# Trump claims Canadians want to be the 51 US state. Canadian dopers any thoughts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [January 8, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730 "2025-01-08T17:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/21 "2025-01-08T19:18:48Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > My first response was, “I clearly didn’t move far enough away from the US.” As someone who is a US citizen who’s currently considering a move to Canada to get away from Trump, this is the first thing that popped in my mind…“Canada is not far enough away”…lol. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/22 "2025-01-08T19:19:21Z")
**Trump claims Canadians want to be the 51 US state. Canadian dopers any thoughts?** 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 > [@LSLGuy](#): > > With the exception of leaving the populated part of Alberta as a single state to minimize its influence. 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/23 "2025-01-08T19:27:40Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Isn’t this expansionist bullshit what we were fighting in WWII? How the fuck did we end up as the bad guys? We started down that path when Dick Cheney became the shadow president, starting wars and ‘renditioning’ enemy combatants at GITMO without charging them with any crimes or allowing adequate due process. And it isn’t as if that was an aberration; Obama extended or initiated new covert wars using special operations and drone strikes, trying to keep it as quiet as possible. Trump is just the first leader to come out as full-on dictator (“Only on Day 1” because we all know how autocrats give up power and control, right) and start threatening other allies while snuggling up to Vladimir Putin. Even if it is pure trolling, the disruption to strategic alliances and alienation of firm military and strategic partners just serves to undermine all credibility. Trump’s ‘strategy’ seems to be “Let’s just set random things on fire and see what develops.” Stranger ---
**Author:** ![LouMa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/louma/32/19472_2.png) [@LouMa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouMa)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/24 "2025-01-08T19:32:33Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > As someone who is a US citizen who’s currently considering a move to Canada to get away from Trump, this is the first thing that popped in my mind…“Canada is not far enough away”…lol. Doesn’t help to go as far as Greenland…or Panama… ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/25 "2025-01-08T19:34:10Z")
> [@This\_Just\_In\_2](#): > > I hate America’s voting preference - and I hate him repeatedly stating this BS about taking over Canada. It reminds me of how Russia talked before invading Ukraine. At least Putin makes an effort to fabricate some kind of historical claims on the Ukrainian territory, and explaining why Ukranians and Russians are really one people who are better off together. Of course that’s a flimsy farce, but nowhere near as outrageous as Trump just saying Canada should be ours, like it or not, because that would be really cool. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/26 "2025-01-08T19:38:18Z")
In hindsight, it would be better if Dems had passed a law that said the US can’t acquire any more territories until it’s given statehood to its currently stateless territories. You want to annex Alberta? Don’t even talk about it until Puerto Rico is a state. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/27 "2025-01-08T19:43:10Z")
“Canada today is made up of 13 states (they call them provinces and territories) one of which is monolingual French, another bilingual and 3 with an assortment of Inuit languages. Does President-elect Trump want to force American citizens to learn French?” “Ontario currently has 24 times the number of Senators as the smallest territory in Canada does. Is President-elect Trump proposing that California, Florida, and Texas be granted additional Senators proportionate with their population?” ETA: Canada is almost irrelevant to this conversation (though not to this thread of course). Democrats should be attacking unpopular parts of Trump’s plans. This is a target rich environment. Reporters should be asking questions like the above. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/28 "2025-01-08T19:48:21Z")
Naw, he’d just tell Quebec to speak English, like God and Jesus intended. Good point, though. Quebec would never go along with any plan to make Canada part of the US if it meant having to give up French. That’s roughly one-quarter to one-third of Canada’s population right there. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/29 "2025-01-08T19:53:19Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > We started down that path when Dick Cheney became the shadow president, starting wars and ‘renditioning’ enemy combatants at GITMO without charging them with any crimes or allowing adequate due process. And it isn’t as if that was an aberration; Obama extended or initiated new covert wars using special operations and drone strikes, trying to keep it as quiet as possible. You can go back a few years to [Reagan and Grenada](https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/conyers-v-reagan). As long as the whole operation is faster than getting to a courtroom, there’s no recourse. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/30 "2025-01-08T20:28:54Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > You can go back a few years to [Reagan and Grenada](https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/conyers-v-reagan). As long as the whole operation is faster than getting to a courtroom, there’s no recourse. Grenada (and although you don’t mention it, the 1989 US invasion of Panama) were extralegal and unjustified invasions based upon the most flimsy of pretenses (and of course, the completely illegal and risibly inept conspiracy of the Iran-Contra Affair in support of the Contra ‘rebels’) were certainly an abeyance of supposed democratic ideals that the US purportedly stands for, but it can be argued that they fall into in the realm of ‘realpolitik’ and more or less in line with other ‘adventures’ the United States has previously embarked upon, and of course in neither case were these nations occupied continuously for years. The invasion of Iraq (even the first one in 1991, and of course our utterly baseless 2003 kurfluffle) and arguably Afghanistan, and the covert extrajudicial killings, including at least one case of killing a US citizen in a drone strike, are (along with the Vietnam War), pretty much the definition of illegal war violating the sovereignty of recognized nations without a broad international consensus. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/31 "2025-01-08T22:10:10Z")
Besides, imagine the logistics of somehow policing 40 million people; 36 million of which don’t want to be American. They look like Americans, they talk like Americans, they know American culture and landscape. Hell, a number of them already are embedded in the US. Imagine just a fraction of all those American looking people organizing to disrupt things like gas lines, powerlines, roads, port facilities, subways, etc… I would imagine the state and federal levels would try very hard to clamp down. I would imagine they would move to allow the US military to operate on US soil. Eventually an occupation right on the home front that would grind on for years. It’s fucking annoying trolling but it’s not going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/32 "2025-01-08T22:31:04Z")
If Canada was going to merge with the US, the whole thing being a single state makes no sense. Each province/territory should become a state. My impression is that that would be enough to tip the balance of power in the Senate and electoral college back to blue. If that’s true, then come on down! ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/33 "2025-01-08T22:36:20Z")
As an American, I don’t get the right to decide what Canada should or should not feel about Trump’s blather. All I can do, and not that it does much good, is formally apologize to our northern neighbor for what an absolute @#$%^&\*( he is, and assure you, that at least I personally did not vote for him. And hope one day I’m forgiven. ---
**Author:** ![This\_Just\_In\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@This\_Just\_In\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_Just_In_2)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/34 "2025-01-08T22:39:50Z")
Musing, even in jest, about your President Elect’s unwelcome threats only normalizes that behavior. 0% interest in being part of America’s ludicrous electoral college scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/35 "2025-01-08T22:56:13Z")
By my math, the state of Canada would have about 49-50 electoral votes. I hope Trump is OK with Republicans never ever winning a presidential election or control of the House ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/36 "2025-01-08T22:58:53Z")
“Well, let’s use Puerto Rico and Guam as templates for Canada. Problem solved!” Why is Canada not calling to make the US the 11th province? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/37 "2025-01-08T23:01:54Z")
Because we don’t want the US. Or at least, not all of it. We might be persuaded to accept New England, the west coast, and perhaps some of the Great Lakes states. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/38 "2025-01-08T23:01:59Z")
It would be helpful, but it wouldn’t absolutely doom Republicans. If there were 50 more Electors, a candidate would need 295 to win. Trump just got 312. Certainly would have come in handy in 2016, though. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/39 "2025-01-08T23:03:22Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > If there were 50 more Electors, a candidate would need 294 to win. It would still be the same number of electors, because the size of the House is fixed at 435. Other states would lose some of their electors to the state of Canada. The combined population of the US and Canada is about 380 million, which divided by 435 makes about 873,000, meaning that Canada would get 47 or 48 House seats, plus two senators to make 49 to 50 EVs. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730/40 "2025-01-08T23:06:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It would still be the same number of electors, because the size of the House is fixed at 435. Other states would lose some of their electors to the state of Canada. but the size of the Senate would increase, and that would change the number of electors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-claims-canadians-want-to-be-the-51-us-state-canadian-dopers-any-thoughts/1012730.md?page=3)