Too Good to Check: 56% of Greenlanders Want to Become Orangelanders

An outfit called Patriot Polling, about whom I have never heard before now, claims to have polled the people of Greenland and have concluded that 56% of them support joining the United States. 

I am skeptical, but not to the point of disbelieving it. It could be true, at least within the margin of error, which is about 5% on a sample size of 416.

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— Matt (@amattattack) January 12, 2025

That still leaves a bare majority should the poll’s error be that large, but I couldn’t find how the question was worded on Patriot Poll’s website, and we all know how the question’s wording matters in such cases. 

For instance, if the poll question was “If Donald Trump offered you a million dollars, would you vote to join the United States?” you would get one set of answers. If the poll didn’t specify any particular benefit to the person, you might get another. 

I chose $1 million because that is the number being batted around.

It is not absurd to imagine that Greenlanders (Greenlandians? Greenies?) might be receptive to some sort of deal. Their attachment to the Kingdom of Denmark has deep historical roots, but there is a strong sentiment for independence in the territory. A sticking point, though, is the fact that Greenland is not financially independent. 

The Wall Street Journal has a story about just this subject, and this is how they put it:

Jørgen Boassen, a 50-year-old bricklayer and Trump admirer, was at the airport in Greenland’s capital Nuuk this week wearing a MAGA hat to cheer the arrival of Trump Force One. 

But Boassen, who helped organize the visit from Donald Trump Jr., says he has no interest in President-elect Donald Trump’s entreaties to buy the icebound island. “We can’t be sold,” he says. Instead, he wants to further Greenland’s push for independence, and to that end, Trump’s interventions are proving unexpectedly useful.

Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Danish government says it is willing to grant Greenland full independence if there is local support, and recent Greenlandic elections and polls indicate there is.

Like many independence movements, the Greenlandic campaign is butting up against uncertainty over what happens next when freedom is secured. The Danish government has said that if Greenland became independent, it would stop around $600 million in annual handouts—about half the island’s budget—raising doubts over how the new nation would fund itself. 

The whole funding thing sounds like quite the sticking point. For an island nation with fewer residents than many suburbs in America, $600 million is quite the sum to come up with. Yearly. 

Clearly, this leaves some room for negotiation. An independent Greenland with some US citizen benefits, a nice payout from Uncle Sam, and a share of the revenues from oil and mineral rights might sound mighty attractive to some people. 

I know it would to me. Not that I am easily bought, but I have been known to negotiate every once in a while. 

(To be honest, I am a terrible negotiator, but that isn’t the point.)

“What Trump has said is that we are valued in the U.S., he wants to help us,” says Pele Broberg, the leader of one of Greenland’s pro-independence parties, Naleraq. “We can become independent with the help of other states.” However, Broberg says he has no desire to become part of the U.S. 

Trump on Thursday night seemed to double down on his offer. “The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America,” he said. “Now, Denmark maybe doesn’t like it. But then we can’t be too happy with Denmark and maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs.”

In April, Greenland goes to the polls in a vote that could fire the starter gun on independence for the territory of 57,000 people. The last time elections were held, pro-independence parties got 80% of the vote.

As absurd as Trump’s talk of making Greenland a state sounds, Trump has a way of cutting deals and getting things done. And there is no doubt that Greenland would be a strong addition to the country, although many Americans would balk at giving 57,000 people two Senators. The potential riches in Greenland are real, as is the strategic value of its position near the Arctic. It sounds perfect as a potential territory, although that idea just sounds like switching allegiances from Denmark to the U.S. and not independence. 

But of course consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. For a million dollars, most people can expand their minds, right? The abstract principle is one thing, but cold, hard cash and the prospect of future benefits are pretty attractive.