Canada Will Not Become The 51st State - Here's Why...

North America is atwitter! The new American President has variously commented on the possibility of Canada becoming the 51st state, or he has actually threatened to make Canada the 51st state through the use of economic pressure.

He is full of shit up to his eyeballs. Here is why...

By "51st state", what is clearly meant is that Canadians would become Americans in every sense of the word, especially when it comes to political rights. President Trump has never suggested something like territorial status for Canada, akin to the status of Puerto Rico. 

The prospect of 41 Million Canadians voting in elections for the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency will cause Republicans to reject any notions of Canadians becoming Americans. The political implications for Republicans are so dire, that Canadians will not become Americans even if they were asking for the honour (Note - spelled "honour", not "honor".)

For starters, 41 million Canadians becoming Americans would work out to about 55 seats in the House of Representatives. Looking at the results of the last five congressional elections, the largest majority that was obtained by either the Republicans or Democrats was a 47 seat majority for the Republicans in 2016. Right now, the Republicans have a razor-thin 3 seat majority.

If former Canadians could vote in US elections, recent polling shows that they would vote between 42% and 62% for the Democrats, and only 14% to 21% for the Republicans. There were a large number of undecideds in these polls. Apportioning these undecided preferences across the given results, we get about 72% support for the Democrats, and about 28% for the Republicans. If this were to hold, the Democrats would see another 38 - 40 seats in the House of Representatives each election, and the Republicans would receive about 15 - 17 seats.

Conclusion - With Canadians voting in American elections, it may be virtually impossible for the Republicans to ever win a majority in the House of Representatives, absent a generations-long demographic shift in voting patterns.

If Canada went into the United States as one state, it would get two senators. But it would also be larger than the other fifty states combined. This makes no sense. To maintain some semblance of geographic balance, and to respect the substantial cultural, economic and political differences between Canadian provinces, it would make more sense for the ten Canadian provinces to go in as separate states, with the territories accorded something like territorial or commonwealth status. 

Doing this would net Canadians ten seats in the Senate. If present voting patterns held, Alberta and likely Saskatchewan would vote Republican; Quebec would vote for an independent senator who would easily identify with the Democrats - think in terms of a French Bernie Sanders - and the other six Canadian states would vote for the Democrats. The result would be 16 new Democratic senators to only four Republican senators.

Right now, the Republicans only have a three seat majority in the United States Senate.  

Given how close the election results normally are in the Senate, bringing Canadians into the American political fold would mean that the Republicans may not win the Senate ever again.

Finally, 41 million Canadians would get about 75 Electoral College votes in every United States presidential election (N.B. number of Senate seats plus number of seats in the House of Representatives.) If Canadian voting intentions held, and assuming that only Alberta and Saskatchewan went Republican, bringing Canadians into the United States political system would net the Democratic candidate about 60 out of a possible 75 Electoral College votes in every presidential election. 

In last year's presidential contest, Donald Trump won 312 Electoral College votes to Kamala Harris's 226. Adding likely Canadian voting results to this would have had Trump at 327, and Harris at 286, so the result would have been the same. Nonetheless, with former Canadians voting in American elections, Republican presidents would face a permanently hostile Congress.

Republicans can do math. They no doubt completely understand the implications of absorbing 41 million Canadians in to the United States political system, and that those implications would be dire for their collective political prospects. Because of this, it wouldn't happen even if Canadians were asking to join.

But that is not all....

Canadians have a different political culture and experience than that of Americans. They have a history of either voting for regional parties, or for voting for national parties with strong regional biases. This raises a delicious possibility...

What if Canadians, after having been forced to join the United States, refused to vote as either Republican or Democrats, and voted for a Canada Party instead?

A Canada Party would almost always hold the deciding vote on every single piece of legislation, and every single budget initiative in the House of Representatives and the Senate as neither the Republicans not the Democrats could normally obtain sufficient seats to constitute a majority and pass legislation without Canadian support. 

In short, to get any work done in the form of new laws or budgets, the Republicans and/or the Democrats would have to buy Canada's vote.

Canadians are very familiar with the brokerage style of politics in the USA - "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." One can just imagine the number of bridges to nowhere and hockey museums that Canadians' ability to blackmail the American legislative and budgetary process could buy!

And there's more!

If Canadians were forced into the American political system with full political rights, presumably they would be able to run for the office of the President of the United States! 

What would happen if a Canadian candidate for the presidency offered stronger labour protections (Note - spelled "labour" not "labor"); a "free" single-payor health care system; and the taxation of the wealthy in favour of income transfers to the poor and middle class to an American citizenry that has been duped into thinking that their subservience to the wealthy; diminishing economic well-being; and scant access to health care is "freedom"? 

These people have been betrayed by political sell-outs across the American political spectrum - both Left and Right. Would something like this coming from a Canadian presidential candidate shake up the "swamp"? 

Yup, and that's why the Democrats, who offered none of this in the last election cycle, would also not want Canadians in the American political system. 

The Democrats are sell-outs?

Here is Bernie Sanders' response to President Trump's inaugural address. It covers everything Sanders thought Trump should have addressed in his speech if he actually cared about Americans. What he didn't say was that it was also everything that Harris wouldn't or couldn't promise either. 

The Democrats know who gave her $1 Billion for her campaign, and what they are expected to not do for the American people in return. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHH-KI2yk8s

 

 

 

Trump's Executive Orders and What May Be Coming Next

Trump is leading the anti-woke reaction and is reworking America. Trump and the Republicans obviously think they are involved in a culture war for the heart and mind of America. 

Please keep the concept of culture war in mind as you read on.

The list of what Trump has done to date has no precedent in the history of the United States of America. Here is a short list of the executive orders that he has signed to date...

• Biden Reversal - passed many executive orders to reverse Biden's orders on Climate Change, gender issues, reuniting immigrant families, etc;
• Civil Service - offered buy-outs to 2.3 million government workers, ordered federal workers back to their offices full-time, froze hiring, made firing workers easier to fire;
• Spending - froze government spending;
• USAID - essentially closed USAID, telling workers across the world that they had 30 days to get back to America;
• Oversight - fired 17 inspectors general who oversaw federal ethics and accountability within the federal government;
• Federal Lawyers - fired lawyers who led January 6th and Trump prosecutions, reassigned senior counsel to support the crack-down on illegal immigrants, and froze new federal civil rights and environmental protection litigation;
• FEMA - will review the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assess whether it should be closed;
• Firings - fired Biden nominees, and certain high-profile persons, including the first woman to lead the Coast Guard;
• DEI - ended Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies in the federal government, including putting all DEI staff on leave, and revoking the Equal Employment Opportunity Order of President Johnson from 1965;
• Labour - fired two board members of the National Labour Relations Board and two commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, essentially halting the protection of working people from illegal labour practices and discrimination at the federal level;
• Pardons - gave pardons to 1,500 people convicted of crimes reflated to January 6th, including those convicted of violent crimes and sedition;
• Birth Rights - ended automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants born in the USA;
• Immigration - commenced rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants;
• Tariffs - invoked new 10% tariffs against China, and 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico, which have been delayed for 30 days;
• Trans Rights - banned biological males from competing in women's collegiate sports, stopped gender care for children;
• Gender - declared that the policy of the government is that there are only two genders;
• Energy - declared a national energy emergency to facilitate "Drill, baby drill!", and opened Alaska to drilling;
• DOGE - established the Department of Government Efficiency, and give Musk and his minions unprecedented access to the personal and financial information of millions of people without first obtaining security clearances;
• Climate Change - withdrew from the Paris Accords, eliminated Biden-era supports for electric vehicles;
• Geographic Names - renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, and restored the name of Mount McKinley;
• Death Penalty - instructed the Attorney General to seek the death penalty in the case of the murder of a police officer (presumably, unless the officer was murdered on January 6th);
• Wall - signed an order to keep building the wall;
• Health - withdrew the USA from the WHO;
• JFK - declassified records related to the assassination of JFK;
• Bitcoin - supports the use of Bitcoin, and explores a national reserve of the "currency" similar to the Gold reserve;
• Iron Dome - calls for a national air defence system for the USA similar to Israel's Iron Dome;
• Education - ends federal gender and equity-related education programming;
• Deregulation - requires that 10 regulations be repealed for every new one introduced;
• Sovereign Wealth - established a US sovereign wealth fund; and,
• War - establish Homeland Security Task Forces in every state to secure the USA from invasion.

We here at mewetree.blogspot.com have highlighted above the two key executive orders that we think may be predictive of what Trump and the Republicans may do once Congress is back in session. 

To understand what may be coming, it is important to realize that what the Republicans learned in 2020 is that American democracy actually works. They may not want it to work, as elections after Trump took office in 2016 were resoundingly negative for the Republicans. In light of this, and in the years after Trump lost in 2020, the Republicans worked hard to water-down election laws country-wide. Wiki has a very good summary of voter suppression attempts here...

Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election - Wikipedia'

The point of most of this was limiting the ability of Black people to vote, given that they vote very heavily for the Democrats. From the perspective of Trump and the Republicans, these people are the storm troopers of the culture war, enabling Democrats to get into power to wrought the culture changes that the Right hates, much of which Trump has attempted to reverse in the above-noted executive orders. 

Now please take note above that Trump has repealed the Equal Employment Opportunity Order of President Johnson from 1965. This was part of very significant changes brought about in the era of civil rights that set the stage for much of the rights-related progress that followed in the 1960's and 1970's. If Trump is willing to reverse something as sacrosanct as a civil-rights era executive order that has operated for 60 years, one has to ask the obvious question...

Do Trump and the Republicans also intend to repeal the cornerstone achievements in civil rights in the 1960's, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, as well?? 

Doing this would be a natural extension of their efforts to limit voting by Black people since 2020, as noted above. It is what they would do if they thought that they needed to put a nail in the coffin of "woke" cultural change by making sure to permanently hamstring the national Democratic vote.

But this seems nuts at first glance! After all, Trump has said that he supports civil rights! Again, Wiki is helpful. Here is a very long article that catalogues Trump's political and other lies. The man tells the truth only when it serves his purposes.

False or misleading statements by Donald Trump - Wikipedia

So, what other evidence exists that points to Trump and the Republicans potentially doing something as outrageous as repealing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act? The board of mewetree.blogspot.com invites the reader to look at the other highlighted executive order noted above.

Homeland Security Task Forces are to be established in every single state, ostensibly to deal with an invasion of the United States! Literally no one thinks that such an invasion would or could happen.

So what is this about?

Repeal of the key national civil and political rights legislation would likely cause riots country-wide, and Trump and the Republicans no doubt remember Black Lives Matter. If a government wanted to have the ability to swiftly impose martial law on a population that was in the act of rebellion against the elimination of their civil and political rights, having Homeland Security Task Forces in place is precisely how they would go about doing that. In fact, the board of mewetree.blogspot.com believes that Trump is literally salivating at the prospect of invoking martial law in the USA at some point in his tenure.

So, having listed what Trump has done to date, and what may be coming next, what is motivating this man?  

It's obvious. The key concepts that come to mind are hate, fear, an almost insane lust for vengeance, and with those, an almost complete lack of empathy. This is a man at war with his enemies 110% of the time, with this war encompassing literally everything he thinks, says and does. 

From the perspective of his public life, he has now internalized America's culture war as his own personal war against his many enemies, with literally millions of utterly innocent people now in his sights.

Don't despair...

The board of mewetree.blogspot.com thinks that this is all too much. Every politician has a limited amount of political capital, and Trump's political career may soon go the same way as the careers of two other revolutionaries - John Paul 1 and Robespierre - which is to say, it may end rather sooner than he thinks, and not in the way he would want. While he is focussing exclusively on his endless enemies, he may have taken his eye off of his "friends", who, now that he can't run again and help them politically, may be about to "reset the table". (To be clear, we are only talking about the end of his political career.)

We shall see.

Canada as the 51st State!

Trump has stated that he wants Canada to become the 51st state, and that he'll bring that about through economic rather than military means.  

What might that mean?

First and foremost, we would have to try to prevent everyone in Quebec from moving to Florida for half of the year! They love Florida, and should there no longer be a border, they might just get in their cars and off they go! "Vive le Québec, sud!"

Joining the USA might also mean an invasion of IHOPs into Canada. The International House Of Pancakes is a particular favourite of the board of mewetree.blogspot.com! The prospect of getting eight delicious blueberry pancakes for breakfast, where we would normally only get two or three, might just be a game-changer! Do not underestimate the power of American cuisine to unify the world!

One other incentive need mentioning - Football! 

Canada would presumably get one or two NFL teams if we became Americans.  Maybe one in Toronto and one in Montreal? Canadians already love the NFL!! We say, bring it on and their drunken tailgate parties with them!!

And of course, GUNS! Lots and lots of GUNS!

The very restrictive gun laws in Canada could not survive a Second Amendment challenge. We would have to get used to gun-toting Canadians, and shooting ranges dotting the landscape. Hey! "Guns don't kill people; people kill people...with guns!" Driving will become so much more interesting knowing everyone has a handgun in their glove compartment!

But wait, there's more!

How about a "Trial of the Century" every three years?! When we had the Patriation Reference, the Americans had the OJ Trial! 

WTF!? 

Soon, Mangione will be before the courts, and who knows how many Democrats Trump will go after?! No longer will we have to watch, envious on the side lines, as American celebrate the next perversion of justice! Soon, they may be our own perversions as well!

"If the glove don't fit, Canada must be quit!"

And we also get celebrity chaos! 

Americans love their celebrities, especially when they get to feel superior while reflecting on celebrities who are nuts and who live totally chaotic lives! Step aside Mitsou; say hello to Kim Kardashian! 

Who is Mitsou, you ask? Exactly! 

Can you see it..."The Hockey Wives of Toronto" coming to a tv screen near you, soon! Huzzah! OMG! How about "Survivor - Canmore!" We can't wait!

Finally, we will lose "Peace, Order and Good Government", which are Canada's key constitutional slogans, for the "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" of America which has spawned a nation of morbidly obese citizens; the highest incarcerate rates in the world; and for whom a trainer park contains one's sacrosanct castle, legally protected from government interlopers. 

OMG! Slavery and involuntary servitude are still technically legal in the USA under the Thirteen Amendment! 

What a country!

What would Americans get from Canada?

French! There is no way the Quebecois will quietly into the American melting pot! Americans can expect a gut-wrenching constitutional crisis about every ten years as Quebec tries to blackmail an entire continent with threats of becoming independent. No doubt, America will accede to their every demand rather than do anything like invade to prevent any such separation from happening. It's not like they have ever faced a crisis like this before.

Poutine and Nanaimo bars!! Combine Quebec's delicious culinary delight as a main course, and add British Columbia's fantastic dessert bar, and you something petty close to perfect! Do Americans like calories? A dinner-size serving of Poutine will net you over 1,000 calories!  Add a Nanaimo bar for dessert, and you are looking at another 300 calories! Eat the whole thing twice and you are looking at over 2,500 calories at one meal! Fabulous!

What could we accomplish, together?

How about a Tim's and Dunkin' Donuts merge! 

Tim Horton's is already in the USA. Dunkin' Donuts was in Canada for some time, but Tim's basically wiped them out. With the union of the two countries, these iconic coffee shops will also merge. Can you say Dunkin' Tim's? 

Now, who wants to tell King Charles III that he just lost another former British possession?

.  

2025 - Fearless Predictions!

The board of mewetree.blogspot.com would like to revive a past favourite blog topic, namely the fearless predictions for the upcoming year!

Here we go...

Sports:

• Baseball: The Toronto Blue Jays will finish at the bottom of their division, with the Dynamic Duo losing their jobs. The Atlanta Braves will win the World Series.
• Hockey: The Montreal Canadiens will make the playoffs and will go to the semi-finals. The Toronto Maple Leafs will make it to the second round. The Edmonton Oilers will win the Stanley Cup.
• Canadian Soccer: The Women's National Team will get to 5th in international rankings. The Men's national Team will get to 25th. There will be a cleaning house of management and coaching of the national teams following the 2024 Olympic "drone" scandal. Other international teams will reveal similar malfeasance.

Culture:

• Wicked: This movie will win five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Musical Score, and Best Special Effects. Cynthia Erivo who plays Elphabas (the Wicked Witch) will win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony! (Prediction courtesy of Wicked Bunny!🐰)
• Catholicism: The world will wake up to the slow, world-wide growth of the Catholic Church, especially amongst Protestants and Muslims. There will be an existential crisis in the Church over the question of whether non-believers can make it to Heaven, with the Pope on the wrong side of that debate.
• Feminism: The modernization of traditional feminism will take off, after its stunning pop-culture launch courtesy of the movie Barbie. Babies are good.
• The Peterson Effect: Jordan Peterson is about to cause way more people to rethink all manner of cultural issues from promiscuity, to marriage, religion, the essence of freedom, compassion, and free will. The Reaction has its apostle and is now well underway.
• Babies: The Western World, Japan and South Korea will start having babies again. Babies are good.
• Weight: The Western World will start to get back into shape, courtesy of aggressive public health policy moves by RFK Jr.  The "reshaping" of America will be one lasting legacy of Trump's second term.
  
• K-Pop: This will sweep the world, again. The world will acknowledge the superiority of South Korean pop culture.

Politics:

• Canada: There will be a new Conservative government. It will severely disappoint supporters, and be less awful than imagined by detractors. 
• Ontario: There will be a renewed Progressive Conservative government. It will not get along with the new federal Conservative government. Ford will apologize for more things.
• Trump: His government will be less activist than hoped by supporters and feared by detractors. Think fewer illegal immigrant evictions than suggested to date; smaller tax cuts than promised; only minor revisions to Obamacare; smaller than threatened tariffs on China, and very limited tariffs on Canada and Mexico. A year into his presidency he will run out of steam, and it will become obvious that his only real concern is staying out of jail.
• UK: Sir Keir Starmer will resign in disgrace as a new range of improprieties emerge. Labour will split - Moderates v Socialists - making the UK largely ungovernable.
• Germany: The Right will end the year ascendent. Yup...

International Affairs:

• Pax Americana: Trump will reveal plans for a much more isolationist foreign policy, with Canada and Mexico offered a customs union as part of a new American sphere of influence and following the US-led obliteration of globalization.
• Un-Brexit: The UK will seek to re-enter the European Union. The French will tell them to "Mange merde...
• Ukraine: The war will be over by May, with a peace treaty similar to what had almost been hammered out in March, 2022 - Russian control of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea; a loose Western security guarantee for Ukraine, but not NATO; Ukraine free to join the EU. The driving force here will be Trump who will leverage both parties to the table.
• Israel/Gaza: The war will be over by April. Israel will settle much of Northern Gaza under the rubric of its security needs. Hamas will retreat to a favorable country to rebuild...a.k.a. Iran. Financial and other aid will flood into the non-Israeli portion of Gaza. Numerous Arab nations will sign onto the Abraham Accords, creating the possibility of a permanent semi-peace in the region. The driving forces here will again be Trump, but also Saudi Arabia.
• Iran v Israel: Israel will take out Iran's nuclear capability - one way or another.
• NATO: The alliance will come under stress as certain members pursue pro-Russian stances, based on need for Russian energy (Hungary), while others prepare for war against Russia, based on a desire to redraw post-WW2 borders (Poland.) Nothing much will happen, except that all members will get to 2% of GDP spending. The driving force will again be Trump.
• Taiwan/South China Sea: China and Taiwan will go to the brink of war as China seeks to divert the attention of its population from a deteriorating economic situation. Expect some shot-down aircraft, sunk or damaged ships, and not much else.
• Iran, Myanmar and Venezuela: Expect civil wars in these countries, with anti-government forces making massive headway. One of these three governments will fall.
• China: There will be very significant civil disturbances following a partial collapse of the Chinese economy. Expect repression.
• Afghanistan, Syria, Mali: These countries will show the world why any attempts to return to theocracies circa the 6th century AD are a bad idea.
• Germany, Poland, Japan, Ukraine, Taiwan, South Korea and BOOM!: With the USA becoming more isolationist under Trump, these countries will no longer trust that the Americans will include them under their nuclear umbrella in case of a confrontation with Russia and/or China. Expect at least one of them to announce a new nuclear weapons program, or to even announce that - Surprise! - they already have one! We're looking at you, South Korea and Taiwan.

Economics:

• World-wide Recession: Driven by Trump tariffs and the obliteration of globalization, and in light of the withdrawal of COVID stimulus world-wide - especially the return of real interest rates - the world will move into a blood-curdling recession. Expect 10% unemployment in OEDC countries and a loss of 5% GDP over 18 months.
• America: Trump tariffs will drive significant inflation and a recession before he starts his second year in office. A recession means a 30% drop in stock market prices, and high unemployment. Trump will blame Biden, Obama, FDR...
• AI: It will reach its limited utility, quickly - glorified search engines and illicit essay-writing for students, some useful "big data" advantages for researchers, with other uses severely restricted as artists and others protect their intellectual property from misuse and theft. And that's the point.  AI has no innate organic intelligence - their base knowledge comes 100% from us. People will realize that without us, it is useless. We are the "intelligence" in AI.
• Canada: There will be a significant down-grade of federal and provincial sovereign debt, driving a new round of austerity at all levels of government. Trump tariffs will force productivity increases on Canadian business. Housing prices will fall significantly revealing a massive real estate bubble that had been masked by immigration housing concerns.
• China: The Chinese economy will partially collapse in the wake of US/European/Other tariffs. "Never in the field of human economics has so much been build by and for so many that will eventually be enjoyed by so few..." Capitalism absent political liberty always fails.