Not Thinking It Through

As usual, ‘de Tr*mp is not thinking things through when he talks about making Canada a 51^st state, going so far as to initiate horrible trade wars that only strengthen Canadian pride, but serve to tank the American economy and stock market. As there are a number of points to make here, I’m doing this as a blog post:

• First, Canada is far too large to be admitted as a single state. But let’s suppose it was. It would add two senators, who are likely Democratic and a large number of representatives. As the size of the House is fixed, this means that many Republican states would lose representatives. The House would likely go Democratic, and be that way for a long long time.
• More likely, Canada would insist on each province becoming its own state. So, that’s 20 senators, and again a large number of representatives. Not all would be Democratic, but most would. This means both the House and Senate would go Democratic, again for a long time.
• Canada would never come in with the status of a territory, as that would be a serious demotion in influence. So statehood would have to be approved in advance, and that won’t happen instantly: each province would need to establish an appropriate and acceptable constitution that fit American jurisprudence, and US institutions would need to be adapted to cover the additional territory. We’re talking at least 5 years.
• Further, new states are admitted only with the approval of the existing states — more specifically, their representatives in Congress. Would a Republican congress vote to dilute their power and to (in fact) give up their majority? I think not. That’s why Puerto Rico, Guam, and DC have never become states: Because the Republicans didn’t want additional Democratic states. So now for them to admit 6 or more in one action. Not going to happen.
• Trump talks about buying Canada. From whom and with what? Canada is a sovereign nation: there is no one to buy it from. Further, even if their was, where would the money come from. We’re probably talking trillions of dollars. Talk about increasing the budget deficit!
• Trump also talks about annexing it. There’s precious little in that option that would make Canada want to do it. They have better health care, a better operating government, and a strong economy.
• So, annexing would need to be done by force. This would make the USA a pariah among nations, just like Russia for invading Ukraine. The Congress wouldn’t support such a war, nor would it be popular with US people. It also wouldn’t be fast or easy, and it would tank Republican chances for holding Congress.

Tr*mp is a transactional guy. What’s in it for him? Why is he doing this? It would be much better to figure that out, and negotiate a treaty that is win-win for both sides. Knowing how Tr*mp thinks, this is likely all just a negotiating tactic to bully Canada into rolling over and putting their ass in the air for Tr*mp to f— them. Canada, however, is far too smart for that. More likely, the Beaver will recognize the BS, and will remain strong and steadfast. Meanwhile, the US will have tarnished, perhaps forever, the relationship with one of our strongest neighbors.

Now, Mexico, might be a different story. But we all know how Tr*mp feels about Mexicans.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as Not Thinking It Through by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.