Puerto Rico in reality "good now everyone can stop asking us to be the 51st"
Political Memes
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
Didn't they also not want to become a state though? Last I heard they mostly wanted to remain a territory.
Every boriken I know would very much prefer independence
Republicans don’t want PR as the 51st state because: PR doesn’t have oil wells & PR has brown people.
Also, it's because Puerto Rico voted 65% for democrats.
Although close the last couple times PR voted, they voted against becoming a state....
I don't think that's correct. They've been voting for statehood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum
My understanding is that historically, the vote has been almost 50/50, but that there have been issues with the question that have thrown up doubts about the validity of the referendum conclusions. Stuff like giving the options of statehood or territory, but not independence, etc. Even the one you linked says that only around half of the population responded and over 200,000 ballots were thrown out for either being blank or invalid.
I had thought that a significant portion of the population had been in favor of independence, especially since we came in and basically destroyed their economy. They had been one of the largest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals in the world before the US, and now I think their biggest industry is tourism, which, as someone who has lived in a tourist town for decades, is not conducive to a healthy economy.
For instance, PR has one "delegate" to the House (not an official voting member) and no senators. Taxation without representation.
That's the kinda stuff people have had to actively ignore in order to be surprised by current events. Like that's straight up a colony. The thing the US used to be before allegedly abolishing the concept.
While I know PR probably isn't down for becoming a state now, we know that if they did have two senators and several house members, we'd be in a lot less shit right now. Hell, how many electrical votes would they have been in 2016 and 2024?
And the District of Columbia, and Guam, and Saipan, and Micronesia, and…
DC should vote for independence.
Puerto Rico could apply for EU membership!
They could become a Canadian province. We'd welcome them in, but wouldn't force them into it against their will.
I would think Puerto Rico is ready to no longer be a commonwealth, much less a state.
Fun battleship fact: all US battleships have been named after states except for one: BB-5, the USS Kearsarge. The original Kearsarge fought in the Civil War and sank the Confederate raider Alabama; ever since then the US Navy has always had a ship in commission named Kearsarge - presumably as a giant fuck you to the South for losing. BB-5 got the name in 1900, forever ruining an otherwise-perfect ship naming convention. For this reason, I support Puerto Rico becoming a state, but only if they rename themselves Kearsarge.