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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   29588 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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I still have no idea why any Republican would want to make Canada the 51st state and thus add tens of millions of people who tend to lean significantly further left than the GOP to the US electorate.

Because Trump said it.

The key would be to "eat" Canada bit by bit, taking over its most right-wing parts, accelerating the collapse of the rest of it and its associated right-wing turn, rinse-wash-repeat until you've gotten the whole thing.

First, Canadian politics aren't American politics. Lots of people support the status quo no matter what the status quo actually is. Supporting Canadian single-payer healthcare doesn't mean they'd want single-payer across all 51 states.

Second, Trump hardly has any love for the GOP anyway. The Grand Old Party (especially as represented by the last pre-Trump candidate, Romney) was the old elite, the ones who talked about things like family values, the moral majority and the dignity of the presidency. Trump himself is the new elite, and now a lot of Trump's administration are disaffected former Democrats. Low income/low education voters were reliably Democrats for decades, and now every election they swing more for Trump. He doesn't care about classic Republican values, so why would he care if Canadians don't either?

Third, union would be by far the most significant political event in either country in generations. Consider how for awhile everyone in the UK was identified as Leave or Remain. A hundred times more than that, union between the US and Canada would itself redefine political identity in both countries.

But even if it doesn't and it's just a clean mapping, I think it's at least as likely for the Bernie Left to join the NDP as it is for the NDP, Liberals and Democrats to all sing kumbaya and join together. (Decent chance Quebec bails completely, so we don't have to worry about the Bloc.) That could mean Republicans/Conservatives get an advantage for awhile, but a lot depends on the exact electoral structure of the new country. Just given physical size it seems likely for each province to be a separate state, but then whither Canadian identity? Does Canada maintain a Scotland-esque autonomous regional government?

but then whither Canadian identity?

What Canadian identity? This is a post-national country.

This is a post-national country.

Same can be said about the US.

British Empire in a funny hat? Never seen 'em.

Yeah, more like “wither Canadian identity”, am I right?

They would have to end democracy to achieve the conquest (just imagine the protests...), and therefore the opinion of canadians would not matter at all

Being term-limited and on his last term, Trump is unmoved by the electoral concerns of other, future Republicans. What he cares about at this point is legacy, and integrating the second largest country on earth, becoming the largest country on earth in the process, is pretty legacy-setting.

I'm not fully convinced, but that's an interesting theory. Trump does seem to really love size, he constantly uses the word "big" and he likes big buildings and so on. Although to be fair, who doesn't? A USA that includes Canada and Greenland would look gigantic on the map, and Trump would then be sure to have gone down as one of the most significant US Presidents of all time. Even more than he already is, I mean. From a purely aesthetic point of view, the map would look even better if the US also expanded all the way down to the Panama Canal. There would be something aesthetically satisfying about one country's color painted over the entirety of North America. But then, if the US absorbs not only Canada, but also Mexico and Central America, well US politics would become completely unrecognizable.

I'm far from convinced he seriously thinks of doing it, but I don't think changes in the electorate have anything to do with it; he's not going to be judged by an election anymore, but by the history books.

Not if they were merely territories with no voting power

Heh.

In GURPS Cyberworld, published in 1993, following a pandemic in 1997 the US is ruled by a dictator, who rules through executive orders, under a Provisional Government established in 2024 (there are still elections but it's a "managed democracy"), and has incorporated Mexico as six new states, with the lower-class Mexicans not free to travel to the old US.

And there are VR Cyberdecks (of course) but Steve Jackson Games failed to foresee social media.

If we look at Shadowrun another cyberpunk game from 1989, they do have the United Canadian and American States or UCAS which is basically the North Eastern part of America and Canada merged together. It has Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan as states.

Then the Confederation of American States in the South and a bunch of Native American nations in between after the resurgence of magic and several pandemics and volcanos erupting.

Mexico has been taken over by a conglomerate which is both simultaneously Aztecs gone back to sacrificing people on pyramids and a merging of the drug cartels.

Tir Tairngire, the Elf Supremacist dictatorship, is my personal favorite Shadowrun nation.

(I don't actually game, I just like to read the sourcebooks for the world-building.)

The Tirs (Tairngire and na Nog) are fun! I ran a game where my players woke up with their menories wiped and had to piece together they had completed a run for the Elves in Tairngire which went down a storm.

Shadowrun is one of my all time top RPGs and settings.

So like 95% of Canada by land mass is already, then. Nothing would change for most of the country if this occurred.

About (aboot?) 40%, but what's half an order of magnitude between friends.

The 40% of Canada that doesn't live in Toronto has virtually no political power, and this has been true for the past 150 years.

The controlling empire being American rather than [Upper] Canadian would change relatively little.

Besides being a big move of the goalposts, you seem to have some weird-ass misconceptions about both Canadian demographics and Canadian politics. Toronto is about 17% of the population, not anywhere near 60%. That's not quite as weird as thinking the Territories are 95% of the land mass, but it still seems to be massively skewing your perspective. Things are certainly weighted heavily toward the East but it's nowhere close to all-powerful.

Pretty clear that he meant 'territories' to mean the ROC, not the literal Canadian Territories -- and in the the ROC "Toronto" is pretty much synecdoche for "Southern Ontario" (pp. 12M). Add the St. Lawrence corridor of Quebec (to whom "Toronto" panders federally) and you are pushing 50% of the national pop -- not quite 60, but pretty close to all-powerful in terms of Parliamentary composition.

He's already said Canada would be the 51st state. I agree true empire would be the best if the US could administer it, but sadly, I think we can't.

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