Context: Donald Trump spewing bullshit about annexing Canada and Greenland. Meanwhile, Congress has been dragging their feet for YEARS on resolving Puerto Rico’s territorial status.
Citizens living in US territories do not receive equal representation in congress. For instance, PR has one “delegate” to the House (not an official voting member) and no senators. Taxation without representation.
Although, at this point I wouldn’t blame PR if they changed their minds about wanting to become the 51st state.
Oh I believe if you had a referendum right now, PR would go for independence. Tying yourself up to this ship would be bad news. Trump wouldn’t just bring back bombing Vieques, he’d turn the main island into a firing range.
I wonder if he’d deport me since I have a PR birth certificate.
But who’s gonna toss them paper towels when there’s a tsunami?
*a paper towel
The former paper towel budget has been slashed to half a sheet.
Maybe the independence votes will grow, but since there is also still the large Puerto Rican diaspora in the US keeping close ties to the island, it would be difficult to separate from that with an independence movement. And a lot of Puerto Rican communities in the US who are eligible to vote for the president saw an uptick in support for the Republicans anyways, despite the “trash island” comment during Trump’s campaign.
At least as of a few months ago, the symbolic vote on the island was still overwhelmingly in favor of statehood, with independence being the least supported option.
Puerto Rico should join Canada.
I wonder if he’d deport me since I have a PR birth certificate.
Easy way to tell:
I’m not so sure. Climate change had doomed PR. Increasing storms, sea level rise, and location make it an increasingly unviable place to live. If they go out on their own they have nowhere to go.
As it they can move to a state and vote without needing any government approval or immigration. They are US citizens. I live in Florida and have a fair number of friends who are from PR. All of their families are planning on moving here.
Moving is the only part that makes sense, until the trumpets convince the Supremes that birthright citizenship isn’t anymore.
You can be sure PR citizens will be high on the list to be deported back to the island, and with fema and the rest of the doge shut downs, they’ll be fucked by the next hurricane anyway.
It would take more than removing birthright citizenship. Congress granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Rico citizens in 1917.
He keeps saying he wants to make Canada a state but we all know he means “territory” or at least that’s what the ultimate outcome would be. The people around him are not dumb enough to create a new massive state with like 50 EC votes that would 100% vote Democrat.
Very optimistic of you to think that there will be any more honest voting
Very optimistic of you to think that previous voting was completely honest.
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I’ll take the compliment but I’m not clairvoyant, I’m just paying attention.
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Please don’t be so condescending.
We are trying to have better conversations here, and mocking someone really doesn’t help.
(Edited because person replying had a very solid point.)
Disagree or not, let’s not turn “reddit refugee” into some kind of insult. Damn near everyone on this site is a reddit refugee. Lemmy is a great alternative to reddit because it feels welcoming around here, and comments like that really fuck up the whole ethos.
That’s fair. I’m just tired of that kind of aggressive commenting. It doesn’t lead to conversation or growth.
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Come on, guys, we all know Israel is already our 51st state if not seat of power.
No we’re their 2nd state…
*7th district (not counting their west bank district)
They’re USA’s “Vatican city”. The US is a theocracy that takes direct orders from its religious authority (Netanyahu).
Which is funny because he doesn’t wear the male religious hat (kippah) and he only ever goes to Shul (synagogue) when a camera is pointed at him.
It’s amazing to me that Hawaii has around half the population of Puerto Rico and still they aren’t a state.
It’s sad.
Puerto Rico in reality “good now everyone can stop asking us to be the 51st”
American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, & Guam: “Maybe they’ll forget we exist…”
Too many “kot-tam limbrals” there in PR! The Cons would never allow statehood anyway. We’d need a Dem majority in the house, senate AND a Dem POTUS/SCOTUS.
Washington DC: bottom meme
At least PR doesn’t get its budget and local laws overturned. DC is like below colony status.
Give PR the independence
Does PR want to be independent?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum
60℅ wants statehood.
Pretty sure by 51st state he means Puerta Rico like status. If the entirety of Canada was considered 1 state it may as well be.
There’s no way he’d annex Canada then give them the right to vote. It would be 2 more Democratic Senators, a massive leftward shift in the House, and would have more electoral college votes than any other state - all going to the Dems.
Edit: The more I think about it the more I like the idea. Can we annex them for like 1 election cycle, clean house, then de-annex them. We just need them to be American for like 3-4 years.
I feel like things could work out for them if territory boundaries were kept intact and integrated as individual states. I feel like Ontario would settle as a solid democrat state, but I think the rest are still in play. I want to say Quebec would end up democrat too but Quebec is surprising, I wouldn’t put any money on it.
“You’ll never have to vote again” was, I believe, the quote, so… Not to minimize this very real problem, but I think we all need to be worried about equal representation, right? 🤣😂😅😢
Didn’t they also not want to become a state though? Last I heard they mostly wanted to remain a territory.
Every boriken I know would very much prefer independence
Republicans don’t want PR as the 51st state because: PR doesn’t have oil wells & PR has brown people.
Also, it’s because Puerto Rico voted 65% for democrats.
And the District of Columbia, and Guam, and Saipan, and Micronesia, and…
DC should vote for independence.
For instance, PR has one “delegate” to the House (not an official voting member) and no senators. Taxation without representation.
That’s the kinda stuff people have had to actively ignore in order to be surprised by current events. Like that’s straight up a colony. The thing the US used to be before allegedly abolishing the concept.
Although close the last couple times PR voted, they voted against becoming a state…
I don’t think that’s correct. They’ve been voting for statehood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum
My understanding is that historically, the vote has been almost 50/50, but that there have been issues with the question that have thrown up doubts about the validity of the referendum conclusions. Stuff like giving the options of statehood or territory, but not independence, etc. Even the one you linked says that only around half of the population responded and over 200,000 ballots were thrown out for either being blank or invalid.
I had thought that a significant portion of the population had been in favor of independence, especially since we came in and basically destroyed their economy. They had been one of the largest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals in the world before the US, and now I think their biggest industry is tourism, which, as someone who has lived in a tourist town for decades, is not conducive to a healthy economy.
Just heads up, pointing this out makes his cult happier, they fully want him to snub a Hispanic territory for a country that says ‘speak white’ to other European languages also originating from white people.
