No, this is what we do. 51=17x3. 52=26x2. 53, however is a prime number so it can't be divided.
We make PR a state, Guam, and DC.
AND WE BECOME.... One nation, indivisible.
You have . . . a point.
Squish the Dakotas together and make PR a state, we wouldn't even need a new flag.
No silly, we COMBINE some of the 18 low-population states so we can go back to 48! One nation 6x8, with a better balance in representation! Or 45 could be nice as well.
overly positive elementary school teacher voice* "okay low pop states find your buddy." "to make it easier for some of you if your state starts with a cardinal direction congrats you've already got a preassigned merge buddy and new name!"... "ah no Kansas, 'Ar' is not a direction, you and Arkansas wont work you don't even share a border hun" "...unless" Kansouri-Oklasas
Why combine extant states? Just pull a colonial Europe and draw a whole new map over it! Nuts to "natural boundaries" or "cultural similarities", everyone on the east coast from DC to King's Bay is now part of the State of Midlantic.
God you can't even have colonies anymore, another victim of wokeness
I'm not sure that more than 50% of Puerto Rico wants to be a state.
They vote on it rather frequently. They do at the moment but it does waffle a bit.
But that would shift the election in favour of the Democrats...
Yes - if the GOP can't survive more proportional representation, they shouldn't.
Potentially. Puerto Rico is also a religious state.
Religious doesn't MEAN republican, just so happens to be one of the things that usually indicates a Republican.
I know plenty of smart religious people who are democrats. Most of the draw for the US is Christian nationalism (aka white supremacy) that I think won't work on most in PR.
Puerto Rico should be it's own country.
Personally, I think we should force the island to choose its fate. We can't keep the status quo going forever. The idea of a nation like the US maintaining a colony with millions of people on it is a historical anachronism. It was a mistake to ever create the colony in the first place, and it's a mistake to keep it going. We should force the Puerto Ricans to make a choice. A new binding referendum. Pass a statehood bill that grants statehood to PR based on the results of a final binding vote. And that referendum has two and only two choices on it - statehood or independence. They're either all the way in, or all the way out. The choice is theirs.
I know in principle that, from a self-determination perspective, that Puerto Ricans should have a full menu of choices available to it, including staying a territory. But it's high time for the US to get out of the colony business. US territory status should be reserved for holdings that are so sparsely populated that they would never possibly make a viable state. But Puerto Rico is just way too large to justify holding as a territory.
We need to solve this problem. And I think we should have a final binding referendum, one where statehood or independence will automatically happen based on the results of that referendum.
We have tried to vote and indicate whatever desire we have for statehood or independence. Y'all (as in US Government, not citizens) just use the results to wipe your asses.
Slight edit: I'm Puerto Rican
PR has held referendums on this multiple times. During the five major referendums (not including the sixth one where voter turnout was like less than 20%) three of them -- the majority of the five major referendums -- resulted in not wanting statehood. Another had incredibly high levels of abstention, and the most recent one resulted in wanting statehood by only a 2% majority.
For such a long-term action with wide-ranging effects, I think it's reasonable to expect Puerto Rico to clearly make the preference known by an unquestionable 2/3rd majority since it effects everyone on the island. Shoving through something so dramatic based on a slight majority is disrespectful to the half of the island that doesn't want to become a state. Whether that would pass through congress is unknown, but certainly not in the current moment. But an irrefutable desire for statehood coming from PR itself seems a necessary first step before anything else is done, and that has not yet occurred.
There's also the fact that a lot of people in power in Puerto Rico (and in mainland U.S.) are making a lot of money off of the grifty laws under which the territory is governed. So when these referendums come up the propaganda machine starts to do its work on the populace.
They can become a state if they want to. They have voted against it in the past.
Their most recent vote in 2020 results in favor of statehood (not by much). However, Congress has to make it happen, not Puerto Rico.
came to say this. Its kinda their own fault. Which more than anything indicates how american they are.
My understanding is that many Puerto Ricans don't even want statehood.
About 50-60% want statehood, it’s the majority opinion, but a lot of people like not having income taxes
Just take statehood away from North Dakota and give it to PR so we can keep the number of stars and stripes.
Number of stripes isn't going to change; it'll stay at 13.
50 stars is boomer shit. Time for 51.
Change the number of stripes, too. Add blue stripes, turn the red stripes pink, and ditch the Bald Eagle for a shark.
Only then will America truly be Woke.
A better way to say is Puerto Rico has more US citizens than 18 US States. If the goal is to piss off maga that is.
This page from 2020 says 20
https://puertoricoreport.com/population-puerto-rico-exceeds-populations-21-states/
I honestly don’t think this would ever get support. Puerto Rico is very republican last I checked so dems aren’t exactly incentivized to vote it in. And republicans don’t want it because that would be fair treatment to a minority so
I’m more interested in PR having representation then how it affects my own opinions.
Yeah I agree, I meant more the actual lawmakers aren’t terribly incentivized
Irony of the situation that the same Republican Party hates Puerto Ricans so much. I hope PR folks understand that when repubes say migrants are rapists, druggists, and murderers they also mean you - even though you’re not migrants - MAGA doesn’t give a fuck to the fact that you’re citizens.
"No no no....he's talking about Haitians, those savages.
We Puerto Ricans are the exemption. We're special."
I am surprised conservatives don’t want to add PR as a state, Republicans would definitely get more reps voting along religious lines in congress
Kamala should seize on this and say she'd push for statehood, if not for anything other than to watch Republicans say they would oppose it.
If a potential new state has a relatively heavily (say 60%+) lean then it'll never be admitted unless steps are taken to balance it out. Like how certain subdividing of California could. Unless the Democrats have a supermajority in both houses, and the President, and they actually get their heads out of their asses enough to get something done, I doubt Puerto Rico will ever get statehood. They might want to kick out the overrepresented continental real estate assholes first.
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