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With the war in Iran entering its fourth week, it might be easy to forget President Trump's threats to seize the Danish territory of Greenland. But Danes have not forgotten. As NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from Copenhagen, Denmark's prime minister has called a snap election for tomorrow. It's a move that some say is a way to capitalize on her popularity from standing up to Trump's threats.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Wherever you walk in Copenhagen these days, you're met with smiling faces - not so much from locals. They're still grumbling about one of the coldest winters in recent memory, but from campaign posters covering walls, park, and lampposts - headshots of those running for Parliament.
PETER THISTED DINESEN: So there's like - there's only so early in advance you can start putting them up, and you need to take them down afterwards. So it's, like, a restricted period of time.
SCHMITZ: Peter Thisted Dinesen teaches political science at Copenhagen University. He's admiring how political parties have been able to cover a row of 30-foot-tall lampposts at the entrance to the university, top to bottom, with columns of smiling politicians. Perhaps the biggest smile belongs to Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, whose center-left Social Democratic Party spiked in the polls after she stood up to President Trump when he threatened to take Greenland.
DINESEN: And this, you know - so sort of the whole situation around Greenland definitely helped her a little bit in the polls. Yeah. So this seemed like, I think the - for them, like, the best time to do it or when they thought that there was the biggest chance of reelection, essentially.
SCHMITZ: And Dinesen says this is why Frederiksen is calling for a snap election.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHMITZ: At a campaign event in Copenhagen, Social Democratic member of Parliament Ida Auken says because of Trump's antagonism, Frederiksen has become one of the most popular leaders in Europe.
IDA AUKEN: One thing that is very clear to many Danes is that the Mette Frederiksen, our prime minister, has been very strong. She's been strong in the case around Greenland, but she's also been very smart, I think, in uniting Europe around these issues.
SCHMITZ: Uniting Europe, but also uniting Denmark with its most important territories, says fellow parliamentarian Aaja Chemnitz.
AAJA CHEMNITZ: I think in many ways that Greenland and Denmark are standing much closer together than we have ever done before in history.
SCHMITZ: Chemnitz represents Inuit Ataqatigiit, a democratic socialist political party in Greenland. She's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for de-escalating tensions between the U.S. and Greenland. If she wins it, she says with a grin, she would not give it away - a reference to this year's prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who handed over her prize to President Trump. Chemnitz says her biggest hope is that Trump's threats don't distract voters.
CHEMNITZ: I think it's important for us to keep the focus always in order to make sure that both Greenland and Denmark is doing their work in order to make sure that there's not so much to criticize.
SCHMITZ: She hopes Denmark focuses on improving health care and education in Greenland. And she notes that in the past year, Denmark's government increased spending in Greenland tenfold, a surprise perk from Trump's threats.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
SCHMITZ: On the streets of Copenhagen, voters like Dani Mueller (ph) says Denmark's moment in the global spotlight may have prompted the election, but it's not the focus of voters like him. As a father of four, he'd like lower taxes.
DANI MUELLER: Just more family-friendly, you know? Keep it down for every people, and not just the communists.
SCHMITZ: Mueller is unemployed. He suffers from PTSD from serving in the U.S.-led war in Iraq 20 years ago. I asked him if he regrets that service after Trump, in an interview, questioned the loyalty of NATO soldiers like him in U.S.-led wars. Mueller simply says he's proud of his service.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHMITZ: Back at Ida Auken's campaign event at a local bar, the candidate says a fading trans-Atlantic alliance could mean a bright future for Europe.
IDA AUKEN: A lot of good things are happening in the sense that Europe is getting its act together. We're starting to stand up straight, invest in our own things, you know, not playing the little brother but just getting to being the continent we should be.
SCHMITZ: And tonight, this cozy bar is filled with Danes eager to express that spirit through song.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
SCHMITZ: Each of them holds a navy-blue hardcover book open to the same page. This is what Danes call the high school songbook, a 19th century volume they have from their school years, filled with old songs reflecting the country's history and singing tradition. This one, hymn 281, is called "The Blue Anemone." It's a poem by Kaj Munk, a priest who wrote it in protest of the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II. After writing it, Munk was arrested by the German gestapo and murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
SCHMITZ: Munk's song is about a flower as blue as the sea, the first to bloom in spring, sprouting from the cold, dead earth of winter, a sign of hope and resistance for a land under siege. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Copenhagen. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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