0because they can't defend their northern arctic border and\u00a0China<\/span>\u00a0is going to come take a bite,' former\u00a0White House<\/span>\u00a0chief strategist\u00a0Bannon<\/span>\u00a0said. 'They can't defend it and Trump is going to come in hard on Canada.'<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This \"policy\" of Trump's is not just about Greenland: it is very clear that it is about creating a North (and maybe South) American empire. This is what Trump wants as his \"legacy\", and there are people like Bannon, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Steve Miller, who are more than willing to use him to advance their own desire to create a white, male-dominated, supposedly evangelical Christian theocracy in the USA, and beyond.<\/p>\n

Despite this, European leaders are still pussy-footing around, pretending that diplomacy can still work. Naivete comes in many forms. This is it at its most dangerous.\u00a0 Saying 'please' nicely won't work with Trump: the counter-narratives and measures I have been discussing here have to be on the table now. If that does not happen, the cost could be very high indeed.<\/p>\n

And there is something else required as well: the enemy must be named.<\/p>\n

This requires that we call out Trump's fascism.<\/p>\n

And it means that his misogyny, prejudice, racism, and straightforward thuggery must be named.<\/p>\n

There is a battle with what can only be called evil to be won here: let's not pretend otherwise. That cannot be won without calling out what exists, and what Trump wants to impose on the world.<\/p>\n

That's why I welcome those now openly calling him a fascist, from Robert Reich onwards. They're a bit late to the game, but they've got there, and they're right to do so. Trump is a fascist: that has to be said, time and again.<\/p>\n

And it is why I also welcome people like the News Agents podcast calling ICE \"Gestapo-like\", because that is exactly what they are.<\/p>\n

Part of this battle requires that our politicians explain why the issue of Greenland is much bigger than a dispute over a massive island with a population of 56,000 people. It is very, very much more than that. The battle with Trump is about defeating fascism, again. Unless that is said, how can our politicians expect to win support for what is happening?<\/p>\n

So far, they have not even begun the propaganda war against Trump. It's time they did.<\/p>\n

\n

An expanded version of this post is available on my Substack.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This comes from the Mail, yesterday afternoon: President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0is preparing to counter Chinese influence in\u00a0Canada\u00a0as his ‘Donroe Doctrine’ for the Western Hemisphere expands beyond Latin
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,35,44,203,106,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economics","category-europe","category-fascism","category-politics","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89266"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89280,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89266\/revisions\/89280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}