McNiff: This Must End
Edited by Amelia Cantwell and Owen Andrews
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
Thus reads Donald Trump’s explanation of his unlawful efforts to seize Greenland to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway. While his attempts seem to have failed so far, with essentially no concessions regarding Greenland to the United States, the attempt itself has brought Canada and Europe to a realization—the democratic world can no longer rely on the United States of America. More than that, the manner of the attempt offers a revealing look into how Trump, the man himself, and his administration operate.
Set aside previous inclinations about Trump, and consider the opening excerpt taken from the letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister. First off, Norway does not control Greenland—that would be Denmark—nor the decisions of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Although the members of the committee are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, they serve six-year terms, so the federal government has essentially no control over individual decisions made.
More disturbing than these blatant misconceptions of reality is what this message implies. The letter, clearly, is intended as a threat. If he had directed it to Denmark, the core issue here would remain—he positions America as willing to use force against a country with which we have a treaty.
As to the claim of “having stopped 8 Wars PLUS”—this is patently false. Despite this, Trump and his administration keep repeating it, declaring him “THE PRESIDENT OF PEACE,” as if the more they say it, the truer it becomes. Regardless of whether or not Trump believes this claim, he certainly believes he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize to add to his collection alongside his FIFA Peace Prize, a custom-made honor, complete with a televised award ceremony.
Upon reading this letter, someone unfamiliar with Trump’s moral character would report having observed three characteristics—stupidity, narcissism, and a loose relationship with the truth. The man appears to be the world’s oldest toddler, a petulant wretch named Donald who demands recognition for things he fibs about having done.
This toddler was elected president, not once but twice. Currently, he has a -19% approval rating, and nearly 60% of Americans view the state of the union as “not very strong/not strong at all.” America can see through his lies, and our allies do too. At the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort town of Davos, multiple world leaders signaled intent to move towards self-sufficiency and trade with China and away from a reliance on the United States.
No message struck a chord more emphatically than that of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. In an address to WEF attendees, he began forebodingly:
“Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.”
Trump has fashioned his America after his own image. This country has behaved with immaturity, erraticness, and selfishness similar to the man himself. In Carney’s view, the Greenland grab was just one hand among countless that pulled back the mask of the current America-centric Western system—this administration’s volatile attempts to strong-arm other NATO nations have rendered continued reliance on the United States untenable. It’s hard not to see the ground for American citizens to take a similar view of their own government.
Over the past year, a mountain of evidence has accumulated that suggests this administration is the least trustworthy and the most corrupt in our country’s history. They lie about the economy as it putters timidly towards recession and layoffs reach 17-year highs. They lie about Elon Musk’s DOGE, which ended up costing the government more than it saved, mishandling the personal data of millions on its way out. After they gun down U.S. citizens in the street, they lie about their victims to cover up their murder, calling them domestic terrorists while ICE itself breaks the law more per capita than undocumented immigrants.
They lie and lie and lie as the Trump family uses the presidency to defraud America to the tune of $4 billion, to accept bribes from foreign countries in exchange for classified information, to integrate their crypto scam into our economy, and more. Currently, Trump is suing his own Department of Justice for $10 billion in taxpayer dollars and intends, in his own words, “to work out a settlement with myself.” The Department of Justice has its hands full, especially since they are already working to cover up Trump’s personal and professional connections to international sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—his name allegedly appears millions of times in the unredacted files.
Among the newest crop of files, incessantly removed and redacted as the cover-up continues, several vital pieces of information were buried under a blitz of email and testimony. Notably, an email from Epstein revealed that he intended to go to Palm Beach to see “all the Trump boys” in early January 2017, shortly before Trump’s first inauguration. Another email from Epstein includes him asking an associate if he wanted to “do a coffee with [Donald Trump Jr.]” in January 2019, just a few months before Epstein was arrested on child sex trafficking charges. These emails contradict the oft-repeated claim from Trump that the pair of billionaires cut ties nearly a decade before his presidency.
The batch also featured a document containing a conversation between Epstein and Thorbjøn Jagland—a Norwegian politician and former Council of Europe chief with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin—where Epstein discussed assisting Russia in controlling Trump. The deceased pedophile billionaire had previously made claims he helped the Kremlin control Trump, which the released files corroborate. Many other documents that investigations into Epstein have uncovered paint the man as something close to an agent of the Russian state.
Epstein made himself extraordinarily accessible to Russian actors. He also advised Steve Bannon, the chief strategist behind Trump’s political career, on campaigning for the current president. The pair may have worked together, alongside Russia and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, to destabilize and manufacture far-right movements in Europe—in fact, the recent batch of files included emails which revealed Marine Le Pen’s National Party in France may have been directly funded by Russia.
Despite these revelations and countless other accounts of sexual crimes, corruption, and murderous schemes involving world leaders and billionaire elites, there will be no new charges filed. Trump himself wants Americans to “move on” and has claimed the files “were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden, you know, uh, and we went through years of that with the Russia Russia Russia hoax.”
Carney’s speech at Davos argued the necessity of our allies moving away from dependence on America. Likewise, within our borders, this administration’s blatant lies and corruption have provided ample reason why America must reclaim itself. The battle begins at the ballot, but it does not end there—the fight for America’s soul will take place in all areas of public life and will last long after Trump is gone.
Recent electoral results from Texas have sparked hope. Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat, handily defeated Trump-endorsed Leigh Wambsganss for a state Senate seat by 14 points in a district Trump won by 17 points in 2024. Rehmet’s triumph marks a positive trend for anti-Trump ballot measures and candidates in the fall 2026 elections. The momentum is there for a ‘Blue Wave’ in the 2026 midterms, but alone, that will not be enough.
Fair elections are not a guarantee. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence was involved in a recent FBI raid in Fulton County, Georgia, where hundreds of boxes containing voter records were seized. Georgia has been a focus of Trump since his election loss in 2020, when he called the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” thousands of votes. Over half a decade later, Trump has called for the nationalization of elections, and after Bannon called for an ICE presence at polling locations, the White House declined to rule it out.
Secondly, even assuming fair elections, the Democrats haven’t exactly proven to be a formidable opposition party. There is no guarantee they will capitalize on potentially controlling both houses of Congress. Democrats are in the position they’re in now because the American people made it clear they wanted change in the streets and in the polls. Now, it is up to the people to make their demands clear.
This must end, and it must never be allowed to happen again. Impeach and remove Trump. Then, impeach and remove the Palantir-backed political shapeshifter that is JD Vance. Impeach and remove all the secretaries and directors. Rid the executive branch of the bureaucratic evil that has festered inside.
In early November 2025, Steve Bannon said, “As God is my witness, if we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison, myself included.” America must prove Bannon correct. Hold congressional hearings. Arrest and hold trials. Force them to defend what they have done. After the system has done its work, it is up to Americans to shun them from public life. Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump—these people must be made examples of, alongside the techno-fascist oligarchs who worked to bring them to power.
Collectively, we must make clear that this is what we expect from new leadership, as well as from each other. We should not move on. Rather, we should move beyond—paint over the metallic letters besmirching the Kennedy Center, spelling “Donald J. Trump.” Wash the blood off our flag so we may resume the Great Experiment and pick up the pieces of a shattered dream.