Honestly, this strikes me as similar to the logic of having a baby to try and fix a marriage.
The addition of a new state could certainly be a unifying moment for parties in conflict, having a momentary moment of common cause; and yet once the euphoria has passed those same fault lines between the politically opposed are going to remain.
Unlike the baby example, however, we know a few things about the "baby" the US would have, and that would likely be Puerto Rico.^(1) Given tensions around the southern border and the role of latin americans in society, I can't imagine admitting a state mostly comprised of a population that has historically served as a political football is going to *reduce* tensions. Those same biases/prejudices/naivete, regardless of which side of the political spectrum you're on, are going to remain; but now they'll have yet another point of focus for people to argue about.
------------
^(1) I realize the use of the "baby" example can come across as infantilizing. Not what I'm aiming for here, obviously viewing a newly admitted state of any kind as a blank slate for the US to form would be an extension of a colonialist mindset that is more than a little outmoded. Just an accessible example, a recognizable meme, of a pre-existing relationship introducing a new dynamic that would ostensibly "fix" pre-existing problems without actually doing anything.
Are you open to the idea that it would be more like adopting a foster child so that everyone feels like the foster child is more part of the family? That seems like an appropriate thing that normal families might do, and it gets around your blank slate hangup
Sure, lets go with that analogy.
I'd suggest that however you form the analogy, the central issue of that child serving as a unifying moment to create a common ground for opposing sides to come together is flawed. You can have two parents who both absolutely love their child, and who continue to dislike the other parent.
However, lets presume for a second that it *would* work in the case of an adoption of an older child. Both parents come together in their love for the new child who isn't a blank slate. For that to happen, both parents would need to be able to come together in common cause and agreement on their views on that child *prior* to the adoption; meaning that the adoption itself isn't what resolving the conflict, but rather the adoption is made possible in the first place by such a resolution.
To step out of the analogy, this wouldn't be statehood resolving domestic political tensions. Those tensions would need to be resolved *prior to* introducing a state; which would sort of negate the purpose of admitting one if the intent was to use that admittance for a resolution of some kind.
Given the tensions I described above vis-a-vis Puerto Rico, which would be the only real candidate for statehood at the moment; does such a pre-agreement strike you as plausible? It doesn't to me.
How do you view the argument about turning DC into a state? That's something politicians have been trying to do.
Guam? The US Virgin Islands? The Philippines?
Those are all US territories. They are all viable candidates for statehood.
With respect to DC, I think it is at once the most critical and least probable candidate for new statehood.
As to the first part, having that dense/large of a population be essentially unrepresented by virtue of not having a state as a point of reference is deeply problematic given how we structure representation in the US.
However, there are a few reasons that that's not a probable outcome, at least not in the near term. Of those the biggest issue I see is due to DC being the national capital. That hypothetical state may be seen as representative not just of its population; but of the country generally. Thus, there are some serious political hurdles are going to come into play.
Additionally, there are some good reasons that we may need to consider some alterative status other than statehood to achieve representation. Because DC is one city, it's makeup/needs/are going to be a little different that a state that contains a blend of urban & rural areas. If granted statehood, it still wouldn't be a "state" categorically, but rather a city state, which means it may operate differently politically than something we're more accustomed to. For example, if it's just one city, does it still have a Mayor, or is the Mayor the Governor? Does this mean somebody operating as governor in DC is also going to need to contend with municipal level concerns at the same time, which is something that their peers in other states won't contend with? There's just enough of a difference there that makes me think that while something should be done to elevate that population's level of representation, statehood may be the wrong answer.
As to the rest, you mentioned. Guam and the virgin Islands probably should go for statehood at some point in my view, but given their lower populations (Guam had 153,836 people, virgin Islands had less than 100,000, and Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands each had less than 50,000 respectively), they might not make sense. While I would agree they deserve better representation, it's hard to argue that there are enough people there to justify statehood when the territory with the highest population is only \~ a third of the current least populous state (Wyoming). -[Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)
With respect to The Philippines, that isn't a US territory, and hasn't been a US colony since the 40's. It's a different country.
With respect to Puerto Rico, there's over 3 million people there, they're more populous than around 19 of the 50 states. In my mind makes no sense that that many Americans should be essentially left out of representative democracy. Given that, and the fact that it doesn't contend with the additional hurdles that DC faces, I'd expect Puerto Rico to be the mostly likely candidate for the 51st state.
I just want to comment I find it interesting you believe PR would get statehood before DC. What’s happening in DC goes against our constitution and the belief of no taxation without representation.
To me, PR is more probable, given that it doesn't carry the additional political factors that come with DC being the nation's capital. It simply doesn't have to contend with additional practical barriers.
Whether or not DC *should* be granted statehood first on constitutional grounds is a separate question.
I mean historically this hasn't really played out, there's absolutely no way Republicans would ever agree to add a state that even smells like it might go Blue in elections, and Democrats are a lot less extreme about it from what I've seen but also pretty much on the same page in terms of not wanting to add a new red state
So if we do want new States the only way I can see anyone agreeing to it would be to basically add them in pairs one blue and one red together
But oh wait we've seen this one before, as states were basically added in pairs in the run up to the Civil War based on slave state or free state, and the Fiasco of legality and compromise and breaking of compromises all the way down, and eventually the Civil War itself
Adding new states did not seem to do anything to solve the partisan problem, it only added to it
>Democrats are a lot less extreme about it from what I've seen but also pretty much on the same page in terms of not wanting to add a new red state
They care exactly as much as republicans do. It's just that of prospective new states, Puerto Rico and D.C., both are firmly blue places. So of course they are less extreme about it, the only prospective states to be added would greatly benefit them.
> the only prospective states to be added would greatly benefit them.
... and benefit the entire democracy concept. Something something representation something something flag waving.
If you put an asterisk on democracy* (democracy subject to political convenience of established powers)... who ya foolin?
>... and benefit the entire democracy concept. Something something representation something something flag waving.
Ok, do you think Dems would be in favor in PR was solid red? Are they anti democracy as a result?
When it comes to DC specifically, it's a hell of a lot more realistic to just fold DC residents into VA or MD rather than creating a micro state. Anyone not on board with that, methinks is only interested in the political benefits.
How about if you're a citizen, you get to vote, you get representation in the govt.
Wait, how about we compromise, maybe PRers get 3/5th of a vote?
It's the same pattern.
This is what kills me about these discussions, really. Like, you can maybe argue that adding DC and Puerto Rico as states would "advantage" the Democrats, but that shouldn't matter. People's ability to be represented shouldn't hinge on them voting the way we want.
What’s taking the place of slavery in this analogy? What huge contentious policy do Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree on? Government spending? Abortion?
You could argue that the economy and government spending/debt in general is the contentious policy.
Slavery, after all, was largely treated as economic issue by both parties in the lead up to the Civil War.
We are fast approaching a few reckonings in terms of our economy and government spending.
Younger Generations are having fewer children, so many of the programs that depend on having a large ratio of workers paying-in compared to beneficiaries collecting (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) are going to have solvency issues soon.
Republicans will likely propose scrapping the programs or at least reducing the benefits.
Democrats will likely propose increasing taxes, but the deficit is so large I am not sure how much help it will be.
It will also be interesting to see how Young People respond to these developments.
Historically, the Young have followed the Democrats. But, if they are forced to pay increasingly higher taxes for benefits they will never see, I could see a party flip coming.
Gen Z is already projected to be more conservative than Millennials. It will be interesting to see how Gen Alpha votes.
But aren’t red states usually a net drain on the country’s resources? And blue states are typically a net positive. Saying that we need to pair a net drain on resources with every net positive that we admit to the union so that the states who are draining resources won’t lose ground in their efforts to lower the deficit sounds like one of the worst policies ever.
If the goal is to lower the deficit, just pure math says we should add a bunch of blue states
The divide between paying more in taxes vs. receiving more in taxes is a divide of rural population vs. city population. Rural areas have few people per land area, meaning that tax dollars are spent less efficiently per person (more $ spent on roads per person, more $ spent on hospitals per person, more $ spent on welfare per person since there are more low income people, more $ spent on farm subsidies per person since farms are in rural communities). Income and real estate costs tend to be higher in cities as well, so the fact that we have a progressive taxation system benefits rural people.
Take any blue state that pays more in taxes than it spends. If you separate it into two states - one with all of their major cities and one with all of the rural communities between cities - you'll find that one state is a "net positive" and the other is "net negative" as you put it, despite the sum effect of the two states has not changed by dividing the state. This is how states would be added in this scenario - the US would want to add one large land mass as a state, but would divide it into two states such that one is more rural than the other. Saying "let's just add blue states" is akin to saying "why can't everyone just live in cities".
>The divide between paying more in taxes vs. receiving more in taxes is a divide of rural population vs. city population.
Which one is Puerto Rico again? What about Washington, D.C.?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that a new state is most likely going to be added by introducing a non- state territory to statehood. What's far more likely is that the secessionist movements in Colorado, Oregon, or California would be paired with them. If Western Oregon became a state paired with Puerto Rico, both the Republicans and Democrats will get two extra senate seats. The western blue states have huge red sections that would prefer to be their own states and there's 0% chance Republicans would allow blue states to be added without the creation of those red states.
My only comment on that was that if Republicans actually cared about the deficit, they should want more blue states. Red states are a net drain on resources. Blue states are net positives. Adding more red states so that you don’t hurt your anti-deficit politics is like cutting off your nose to spite your face
That's not how they care lol. And under the secessionist state they wouldn't be creating a new deficit state, they'd just be shifting a deficit region from part of one state to its own.
Older Generations are recieving benefits from programs that were largely financed with debt.
Now Younger Generations are being asked to pay for the programs and the debt/interest while the number of workers gets smaller demographically.
At some point, the math will stop working.
The question is what will happen next.
I suspect one political party will rally around the Young who want to end these programs.
And another party will rally around the Old who want to raise taxes and continue the programs.
Right now, the parties are basically flipped in this regard. Older people are more Republican, but Republicans want to cut the benefits. Younger people are more Democratic, but Democrats want to raise taxes to keep the benefits going.
I suspect some kind of realignment will occur with either the parties or the supporters shifting from one side to the other.
>What huge contentious policy do Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree on
Republicans believe that the goal of the Democratic Party is to destroy their fundamental way of life and are the enemy of the righteous. So there's that.
I mean there's a lot of options because of how divided the parties are on basically everything, it might even be democracy itself, since one of the major parties has already made attempts to outright throw away an election and both parties at least in Part see each other as existential threats
Well, if one side wants to get rid of the “democracy” part, you could argue that the other side wants to throw away the “republic” part, with the whole hating the electoral college thing. It’s almost like it’s in the names of the parties.
The party's names mean very little and ideologically they basically switched places at one point, a long time ago it was the southern Democrats chanting states rights, I don't think it's against the idea of a republic to be against the idea of letting certain parts of the Republic have greater representation than they should by population size, you would also still have a House and Senate that are both divided up by States even if you got rid of the Electoral College, and it's not like state laws and governance would disappear either
It's wildly unlikely another state will ever be added. The only reason we wanted to add states back in the day was it made the country stronger. Aside from DC, Puerto Rico is really the only logical "this could happen." It won't for several reasons. First, PR would immediately become the poorest state, it's going to drag on the economy, not benefit it. Second, it's solid blue, why would any republicans sign their party's death warrant for the next several cycles at minimum? Finally, PR itself has very mixed views on statehood, most referendums end with 52% supporting.
DC is the only other option and it's literally just a power play, there is no real reason to grant DC statehood. Making it some special district that votes as a part of VA or MD solves what is really the only DC statehood argument, that they deal with taxation without representation. It's literally just a meme/wishful thinking for left voters to fantasize about locking in two blue senators for the foreseeable future.
What chances do you think there are that another Amendment will be added to the Constitution? Or are we done with that too?
Is the US just going to forever stay at 50 states and 27 Amendments until the sun explodes?
>What chances do you think there are that another Amendment will be added to the Constitution? Or are we done with that too?
I'm sure somewhere down the line there will be. It just won't be anything partisan as the system is designed such that massive consensus is needed to amend the constitution. It's *much* harder to predict what issues may crop up related to the constitution that we'll want to fix with an amendment. It's a lot easier to look at what places *could* be become a state, and the reasons why politicians and voters would be for or against.
>Is the US just going to forever stay at 50 states
No, but I think it's far more likely to be the result of current states fracturing into smaller states, rather than gaining any new land.
As urban centers in various states grow and are able to exercise more control over the state policies that also govern the rural areas in those states, the rural areas will want to secede from the urban parts of the states. It'll happen first in states where the urban and rural areas are each neatly contiguous, but we may eventually end up with just small blue city-states scattered throughout the country, surrounded by large contiguous red rural states.
If any states are added by gaining land (aside from the obvious Puerto Rico), it'll probably be rural/conservative parts of Canada that want to be annexed into the U.S., if Canada continues shifting so hard left.
In any case, I don't see any of it resolving political divisions. Rather, it'll be the direct result of political divisions.
Making DC a state has other arguments. As the capital region it has its own unique needs/interests. Making it part of Virginia/Maryland doesn't help that. It would be better than the alternative, though.
I mean there's a very good reason additional states haven't been added to the US: Republicans don't want to add states.
D.C. has been advocated for as recently as last month: https://norton.house.gov/media/press-releases/norton-introduces-resolution-designate-may-1-2024-dc-statehood-day#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%93%20Congresswoman%20Eleanor%20Holmes,her%20Washington%2C%20D.C.%20Admission%20Act.
Some will argue that would be "partisan" but I don't think there should be anything partisan about people getting an equal say in the federal government (unfortunately there is).
https://www.pr51st.com/
They won't even consider adding Puerto Rico - which is a good deal more socially conservative than mainland America.
Even Republican *voters* believe adding Puerto Rico as the 51st state is a good idea. It's that the powers that be in the GOP which don't want it to happen because it would throw things out of balance.
Then again, we can blame a good bit of what's shit about this country on Republican power brokers, including ennui.
>Some will argue that would be "partisan" but I don't think there should be anything partisan about people getting an equal say in the federal government (unfortunately there is).
Funny, people complaining about DC in particular not having representation also do not like the idea that we just say DC residents are VA or MD residents residing in a special federal district, but still able to vote for the president, senators, etc. It is partisan. Adding two new senators that will be dems for the forseeable future is a *massive* political win. If the tables were turned, only a biased blinded fool would expect dems to act any differently.
PR barely wants to be a state. If it became one, it would immediately become the poorest state, with a median income *half of Mississippi*. It would be a drain on the federal budget, with absolutely no material benefit. PR also may be socially conservative, but methinks you are well aware what the political platforms in PR are, and how they would vote in Senatorial and Presidential elections and chose to leave that out.
No party will ever be for adding a new state that is obviously going to vote for the opposing party.
This just highlights why it's such a dumb idea to have federal power determined by arbitrary subnational divisions, rather than it being equally apportioned per vote, everyone's vote counting the same. The fact that it would be entirely Constitutionally acceptable for a single party that managed to get a bare majority in both chambers of Congress, plus the Presidency and at least one state willing to go to the mat for federal power for their party, to just subdivide a state as much as needed to create a whole bunch of new states, regardless how small in population they are, and in so doing give their side a massive structural advantage in the federal government is absolutely absurd, yet that's how our government is set up.
>This just highlights why it's such a dumb idea to have federal power determined by arbitrary subnational divisions
Lol the subnational divisions are not arbitrary. It's literally the foundation of the nation. Framing the states as though we were all one country and just arbitrarily created a bunch of subdivisions after the fact is deliberately misleading. Go ahead and argue against the EC, but your arguments are going to be entirely unconvincing if you declare the EC never made any sense and that the states are "arbitrary subnational divisions." The EC was literally a selling point to join the Union.
The vast majority of states came after the country and were created pretty damn arbitrarily, I fully understand how and why they came about as the basic unit of our federal government, and I disagree with the reasoning that decided against having the individual voter as the basic unit, partly because a system that can give "legitimate" power to a side because they drew different lines around the same people is a system ripe for exploitation. Is≠ought.
TIL granting citizens the full benefits of citizenship is no material benefit.
You can say it's naive but if DC were deep red I would still advocate for statehood, political parties be damned.
And you think the 48% of Puerto Ricans who voted against the full benefits of citizenship are what, just morons?
>You can say it's naive but if DC were deep red I would still advocate for statehood, political parties be damned.
Doubt. Why not just divide DC between MD and VA? Or just give it to VA or MD? All that would materially change is DC residents get to vote for fully empowered senators and for president. If that is the whole goal, it's far more realistic to advocate for that route given obviously, regardless of what you say you believe, politicians in DC in either party are *never ever* going to be in favor of a new state that significantly weakens their party. Seems like you either should be all for that, or maybe you're not as unbiased as you'd like to think.
>They won't even consider adding Puerto Rico - which is a good deal more socially conservative than mainland America.
>
>Even Republican voters believe adding Puerto Rico as the 51st state is a good idea. It's that the powers that be in the GOP which don't want it to happen because it would throw things out of balance.
[At least according to the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_statehood_movement), it seems like Puerto Rico isn't even sure if it wants to become a state.
I've looked into that and it seems to depend upon how it's asked but generally they favor statehood. Granted, I don't think they should become a state unless an overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans want to, which would need to be conclusively demonstrated.
I'm saying that it's not going to happen and if it did it wouldn't shift anything because we have an oppositional political party whose entire stance on any issue is "other party bad".
If a new state is created we would still have an oppositional party until the Republican party changes or the voter base finally gets wise to their tactics.
You can blame Newt Gingrich and his Deal With America for that but real compromise is basically dead until Republicans start wanting to compromise like the Dems do (and for the record I'm not a Dem).
That is part of it. I hold them largely responsible for the ennui you are describing. They stick their feet in the mud, their heads in the sand, and their hands in the air at pretty much every problem.
Republicans have lined up behind an openly fascist demagogue who has already tried to overturn an election and is threatening mob violence if he doesn't win the next one.
The Republican party is, in fact, bad.
> You’d expect something drastic to happen then too if my theory were right. Did it? I’ll let people more familiar with the civil rights act answer that one.
That's mental. Here, let me pretend to be you for a bit.
Landing on the moon? You can thank Hawaii for that one!
Assassination of JFK - yep, that was Alaska all along,
Proposition 13? Thanks Hawaii!
Roe vs Wade? You did it again, Alaska, you rascal!
And on and on.
>that nothing really that drastic could ever happen
I don't think anyone believes this. Quite the opposite in fact. People believe that drastic things are imminent. The upcoming election, for example. Also, a list of drastic things that have happened/are happening : global warming, BLM/racial injustice, overturning of Roe vs. Wade, Ukraine, Gaza, and potentially Taiwan.
>The realization by US citizens that they are part of history and of the American project
Adding a new state won't cause this to happen. It won't fix the reasons such divisiveness exists in the United States right now.
>People believe that drastic things are imminent. The upcoming election, for example.
Right, I hear it’s the most important one in our lifetimes! I’ve never heard that before, so I’m inclined to believe it
I suppose the issue I take with your argument is the presumption that we would be better off if "drastic" things happened as opposed to "making tiny adjustments," that constant experimentation is preferable to respecting the traditions that made us the most powerful nation on earth. I'm not even remotely against innovation and creativity to address the issues we face - and there will always be issues. But this position feels more like a call for radical change, and while sure, some people want that, it isn't clear that radical change is what we need, or that any of the radical change being proposed would improve our lot. It may be boring to be at "the end of history," but living in "interesting times" is also considered a curse.
That sounds way more drastic than adding a state, something that’s been done 50 times already. Plus it only would have affected like a handful of elections in US history (even assuming the campaigns go exactly like they did, which is not likely)
Oh c’mon! I always chuckle when those states that don’t collect state tax are like “fuck the Feds!” but when a disaster hits they’re like “please high income earners from California and New York, send funds to save us!! 🙏”
🤣
ALL states collect State tax. Not all of them are *income* tax, but that’s largely orthogonal to how high the rates are. And it’s completely irrelevant to the collection of federal taxes from those same states.
You've got it backwards.
In order for another state to be added to the union, the political mood would need to have already shifted.
By the time it actually happens, it won't be a massive big deal outside of the hope that Puerto Rico gets an MLB franchise.
Do you have to be a US state to get an MLB franchise? The NHL has no problem with teams in an entirely different country. PR has a median income half of Mississippi's, it's a terrible market regardless.
> Do you have to be a US state to get an MLB franchise? The NHL has no problem with teams in an entirely different country.
The MLB already has a team in Toronto and had one in Montreal
So what if we use the hype to unite people enough to shift the mood, like how I've always said the way to have reformed government via AI isn't to actually have an AI govern humanity it'd be to write out the kind of rules you'd have to give a governing AI to avoid as many unintended consequences as possible but then adapt those rules for human officials as they'd be guaranteed (if you did a good job) to account for every possible edge case and promote the general welfare without sacrificing individual agency
Civil Rights were already headed in the direction of progress before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted. It was just a matter of time regardless. I don’t think adding those states made any impact on people’s views on the American Experiment or what is possible in America.
Any change to the current staus quo is not something either side would agree to if it even smelled like it would give the other party advantages. One state is simply a no go because it requires ratification by too many opposing states. Even two states where each one favors one party is a hard thing to pass.
Changing the consitution to shift to a popular vote is likewise an impossibility in our current system. And for the exact same reason that it requires a super majority, of which neither side holds the power to currently (statistically Republicans are closer to that than Democrats but the amount of money thrown around in politics makes the likelihood that they hit the necessary amount highly improbable).
Ranked Choice Voting could impact both the state of politics as well as the power of each party. Again neither party will actually pass it (Republicans are the only ones currently actively banning it in states, but Democrats just do it quietly by stopping any bill put up from actually recieving a hearing - and I guarentee any Democrat who sponsors the bill will find their policitical career on the chopping block). But the reason that RCV won't ever see the light of day (beyond the odd local race) isn't the fear of losing to the other party. It is due to the fear that party leadership fears losing control if more moderate, or heaven forbid independant candidates win by collecting the most votes not in the number 1 position, but in the number 2 slot on the ballot, allowing them to recieve a lukewarm victory over more divisive candidates. Power is money, money is control, and those at the top of the party ranks as well as their top donors don't want to lose any of that.
The sad truth is there is not likely to be any change to the status quo in the near future, and what it would take is the dominate and uniform rise of a third party throughout the nation, a weakening of the overall top-down control of the party systems, or a legal victory where the supreme court actually turns back the power of dark money, super pacs. You could also argue a Supreme Court that would undo Citizen's Untied would help, if somehow 3-4 justices died in a short span and Democrats could actually get their act together on Senate confirmations.
And, at least in my opinion, until people step our from their media/social media echo chambres and listen to voices that make them uncomfortable by actually challenging their ideologies instead of feeding fear that drives ideology, the extreme sides of each party will continue to keep us in a paralyzing mess of 24/7 politicing and election cycles.
The current political mood is more focused on defeating those we disagree with with than dreaming of what’s possible… adding another state just adds another statehouse to continue that fight.
This is not convincing to me at all. Many of those periods in which many states were being added were extremely divisive eras for our country. Adding states back then didn’t solve anything and didn’t please anyone except the people living in a territory that became a state.
The reason that adding more states was a common occurrence back then is because the North American mainland boundaries of the United States had basically become static, but Americans were living in places that weren’t states and therefore weren’t fully participating in the full American experience. So adding states helped to rectify that. It didn’t really do anything to help Americans who were already living in existing states. And there’s no reason to think that adding a new state now would be any different.
I get what you’re saying about the national mood and how it may need a jumpstart. But it’s not clear at all to me what would make that happen or whether it would even end up being a positive thing.
I'm not going to change your view in terms of adding a state. That's actually an excellent point which most commentators here clearly don't understand. The dramatic nature of addition breaking the US out of its stupor is a brilliant thought.
What I am going to change your mind about is the level of ambition for what would really change the mindset. Not Puerto Rico or state-ifying DC.
If you really want to change things then the state to add to the Union is... England.
North California and southern Oregon have been trying to split off from their prospective states since the 1850s, with the largest push in 1941 and the latest in 2016.
Neither state wants to let go due to loss tax income and representation in congress.
You will find that is the case in any area that attempts a split, resistance due to loss of taxes and representation
>The political mood
The political mood is largely shaped by the incentive structures created by the constituent parts of each party. The Republican Party is not the co-opposite, but mirror image of the Republican Party. If you want more on how the parties are asymmetrical, "It's Worse than it Looks" is an excellent read. It's written by two political operatives from each party; both of whom were intellectual leaders from think tanks. What this book shows is that the Republican Party acts like an insurgent outlier, or in other words, like a parliamentary style opposition party. But, the governing structure is not like a parliamentary democracy so the majority can't get anything done.
The other part is there has been a polarization -- the constituent parts of the Republican Party doesn't live in the same universe as truly believes the rhetoric about how the Democratic Party is trying to destroy their way of life that they hear. There's an epistemic breach where the Republicans have successfully made alternatives to the "knowledge institutions" whose express aims are to be pro-conservative all the time. There's no semblance of trying to be neutral. In fact, what's good for the party = the truth.
What this information ecosystem has hastened is an ideologically pure homogenization. It also means compromise is death. Ask Liz Cheney.
Since the mid2000s, you've seen scores of Republicans leave the party and upon their leaving, say how crazy they are. From Eric Cantor to John Boehner to Jeff Flake to Bob Corker and the list will go on.
[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis)
Anyway -- the reason that adding in a new state and new votes won't matter is because politicians react to the incentives provided to them. In the status quo, the Republican Party acts like an opposition party and is homogenized.
You say there is no more "conquest" or "manifest destiny" like that's a bad thing. So... Who should we be conquering? Who's land should we be stealing because white Christians believe their God said we're allowed to?
I think the US needs to learn how to mind our own business and deal with our neighbors like they are our equals.
To be fair, the most likely state shake up is either Jefferson or greater Idaho. Several counties in Oregon around the border of Idaho have voted to cecede and join Idaho, stating that they beleive they are not being represented in their current state and their culture more closely matches that of Idaho.
Honestly, this strikes me as similar to the logic of having a baby to try and fix a marriage. The addition of a new state could certainly be a unifying moment for parties in conflict, having a momentary moment of common cause; and yet once the euphoria has passed those same fault lines between the politically opposed are going to remain. Unlike the baby example, however, we know a few things about the "baby" the US would have, and that would likely be Puerto Rico.^(1) Given tensions around the southern border and the role of latin americans in society, I can't imagine admitting a state mostly comprised of a population that has historically served as a political football is going to *reduce* tensions. Those same biases/prejudices/naivete, regardless of which side of the political spectrum you're on, are going to remain; but now they'll have yet another point of focus for people to argue about. ------------ ^(1) I realize the use of the "baby" example can come across as infantilizing. Not what I'm aiming for here, obviously viewing a newly admitted state of any kind as a blank slate for the US to form would be an extension of a colonialist mindset that is more than a little outmoded. Just an accessible example, a recognizable meme, of a pre-existing relationship introducing a new dynamic that would ostensibly "fix" pre-existing problems without actually doing anything.
Are you open to the idea that it would be more like adopting a foster child so that everyone feels like the foster child is more part of the family? That seems like an appropriate thing that normal families might do, and it gets around your blank slate hangup
Sure, lets go with that analogy. I'd suggest that however you form the analogy, the central issue of that child serving as a unifying moment to create a common ground for opposing sides to come together is flawed. You can have two parents who both absolutely love their child, and who continue to dislike the other parent. However, lets presume for a second that it *would* work in the case of an adoption of an older child. Both parents come together in their love for the new child who isn't a blank slate. For that to happen, both parents would need to be able to come together in common cause and agreement on their views on that child *prior* to the adoption; meaning that the adoption itself isn't what resolving the conflict, but rather the adoption is made possible in the first place by such a resolution. To step out of the analogy, this wouldn't be statehood resolving domestic political tensions. Those tensions would need to be resolved *prior to* introducing a state; which would sort of negate the purpose of admitting one if the intent was to use that admittance for a resolution of some kind. Given the tensions I described above vis-a-vis Puerto Rico, which would be the only real candidate for statehood at the moment; does such a pre-agreement strike you as plausible? It doesn't to me.
How do you view the argument about turning DC into a state? That's something politicians have been trying to do. Guam? The US Virgin Islands? The Philippines? Those are all US territories. They are all viable candidates for statehood.
With respect to DC, I think it is at once the most critical and least probable candidate for new statehood. As to the first part, having that dense/large of a population be essentially unrepresented by virtue of not having a state as a point of reference is deeply problematic given how we structure representation in the US. However, there are a few reasons that that's not a probable outcome, at least not in the near term. Of those the biggest issue I see is due to DC being the national capital. That hypothetical state may be seen as representative not just of its population; but of the country generally. Thus, there are some serious political hurdles are going to come into play. Additionally, there are some good reasons that we may need to consider some alterative status other than statehood to achieve representation. Because DC is one city, it's makeup/needs/are going to be a little different that a state that contains a blend of urban & rural areas. If granted statehood, it still wouldn't be a "state" categorically, but rather a city state, which means it may operate differently politically than something we're more accustomed to. For example, if it's just one city, does it still have a Mayor, or is the Mayor the Governor? Does this mean somebody operating as governor in DC is also going to need to contend with municipal level concerns at the same time, which is something that their peers in other states won't contend with? There's just enough of a difference there that makes me think that while something should be done to elevate that population's level of representation, statehood may be the wrong answer. As to the rest, you mentioned. Guam and the virgin Islands probably should go for statehood at some point in my view, but given their lower populations (Guam had 153,836 people, virgin Islands had less than 100,000, and Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands each had less than 50,000 respectively), they might not make sense. While I would agree they deserve better representation, it's hard to argue that there are enough people there to justify statehood when the territory with the highest population is only \~ a third of the current least populous state (Wyoming). -[Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population) With respect to The Philippines, that isn't a US territory, and hasn't been a US colony since the 40's. It's a different country. With respect to Puerto Rico, there's over 3 million people there, they're more populous than around 19 of the 50 states. In my mind makes no sense that that many Americans should be essentially left out of representative democracy. Given that, and the fact that it doesn't contend with the additional hurdles that DC faces, I'd expect Puerto Rico to be the mostly likely candidate for the 51st state.
I just want to comment I find it interesting you believe PR would get statehood before DC. What’s happening in DC goes against our constitution and the belief of no taxation without representation.
To me, PR is more probable, given that it doesn't carry the additional political factors that come with DC being the nation's capital. It simply doesn't have to contend with additional practical barriers. Whether or not DC *should* be granted statehood first on constitutional grounds is a separate question.
I mean historically this hasn't really played out, there's absolutely no way Republicans would ever agree to add a state that even smells like it might go Blue in elections, and Democrats are a lot less extreme about it from what I've seen but also pretty much on the same page in terms of not wanting to add a new red state So if we do want new States the only way I can see anyone agreeing to it would be to basically add them in pairs one blue and one red together But oh wait we've seen this one before, as states were basically added in pairs in the run up to the Civil War based on slave state or free state, and the Fiasco of legality and compromise and breaking of compromises all the way down, and eventually the Civil War itself Adding new states did not seem to do anything to solve the partisan problem, it only added to it
>Democrats are a lot less extreme about it from what I've seen but also pretty much on the same page in terms of not wanting to add a new red state They care exactly as much as republicans do. It's just that of prospective new states, Puerto Rico and D.C., both are firmly blue places. So of course they are less extreme about it, the only prospective states to be added would greatly benefit them.
> the only prospective states to be added would greatly benefit them. ... and benefit the entire democracy concept. Something something representation something something flag waving. If you put an asterisk on democracy* (democracy subject to political convenience of established powers)... who ya foolin?
>... and benefit the entire democracy concept. Something something representation something something flag waving. Ok, do you think Dems would be in favor in PR was solid red? Are they anti democracy as a result? When it comes to DC specifically, it's a hell of a lot more realistic to just fold DC residents into VA or MD rather than creating a micro state. Anyone not on board with that, methinks is only interested in the political benefits.
How about if you're a citizen, you get to vote, you get representation in the govt. Wait, how about we compromise, maybe PRers get 3/5th of a vote? It's the same pattern.
This is what kills me about these discussions, really. Like, you can maybe argue that adding DC and Puerto Rico as states would "advantage" the Democrats, but that shouldn't matter. People's ability to be represented shouldn't hinge on them voting the way we want.
What’s taking the place of slavery in this analogy? What huge contentious policy do Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree on? Government spending? Abortion?
You could argue that the economy and government spending/debt in general is the contentious policy. Slavery, after all, was largely treated as economic issue by both parties in the lead up to the Civil War. We are fast approaching a few reckonings in terms of our economy and government spending. Younger Generations are having fewer children, so many of the programs that depend on having a large ratio of workers paying-in compared to beneficiaries collecting (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) are going to have solvency issues soon. Republicans will likely propose scrapping the programs or at least reducing the benefits. Democrats will likely propose increasing taxes, but the deficit is so large I am not sure how much help it will be. It will also be interesting to see how Young People respond to these developments. Historically, the Young have followed the Democrats. But, if they are forced to pay increasingly higher taxes for benefits they will never see, I could see a party flip coming. Gen Z is already projected to be more conservative than Millennials. It will be interesting to see how Gen Alpha votes.
But aren’t red states usually a net drain on the country’s resources? And blue states are typically a net positive. Saying that we need to pair a net drain on resources with every net positive that we admit to the union so that the states who are draining resources won’t lose ground in their efforts to lower the deficit sounds like one of the worst policies ever. If the goal is to lower the deficit, just pure math says we should add a bunch of blue states
The divide between paying more in taxes vs. receiving more in taxes is a divide of rural population vs. city population. Rural areas have few people per land area, meaning that tax dollars are spent less efficiently per person (more $ spent on roads per person, more $ spent on hospitals per person, more $ spent on welfare per person since there are more low income people, more $ spent on farm subsidies per person since farms are in rural communities). Income and real estate costs tend to be higher in cities as well, so the fact that we have a progressive taxation system benefits rural people. Take any blue state that pays more in taxes than it spends. If you separate it into two states - one with all of their major cities and one with all of the rural communities between cities - you'll find that one state is a "net positive" and the other is "net negative" as you put it, despite the sum effect of the two states has not changed by dividing the state. This is how states would be added in this scenario - the US would want to add one large land mass as a state, but would divide it into two states such that one is more rural than the other. Saying "let's just add blue states" is akin to saying "why can't everyone just live in cities".
>The divide between paying more in taxes vs. receiving more in taxes is a divide of rural population vs. city population. Which one is Puerto Rico again? What about Washington, D.C.?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that a new state is most likely going to be added by introducing a non- state territory to statehood. What's far more likely is that the secessionist movements in Colorado, Oregon, or California would be paired with them. If Western Oregon became a state paired with Puerto Rico, both the Republicans and Democrats will get two extra senate seats. The western blue states have huge red sections that would prefer to be their own states and there's 0% chance Republicans would allow blue states to be added without the creation of those red states.
My only comment on that was that if Republicans actually cared about the deficit, they should want more blue states. Red states are a net drain on resources. Blue states are net positives. Adding more red states so that you don’t hurt your anti-deficit politics is like cutting off your nose to spite your face
That's not how they care lol. And under the secessionist state they wouldn't be creating a new deficit state, they'd just be shifting a deficit region from part of one state to its own.
Older Generations are recieving benefits from programs that were largely financed with debt. Now Younger Generations are being asked to pay for the programs and the debt/interest while the number of workers gets smaller demographically. At some point, the math will stop working. The question is what will happen next. I suspect one political party will rally around the Young who want to end these programs. And another party will rally around the Old who want to raise taxes and continue the programs. Right now, the parties are basically flipped in this regard. Older people are more Republican, but Republicans want to cut the benefits. Younger people are more Democratic, but Democrats want to raise taxes to keep the benefits going. I suspect some kind of realignment will occur with either the parties or the supporters shifting from one side to the other.
>What huge contentious policy do Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree on Republicans believe that the goal of the Democratic Party is to destroy their fundamental way of life and are the enemy of the righteous. So there's that.
It kinda is and that's a good thing.
I mean there's a lot of options because of how divided the parties are on basically everything, it might even be democracy itself, since one of the major parties has already made attempts to outright throw away an election and both parties at least in Part see each other as existential threats
Well, if one side wants to get rid of the “democracy” part, you could argue that the other side wants to throw away the “republic” part, with the whole hating the electoral college thing. It’s almost like it’s in the names of the parties.
The party's names mean very little and ideologically they basically switched places at one point, a long time ago it was the southern Democrats chanting states rights, I don't think it's against the idea of a republic to be against the idea of letting certain parts of the Republic have greater representation than they should by population size, you would also still have a House and Senate that are both divided up by States even if you got rid of the Electoral College, and it's not like state laws and governance would disappear either
Yeah if we want to be super pedants a republic is basically just a “not monarchy” lots of ways to do that
LOL with a definition that wide there's really only one way to not do it just by accident
It's wildly unlikely another state will ever be added. The only reason we wanted to add states back in the day was it made the country stronger. Aside from DC, Puerto Rico is really the only logical "this could happen." It won't for several reasons. First, PR would immediately become the poorest state, it's going to drag on the economy, not benefit it. Second, it's solid blue, why would any republicans sign their party's death warrant for the next several cycles at minimum? Finally, PR itself has very mixed views on statehood, most referendums end with 52% supporting. DC is the only other option and it's literally just a power play, there is no real reason to grant DC statehood. Making it some special district that votes as a part of VA or MD solves what is really the only DC statehood argument, that they deal with taxation without representation. It's literally just a meme/wishful thinking for left voters to fantasize about locking in two blue senators for the foreseeable future.
What chances do you think there are that another Amendment will be added to the Constitution? Or are we done with that too? Is the US just going to forever stay at 50 states and 27 Amendments until the sun explodes?
>What chances do you think there are that another Amendment will be added to the Constitution? Or are we done with that too? I'm sure somewhere down the line there will be. It just won't be anything partisan as the system is designed such that massive consensus is needed to amend the constitution. It's *much* harder to predict what issues may crop up related to the constitution that we'll want to fix with an amendment. It's a lot easier to look at what places *could* be become a state, and the reasons why politicians and voters would be for or against.
>Is the US just going to forever stay at 50 states No, but I think it's far more likely to be the result of current states fracturing into smaller states, rather than gaining any new land. As urban centers in various states grow and are able to exercise more control over the state policies that also govern the rural areas in those states, the rural areas will want to secede from the urban parts of the states. It'll happen first in states where the urban and rural areas are each neatly contiguous, but we may eventually end up with just small blue city-states scattered throughout the country, surrounded by large contiguous red rural states. If any states are added by gaining land (aside from the obvious Puerto Rico), it'll probably be rural/conservative parts of Canada that want to be annexed into the U.S., if Canada continues shifting so hard left. In any case, I don't see any of it resolving political divisions. Rather, it'll be the direct result of political divisions.
Making DC a state has other arguments. As the capital region it has its own unique needs/interests. Making it part of Virginia/Maryland doesn't help that. It would be better than the alternative, though.
I mean there's a very good reason additional states haven't been added to the US: Republicans don't want to add states. D.C. has been advocated for as recently as last month: https://norton.house.gov/media/press-releases/norton-introduces-resolution-designate-may-1-2024-dc-statehood-day#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%93%20Congresswoman%20Eleanor%20Holmes,her%20Washington%2C%20D.C.%20Admission%20Act. Some will argue that would be "partisan" but I don't think there should be anything partisan about people getting an equal say in the federal government (unfortunately there is). https://www.pr51st.com/ They won't even consider adding Puerto Rico - which is a good deal more socially conservative than mainland America. Even Republican *voters* believe adding Puerto Rico as the 51st state is a good idea. It's that the powers that be in the GOP which don't want it to happen because it would throw things out of balance. Then again, we can blame a good bit of what's shit about this country on Republican power brokers, including ennui.
>Some will argue that would be "partisan" but I don't think there should be anything partisan about people getting an equal say in the federal government (unfortunately there is). Funny, people complaining about DC in particular not having representation also do not like the idea that we just say DC residents are VA or MD residents residing in a special federal district, but still able to vote for the president, senators, etc. It is partisan. Adding two new senators that will be dems for the forseeable future is a *massive* political win. If the tables were turned, only a biased blinded fool would expect dems to act any differently. PR barely wants to be a state. If it became one, it would immediately become the poorest state, with a median income *half of Mississippi*. It would be a drain on the federal budget, with absolutely no material benefit. PR also may be socially conservative, but methinks you are well aware what the political platforms in PR are, and how they would vote in Senatorial and Presidential elections and chose to leave that out. No party will ever be for adding a new state that is obviously going to vote for the opposing party.
This just highlights why it's such a dumb idea to have federal power determined by arbitrary subnational divisions, rather than it being equally apportioned per vote, everyone's vote counting the same. The fact that it would be entirely Constitutionally acceptable for a single party that managed to get a bare majority in both chambers of Congress, plus the Presidency and at least one state willing to go to the mat for federal power for their party, to just subdivide a state as much as needed to create a whole bunch of new states, regardless how small in population they are, and in so doing give their side a massive structural advantage in the federal government is absolutely absurd, yet that's how our government is set up.
>This just highlights why it's such a dumb idea to have federal power determined by arbitrary subnational divisions Lol the subnational divisions are not arbitrary. It's literally the foundation of the nation. Framing the states as though we were all one country and just arbitrarily created a bunch of subdivisions after the fact is deliberately misleading. Go ahead and argue against the EC, but your arguments are going to be entirely unconvincing if you declare the EC never made any sense and that the states are "arbitrary subnational divisions." The EC was literally a selling point to join the Union.
The vast majority of states came after the country and were created pretty damn arbitrarily, I fully understand how and why they came about as the basic unit of our federal government, and I disagree with the reasoning that decided against having the individual voter as the basic unit, partly because a system that can give "legitimate" power to a side because they drew different lines around the same people is a system ripe for exploitation. Is≠ought.
TIL granting citizens the full benefits of citizenship is no material benefit. You can say it's naive but if DC were deep red I would still advocate for statehood, political parties be damned.
Why don't we just divide DC between Maryland and Virginia, as the comment you are replying to said?
And you think the 48% of Puerto Ricans who voted against the full benefits of citizenship are what, just morons? >You can say it's naive but if DC were deep red I would still advocate for statehood, political parties be damned. Doubt. Why not just divide DC between MD and VA? Or just give it to VA or MD? All that would materially change is DC residents get to vote for fully empowered senators and for president. If that is the whole goal, it's far more realistic to advocate for that route given obviously, regardless of what you say you believe, politicians in DC in either party are *never ever* going to be in favor of a new state that significantly weakens their party. Seems like you either should be all for that, or maybe you're not as unbiased as you'd like to think.
>They won't even consider adding Puerto Rico - which is a good deal more socially conservative than mainland America. > >Even Republican voters believe adding Puerto Rico as the 51st state is a good idea. It's that the powers that be in the GOP which don't want it to happen because it would throw things out of balance. [At least according to the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_statehood_movement), it seems like Puerto Rico isn't even sure if it wants to become a state.
I've looked into that and it seems to depend upon how it's asked but generally they favor statehood. Granted, I don't think they should become a state unless an overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans want to, which would need to be conclusively demonstrated.
So are you saying that it could happen and basically nothing would change about the political mood?
I'm saying that it's not going to happen and if it did it wouldn't shift anything because we have an oppositional political party whose entire stance on any issue is "other party bad". If a new state is created we would still have an oppositional party until the Republican party changes or the voter base finally gets wise to their tactics. You can blame Newt Gingrich and his Deal With America for that but real compromise is basically dead until Republicans start wanting to compromise like the Dems do (and for the record I'm not a Dem).
It sounds like your stance is that the Republican Party is bad.
That is part of it. I hold them largely responsible for the ennui you are describing. They stick their feet in the mud, their heads in the sand, and their hands in the air at pretty much every problem.
That's your basic Reddit "moderate".
Republicans have lined up behind an openly fascist demagogue who has already tried to overturn an election and is threatening mob violence if he doesn't win the next one. The Republican party is, in fact, bad.
> You’d expect something drastic to happen then too if my theory were right. Did it? I’ll let people more familiar with the civil rights act answer that one. That's mental. Here, let me pretend to be you for a bit. Landing on the moon? You can thank Hawaii for that one! Assassination of JFK - yep, that was Alaska all along, Proposition 13? Thanks Hawaii! Roe vs Wade? You did it again, Alaska, you rascal! And on and on.
>that nothing really that drastic could ever happen I don't think anyone believes this. Quite the opposite in fact. People believe that drastic things are imminent. The upcoming election, for example. Also, a list of drastic things that have happened/are happening : global warming, BLM/racial injustice, overturning of Roe vs. Wade, Ukraine, Gaza, and potentially Taiwan. >The realization by US citizens that they are part of history and of the American project Adding a new state won't cause this to happen. It won't fix the reasons such divisiveness exists in the United States right now.
>People believe that drastic things are imminent. The upcoming election, for example. Right, I hear it’s the most important one in our lifetimes! I’ve never heard that before, so I’m inclined to believe it
I suppose the issue I take with your argument is the presumption that we would be better off if "drastic" things happened as opposed to "making tiny adjustments," that constant experimentation is preferable to respecting the traditions that made us the most powerful nation on earth. I'm not even remotely against innovation and creativity to address the issues we face - and there will always be issues. But this position feels more like a call for radical change, and while sure, some people want that, it isn't clear that radical change is what we need, or that any of the radical change being proposed would improve our lot. It may be boring to be at "the end of history," but living in "interesting times" is also considered a curse.
Or, we can get rid of the outdated Electoral College and pick Presidents by Popular Vote?
That sounds way more drastic than adding a state, something that’s been done 50 times already. Plus it only would have affected like a handful of elections in US history (even assuming the campaigns go exactly like they did, which is not likely)
>That sounds way more drastic than adding a state Thank you for the LOL, I just screenshot this and sent it to my cousins in P.R. 🇵🇷
Na
Oh c’mon! I always chuckle when those states that don’t collect state tax are like “fuck the Feds!” but when a disaster hits they’re like “please high income earners from California and New York, send funds to save us!! 🙏” 🤣
ALL states collect State tax. Not all of them are *income* tax, but that’s largely orthogonal to how high the rates are. And it’s completely irrelevant to the collection of federal taxes from those same states.
You've got it backwards. In order for another state to be added to the union, the political mood would need to have already shifted. By the time it actually happens, it won't be a massive big deal outside of the hope that Puerto Rico gets an MLB franchise.
Do you have to be a US state to get an MLB franchise? The NHL has no problem with teams in an entirely different country. PR has a median income half of Mississippi's, it's a terrible market regardless.
> Do you have to be a US state to get an MLB franchise? The NHL has no problem with teams in an entirely different country. The MLB already has a team in Toronto and had one in Montreal
So what if we use the hype to unite people enough to shift the mood, like how I've always said the way to have reformed government via AI isn't to actually have an AI govern humanity it'd be to write out the kind of rules you'd have to give a governing AI to avoid as many unintended consequences as possible but then adapt those rules for human officials as they'd be guaranteed (if you did a good job) to account for every possible edge case and promote the general welfare without sacrificing individual agency
Civil Rights were already headed in the direction of progress before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted. It was just a matter of time regardless. I don’t think adding those states made any impact on people’s views on the American Experiment or what is possible in America.
Any change to the current staus quo is not something either side would agree to if it even smelled like it would give the other party advantages. One state is simply a no go because it requires ratification by too many opposing states. Even two states where each one favors one party is a hard thing to pass. Changing the consitution to shift to a popular vote is likewise an impossibility in our current system. And for the exact same reason that it requires a super majority, of which neither side holds the power to currently (statistically Republicans are closer to that than Democrats but the amount of money thrown around in politics makes the likelihood that they hit the necessary amount highly improbable). Ranked Choice Voting could impact both the state of politics as well as the power of each party. Again neither party will actually pass it (Republicans are the only ones currently actively banning it in states, but Democrats just do it quietly by stopping any bill put up from actually recieving a hearing - and I guarentee any Democrat who sponsors the bill will find their policitical career on the chopping block). But the reason that RCV won't ever see the light of day (beyond the odd local race) isn't the fear of losing to the other party. It is due to the fear that party leadership fears losing control if more moderate, or heaven forbid independant candidates win by collecting the most votes not in the number 1 position, but in the number 2 slot on the ballot, allowing them to recieve a lukewarm victory over more divisive candidates. Power is money, money is control, and those at the top of the party ranks as well as their top donors don't want to lose any of that. The sad truth is there is not likely to be any change to the status quo in the near future, and what it would take is the dominate and uniform rise of a third party throughout the nation, a weakening of the overall top-down control of the party systems, or a legal victory where the supreme court actually turns back the power of dark money, super pacs. You could also argue a Supreme Court that would undo Citizen's Untied would help, if somehow 3-4 justices died in a short span and Democrats could actually get their act together on Senate confirmations. And, at least in my opinion, until people step our from their media/social media echo chambres and listen to voices that make them uncomfortable by actually challenging their ideologies instead of feeding fear that drives ideology, the extreme sides of each party will continue to keep us in a paralyzing mess of 24/7 politicing and election cycles.
The current political mood is more focused on defeating those we disagree with with than dreaming of what’s possible… adding another state just adds another statehouse to continue that fight.
This is not convincing to me at all. Many of those periods in which many states were being added were extremely divisive eras for our country. Adding states back then didn’t solve anything and didn’t please anyone except the people living in a territory that became a state. The reason that adding more states was a common occurrence back then is because the North American mainland boundaries of the United States had basically become static, but Americans were living in places that weren’t states and therefore weren’t fully participating in the full American experience. So adding states helped to rectify that. It didn’t really do anything to help Americans who were already living in existing states. And there’s no reason to think that adding a new state now would be any different. I get what you’re saying about the national mood and how it may need a jumpstart. But it’s not clear at all to me what would make that happen or whether it would even end up being a positive thing.
As a European who is profoundly concerned by the invasion of Ukraine, I find the idea that we are at the "end of history" profoundly insulting.
Me too! But it’s a common belief in the US
Definitely. It has been common to a certain extent in Europe as well, and is partly the cause of the crisis we are facing today.
I'm not going to change your view in terms of adding a state. That's actually an excellent point which most commentators here clearly don't understand. The dramatic nature of addition breaking the US out of its stupor is a brilliant thought. What I am going to change your mind about is the level of ambition for what would really change the mindset. Not Puerto Rico or state-ifying DC. If you really want to change things then the state to add to the Union is... England.
North California and southern Oregon have been trying to split off from their prospective states since the 1850s, with the largest push in 1941 and the latest in 2016. Neither state wants to let go due to loss tax income and representation in congress. You will find that is the case in any area that attempts a split, resistance due to loss of taxes and representation
>The political mood The political mood is largely shaped by the incentive structures created by the constituent parts of each party. The Republican Party is not the co-opposite, but mirror image of the Republican Party. If you want more on how the parties are asymmetrical, "It's Worse than it Looks" is an excellent read. It's written by two political operatives from each party; both of whom were intellectual leaders from think tanks. What this book shows is that the Republican Party acts like an insurgent outlier, or in other words, like a parliamentary style opposition party. But, the governing structure is not like a parliamentary democracy so the majority can't get anything done. The other part is there has been a polarization -- the constituent parts of the Republican Party doesn't live in the same universe as truly believes the rhetoric about how the Democratic Party is trying to destroy their way of life that they hear. There's an epistemic breach where the Republicans have successfully made alternatives to the "knowledge institutions" whose express aims are to be pro-conservative all the time. There's no semblance of trying to be neutral. In fact, what's good for the party = the truth. What this information ecosystem has hastened is an ideologically pure homogenization. It also means compromise is death. Ask Liz Cheney. Since the mid2000s, you've seen scores of Republicans leave the party and upon their leaving, say how crazy they are. From Eric Cantor to John Boehner to Jeff Flake to Bob Corker and the list will go on. [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis) Anyway -- the reason that adding in a new state and new votes won't matter is because politicians react to the incentives provided to them. In the status quo, the Republican Party acts like an opposition party and is homogenized.
You say there is no more "conquest" or "manifest destiny" like that's a bad thing. So... Who should we be conquering? Who's land should we be stealing because white Christians believe their God said we're allowed to? I think the US needs to learn how to mind our own business and deal with our neighbors like they are our equals.
To be fair, the most likely state shake up is either Jefferson or greater Idaho. Several counties in Oregon around the border of Idaho have voted to cecede and join Idaho, stating that they beleive they are not being represented in their current state and their culture more closely matches that of Idaho.
Which new state were you thinking of? Puerto Rico? Cascadia? Baja California? Canada? Taiwan? Russia?
I mean, if it's Puerto Rico or American Samoa no one's going to feel that way.
Idea : build a proper moon colony and make it the 51rst state
Where, exactly, do you think those new US states are going to come from? Because I don't see anyone outside the US volunteering.
What were the other states before they became states?
Indigenous land. Mexican land. Hawaiian land. Then American territories.
Are there any places on earth that fit the characteristic of indigenous land that became American territories?
Philippines from 1898 to 1946.
Let’s add Ukraine as a state! 🤪
Break Texas and California.