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Showing posts from March 19, 2025

51st State?

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Although Trump consistently refers to Canadian annexation in terms of making the whole country a "51st state", it seems to me that there are obstacles nobody has mentioned in swallowing Canada whole. There are major differences in national policies on hot-button issues like gun control, universal medical care, and medically assisted suicide, as well as questions over the status of the French language -- if annexing Canada would create special circumstances for French in the US, wouldn't fairness demand the same treatment for Spanish? As a practical matter, the US would also have to offer Canadians some major enticement that would overcome the reluctance or distaste of many individual Canadians to vote for annexation. One such would be to offer some form of dollar equity, equivalent to what the German Federal Republic offered the German Democratic Republic at the time of reunification : The Deutsche Mark played an important role in the reunification of...