The benefit to Washington would be to become part of a forward looking, functional nation and leave the gun totin’ fundies with their anachronistic constitution in the rear view mirror.
I see switching to a parliamentary political systems as a plus, although I’d have to get used to it.
But i don’t see Washington wanting to join Canada, nor Canada taking it.
They could have that with independence as well, if they are leaving the United States joining Canada was a province is not their only option.
Dude–why of course it’d be treated differently. Haven’t you ever heard of American Exceptionalism? Yeah, I know, Washington would be Canadian at that point but … so… um… exceptionalism squared!
Ha!
Eh?
I think that might have something to do with America’s rigid two-party system. Where you guys have a legitimate 4 or 5 parties (or whatever) to choose from in your elections, we in the States only have two choices to represent the entire continuum of US politics so it’s much more important that the guy (or gal) from your favorite faction is selected to run. Thus the importance of primaries in the US.
Deleting my original answer (human rights) because I didn’t effectively take heed of the “completely independent” part. Instead I was thinking only of the human rights advantages Canada has over the US. But if WA was independent they could have enacted better human rights themself.
I honestly didn’t know that not having primaries would be a deal breaker to some and we should be re-thinking those processes anyway. Virginia Republicans, for example, flipped the governor’s office without using a public primary.