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Hypothetically, if Canada did become the 51st state, would I be right in saying it would be the largest state in the union by landmass by quite a huge margin? Or am I too Mercator-projection pilled?
Seems like a terrible idea from a Republican standpoint: adding ~30 million new voters to your electorate, 80%+ of whom can be assumed to be reliable Democrat voters.
Also worth pointing out that in his first term, Trump became the first POTUS in decades not to start any new wars, so his track record is pretty respectable on that front at least. Unless we're talking about peaceful annexation, whatever that might look like.
LOL. By landmass, Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. It's not just bigger than any US state, it's bigger than the US.
Even by population, it would be the largest, just slightly higher than California.
Does this mean it would be bigger than Texas? How many Canadas fit into Texas?
Texas is already smaller than Alaska(Alaska notoriously has a bit of a complex about this), despite Texas being bigger than any country in Europe except Russia and Ukraine.
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A quick Google suggests approximately 1/15.
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If Canada joined the United States each province would probably be a separate state.
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As we've seen in other areas, Trump 2 has already been radically different than Trump 1. Whether that is because he himself has changed, a difference in advisors/staff, or a change in the Republican party around him I do not know.
But what we do know is that things have changed quite a bit, and he is now calling for Canada to be made into a state. A thing he did not do before, and especially not this much.
I think this proves too much. Just because Trump's second term is different from his first doesn't mean his past behaviour is of no use to us in predicting what he'll do next. If I said that I expected Trump to begin a massive campaign of carbon divestment starting in 2026, you said that nothing in his political career to date suggested that was likely to happen, I don't think you'd be very impressed if I countered with "well, Trump 2 is radically different from Trump 1".
I also notice that the argument directly contradicts point 5 of your post - why is Trump's past as a real estate developer of greater relevance to what he'll do next as POTUS than the last time he was POTUS?
How many times has he publicly floated the idea of annexing Canada since assuming office?
Of course former precedent does matter but changes matter too.
Think of it like this, let's say a parent has a 10 year old who suddenly starts muttering to themselves about killing you in your sleep. And they keep doing it over and over, and they sometimes brandish a knife and say they're gonna stab you. And they started stabbing animals outside.
You could go "Haha well, they've never killed me before when they were younger so it won't happen now" and sleep soundly, or you could go "Huh they've never threatened me before, I should probably get them checked out and get medical help".
I assume you would choose the second one. I assume you understand why a change in their rhetoric and behavior is meaningful. The parent that chooses the first one gets stabbed at night and is "surprised" despite being told that it would happen.
That's one way of looking at it, although I am way more interested in what you did to your kid to drive him patricidal. Another perspective is if you have ever been in a relationship that started getting serious, and your girlfriend starts talking about moving in with you. Some guys panic at the very suggestion, but that's silly. You only really need to start worrying when she begins redecorating your place.
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Sure. But on the other hand, Trump has a propensity to verbalise every stray thought that crosses his mind unrivalled in politics domestic and foreign. He suffers from terminal logorrhea. It's hardly an original insight to say that he's a showman first and a politician second, and every good showman knows you can't just play the hits over and over again - you have to spice up your act with new material. Maybe he never discussed this in his first term, but there were lots of things he talked about doing during his first term (and beforehand) that he never got around to. Lots of the things he's done have been outrageous, but I don't think you've presented a very convincing case for why it's likely that invading the US's neighbour will be one of them.
But he is playing to ’a hit’ here. He’s repeated the 51st state line over and over and over again. A lot of his stray thoughts lately have concerned this subject or other potential annexations.
By "playing the hits", I mean repeating the same talking points he made during his first campaign and his first term.
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I have always assumed that Canadian provinces and territories will come as states if they do.
The Canadian territories are too small in terms of population to be reasonable states. The three Canadian territories combined have only 130,000 people, despite their huge land area. That's significantly fewer than the least populous Canadian province's 180,000 people, and far fewer than the least populous US state's 590,000 people.
Yeah, the territories would probably have the same "no, you don't get to sit at the big kids' table" status as they do now within Canada, if not moreso. Might want to merge some of the Atlantic provinces too, making ten provinces into something like eight US states.
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One solution might be to make a territory, not a state, so they wouldn't have the right to vote.
But I really don't think Trump is serious. At least, I don't think he's thought this through in detail, he just thinks it would look cool on the map and make him famous in history.
If this was the proposal, there's no way in hell it happens in a voluntary way, like Trump seems to want at least according to the video.
Not that I give much odds of that in any scenario, but especially that one.
Well yeah.. Puerto Rico and Guam also didn't exactly become territories in a "voluntary" way...
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Canada is literally bigger than the US, so yes it would be the largest state in the union. It would also be the most populous, edging out California. And yes, it would definitely guarantee that the Democrats win every election for quite a while. Canada's major parties are a centrist party, a left-wing party, a radical left wing party, and a French separatist party. Also universal healthcare has supermajority support from both the left and right, so expect that to become the single most important issue facing the government.
Frankly, it would make more sense to turn Canada into five states than one big one (BC, Ontario, Quebec, Western, and Maritimes).
Giving Democrats a good time in Senate elections too!
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I'm against annexation, but I think we should have an open door policy to apply for voluntary association and incorporation. We should be open to becoming the United States of the world. No first world nation needs more sovereignty than Alabama has.
Leading with "COFAs for all who want it" would have been an interesting policy move, but I rather strongly suspect that Trump has poisoned the well on that front.
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Canada wouldn't just be bigger than any other state in the union- it would be bigger than all of them combined. Yes, including Alaska.
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Canada is roughly 5x the size of the next largest state, Alaska. So, yeah, it's huge. And mostly empty. Unfortunately the people there (like in most of the rest of the world) are mostly leftists, so it would be a bad deal to incorporate it.
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