Life, liberty, and the pursuit of celestial bodies. “America’s done expanding” is the implicit rule. Our nation’s finished cooking, and the future looks like this forever (or maybe just a little smaller). It’s impossible for us to grow, and if it’s not impossible it’s bad. While we almost never discuss it in this way, everyone knows our country is as big as it will ever be. But when did I pick up the idea? Who taught me this, and why? More importantly, is it true? Why can’t, or shouldn’t, America grow?

I started listening to Trump when he tried to buy Greenland.

It was August 16, 2019, and I’d never seen the journos cry so hard. But I felt something new that day. At first, I didn’t understand it, or why — that mix of earnest excitement and dread, that desire to discuss the proposal with enthusiasm, and that sense that it was not allowed. An America that grows? It was, and to a large extent remains, a shocking suggestion. A dangerous idea. Forbidden. But for the first time in decades I was intrigued by something happening in Washington. I was excited. Damn it, I thought. I was inspired. I was also confused.

The strangeness of Trump — all of the erratic, clownish behaviors and turns of phrase, the casual departure from longstanding trade and foreign policy tradition, that total, narcissistic break from “reality” that enabled the TV star to run for President in the first place — indicates a core quality of his, which is either an inability to perceive the implicit rules of American aristocracy, or a joy in breaking them. In either case, his apparent immunity to the largely invisible laws of elite society, more than any other quality, is how Trump often arrives at obvious conclusions (trade deals should benefit America, manufacturing should come home, we should have a border) that attract the average voter and repulse the average elitist.

Is Greenland for sale? Because if Greenland is for sale we should obviously buy it. Hello, Greenland? How much???

Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21st, 1959, following Alaska’s entrance to the union earlier that year. Both states had been territories since the 19th century, the last half of which concluded most of our nation’s centuries-long territorial acquisition — Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and a long list of islands and atolls are still American today — with a couple final purchases during or after the World Wars, including the U.S. Virgin Islands (1917), and the Northern Mariana Islands (1947). Notably, we purchased the former tropical paradise from Denmark, which currently owns Greenland. It was a great deal, we all now agree.

But even by the late 1950s, the notion of an expanding America was controversial. Both Hawaiian and Alaskan statehood faced considerable domestic opposition, not only politically but culturally, a sentiment ultimately formalized over the next decade in a pair of Cold War-era treaties that effectively ended the concept of expansion for great powers. In 1961, the Antarctic Treaty formally ended all territorial claims on Antarctica, establishing the continent as a “peaceful reserve.” And in 1967, the Outer Space Treaty ended all territorial claims throughout the rest of the universe (yes, really). This is how, in 1969, Americans pulled off the greatest feat of adventure, exploration, and technological achievement in human history, landed on Moon, planted a flag, and went home with some rocks. Since then, many years have gone by, but our country has not grown, in either a literal or spiritual sense.

The Outer Space Treaty contains four principles: no sovereignty on Moon or anywhere beyond, “universal ownership” (space communism, in other words (which is maybe why there’s still nothing up there)), all known and unknown space reserved for “peaceful purposes,” and a prohibition on military activity. In other words, every practical reason for the colonization of Moon, Mars, or any other celestial body is technically presently banned. Obviously, at the time we signed, that final principle on military activity was the real juice.