Trump doubles down on annexation threat, says Canada would be ‘cherished state’

What a deservedly scathing review of the US of A.

Canadian here, can confirm. This is pretty much how just about everyone I talk to feels about the situation. And I work in the trades in Alberta. Even my dumbest trump friends don’t want to be American. There will be boots to the fucking ground if our government tries to allow America to annex us.

About half of America would join Canada in fighting this tyranny. I think it would be a grave mistake for Trump’s presidency to follow through on these threats.

To be fair, Bagdad is half a world away. The logistics of maintaining something there is astronomically higher than in the same hemisphere, let alone our next door neighbor.

That being said I'm on team annexation... of Minnesota. Please take us!

Thanks for the link and transcript

I disagree with only one point there: while America as a political entity is like a crazy crackhead, it's like a very heavily armed crazy crackhead. Treat the prospect of being invaded by the US the same way Ukrainians treated the prospect of being invaded by Russia. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, because the US military is really good at wrecking whole countries even if it sucks at occupying them.

One thing I despise about the US (gun violence and healthcare inequitability aside) is how it measures the value of everything in money.

It's culture is a commodification machine. Nothing can just be beautiful for the sake of being beautiful, it has to be made into a side hustle somehow.

Most Americans are married to their jobs and have little work life balance relative to Canadians and Europeans.

There is a remarkable amount of mental gymnastics done by people trying to gaslight themselves into thinking this is what they want, even though most would be happier and healthier with more time off.

Haha, I want a t-shirt that says : Stay mad about the poutine tarrifs 😂

He also hasn't considered the destruction that 30 million occupied dissidents (from a country known for their prolific war crimes) can unleash on their oppressor.

Live close to the border. If I see Canadian tanks rolling through my town, I'm throwing them flowers

That's the point. He has megaphones pointed at everywhere you are, you're supposed to be tired of it and just roll over. That's his plan...

The problem with “thanks” ones is if they ever do go down…

Best to have “they’re up because of me” perhaps or something similar

Yes they are, I've seen them on the egg shelves.

Not that weird, since we've had similar things happen in Europe in the 1930s. I'm mostly wondering, what's going to be Canada's Stalingrad.

The US army is much larger and better equipped than the Canadian army. And the US has about 10x the population of Canada and most of the population lives within a few dozen miles of the US border.

Also who is to support Canada with arms to defend against the US invasion? China? Russia? Because South Korea and the EU would first need to purge all the US bases they have.

I think US vs. Canada would play out very different than Ukraine vs. Russia. Could end in a long and bloody incursion, but for the conventional side of things the US would steamroll Canada at first.

The only way Canada would join the union would be as an occupied territory, and we would do everything possible to fuck shit up from within.

Fall for it? They're grateful he's made their job insanely easy. They used yo have to investigate things and then risk running afoul of the powerful. Now they just have to print whatever the latest outrageous bullshit comes out of Donald's mouth and reap the clicks and ad dollars.

Yup, already had the "flee or stand and die" convo with my partner a few weeks ago. I am firmly willing to risk death to defend the progress we've made as a Province and Nation. We aren't perfect and are early in the process but we're trying to recon with our history of colonial genocide and embrace a truer multiculturalism which the US refuses to even acknowledge. We have made commitments to the health and well-being of all citizens, not just the productive bodies which fuel the markets. It's incomplete but aspirational and walking it back would be a disgrace.

The American democracy is an outdated shambles that has fallen into ruin and I will not be bound by it by choice. There is no freedom or opportunity the USA can offer us. Only more oppression on rights we already have enshrined.

I'm sure there are remnants of FLQ still hanging about. They could teach the rest of us how to operate an insurgency well.

Giving them more than two senators might lead to a senate that isn't perpetually gridlocked. That makes them dangerously close to being able to pass progressive legislation instead of nothing but mandatory funding bills with 37 pages worth of riders and pork.

not the "I have no mouth and I must scream" future, just the "I have a mouth and I must groan" present

This just The Boys season 5.

kinda. It depends a bit on how we handle some of the stuff. Firstly, despite saying he wants to make Canada a state, he could make it a territory that gets 0 votes, which is straight up bullshit but exactly how it works. If he does make it a state, there's still a lot of uncertainty.

Every state has gets 1 vote per representative. Senate has a fixed 100 members (2 per state). House currently has 435 members, divided by state population. If Canada is brought in as a single state, it would beat out California in size, but not by all that much. If we simply increased the house to accommodate the new state, Canada would have a bit over 52 electoral votes. If we add Canada's 52-ish electoral votes to Kamala's count, she still doesn't have the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Similarly, adding Canada's 52-ish votes to Hillary's count means she still loses. Literally giving Canada's votes to the Dem candidate does not affect the last few elections results in a meaningful way. In fact, it would change almost none of the elections we've had in the last, like, ever.

However, that assumes they simply give Canada new reps, rather than redistributing the current ones. If they did a redistribution, electoral votes would be taken from the largest states. Any states with 3 electoral votes can't have that reduced at all, and those with like 4-8 are unlikely to get the count reduced. Redistributing will affect California the most, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and so on. It's... harder to analyze how that shift would shake out, but I wager still not particularly favorable shifts for blue states in general, meaning dems can't actually expect an increase of 50-ish in that case, which means even less of a chance of flipping any results.

However, perhaps Canada gets split into a bunch of individual states rather than all one. If we assume each province-state gets 2 senate members and they collectively get 50 house members, you end up with 70 electoral votes (ignoring territories). If those all swing blue, Trump still wins 2016 and 2024. Both of those become far closer (2016 becomes 302 to 306 and 2024 becomes 296 to 312), presumably uncomfortably close.

And that's assuming they all vote solid (D), actually get voting rights, voting is still free and fair, and voter suppression hasn't become even more outlandish by then.

Anyways, our electoral vote system blows real bad.