President Trump’s fixation on creating a 51st state is, as is the case with so many of his ideas, poorly thought out. Who is it going to be? Canada? Greenland? Cuba? Venezuela? Some other country somebody mentions to him that sticks in the front of his mind ahead of all other issues?
A COD—Country of the Day.
Who have we left out?
Well, there’s one place that’s been hopeful for more than a century of becoming the 51st state. Puerto Rico. But Puerto Rico—it’s just a place for paper towel-throwing demonstrations by a president who seems to want anybody BUT Puerto Rico to be considered anything more than he considers it to be—a possible trading chip to gain Greenland.
The Trump administration has been miserly in providing disaster relief to Puerto Ricans after hurricane a few years ago. He withheld $520 million in disaster aid.
I’ll trade you my ’62 Oldsmobile with no air conditioning and plenty of water damage for your ’53 Ford that doesn’t have a heater and uses tire chains seven months of the year.
None of the other four countries has expressed much interest in his undisciplined mind’s suggestions although Cuba certainly is closer than Hawaii—-although Cuba says it values its independence, is no Iran as a threat to this country, and shouldn’t be Trump’s next punching bag.
Putting Puerto Rico aside because it already is a United States territory, let’s think about the silliness of the other four.
He cannot sign an executive order declaring another country a state of the United States. That’s not the legal process for creating a new state—although for Trump, legal process is a dismissible thing. His contempt for the law is beyond contemptible.
Think about this:
Making another country a state means that other country will come under our laws, our Constitution, our long history of court precedents. It will suddenly come under our clean air and clean water laws. OSHA, just by itself, will be an enormous problem for many countries (we’ve climbed and descended some pretty dangerous steps lacking handrails in other countries just for one example). Highways will have to meet federal highway standards. In the case of Canada, the province of Quebec will have to forget its French language. It’s not ‘Murican y’know.
The EPA will face a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Healthcare programs will have to be brought into conformation with United States plans. Currency, banking, stock markets—all will be changed to the American system.
Integrating the military systems, minimum wage standards, pension programs, and taxes will have to conform to our system. Speaking of finances—currency uniformity will be a real bear.
The social safety net expansion will be horrendous.
National Parks, national historic sites, cultural centers, museums, and school systems will suddenly have to be made American.
Licensed professionals will have to be re-licensed and relicensed under American standards. Lawyers under other countries’ systems of laws will have to be retrained in our system so their citizens will be protected as our citizens are (except in certain Democratic-controlled cities, of course).
Political conventions will face enormous challenges and it is likely there will be more than two parties.
Licensing of professionals—doctors, lawyers, etc.—-will have to be done by our standards.
Just changing the style of traffic signs will cost, maybe, billions. No more kilometers.
And our history books will have to be rewritten to reflect the history of the newest state.
Did you ever hear of Alexander McKenzie? No, he’s not a character from “Outlander.” He’s the Canadian explorer who became he first “literate traveler” to cross North America north of Mexico—a decade before Lewis and Clark. Giving up Lewis and Clark might be a leap greater than some Americans can tolerate.
And that brings us to the differences in our countries in dealing with indigenous people—
“First Nations” as they’re called in Canada.
What happens to the national anthems? Will anybody be allowed to sing them?
Missouri was a district, then a territory, and once it became socially and bureaucratically qualified, a state.
What will become of the existing governments and their employees? And their government pensions? The national capitols and capitol cities? What will be their status or will they cease to be nothing more than historic sites? What new religions might we have to deal with or what religions from our newest “state” will change our religious demographics in an uncomfortable way for established denominations? //?
Highly important: How will we gerrymander their congressional districts so they’ll vote red? Gotta protect the homeland.
How long will it take for the new state’s education system to equal ours? That’s one that could cut both ways.
And—-
Wait a minute!
Hold the phone!
Some of these countries speak SPANISH!!!!
We know what problems that present sto the 50-state country and what its present administration that thinks of people who speak Spanish. It’s been rounding them up, impounding them by the thousands in often miserable concentrations, and shipping them off to countries that are not being considered for statehood.
And how about those who speak Kalaallisut, Tunumit, and Inuktun, and Danish? The first three make up better than 96% of a language known as Greenlandic. The rest speak Danish.
Oh, dear….
For years MAGA people even before there were MAGA people insisted our official language is our version of English. How can we be considering adding states that present us with such language challenges?
At least Canada has a language closer ours except they say “Eh” while we say “y’know.”
How long can we keep asking these questions for which our President has no answers?
But having no answers, at least no honest answers, is what he’s best at.
Viewing what he has done with the 50 states now under his supervision leaves no confidence that he can deal with a 51st state no matter how he might try to have it created.
Here is another possibility he hasn’t thought of. Combine more than ninety islands that this country took over in the 1890s into one jurisdiction although they’re separated by a few thousand miles. Our country claimed them because of their vast mineral deposits.
And what was that much valued mineral?
Guano. These islands had no people but they had birds for centuries and their byproduct was needed as fertilizer in this country. Trump could claim that combining these islands into one new state would prove that this country is the only one that really has all it’s ______ together.