Since his re-election, Donald Trump has drawn loads of consideration for neo-annexationist propositions made on social media concerning the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada — together with within the hours following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation announcement. A day later, he threatened to make use of “economic force” to make Canada the 51st American state.
For a supposed anti-interventionist, it’s odd that Trump is enthusiastically embracing concepts from the period of intense American imperialism.
Theodore Roosevelt campaigns for the U.S. presidency in 1904.
(AP Photograph)
Possibly that’s what Trump goes for. Maybe he’s making an attempt to revive the expansionist spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and James Polk.
Canadians who paid consideration to their historical past classes will sense some neo-Polkism in these designs — a “54-40 or fight” name for the twenty first century.
Gentle responses
Not surprisingly, Trump’s annexation propositions have been rebuked from the leaders of Panama, Greenland and Canada, some extra forcefully than others. Canada’s response has been gentle at greatest.
Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the person Trump now routinely mocks because the governor of America’s 51st state, counter-posted a video from 2010 by which an avuncular Tom Brokaw explains Canada to Individuals.
Trudeau and Canada’s cupboard ministers have additionally sought an viewers with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to search out away round Trump’s ruinous tariff threats, a far larger menace to Canada’s nationwide pursuits than his annexation bluster.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and president-elect Donald Trump at a dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
(X/@JustinTrudeau)
Some Canadians could have beneficial views of the USA however vanishingly few are excited by Canada changing into a 51st state.
Nonetheless, let’s play out Trump’s hypothetical. Let’s say that Canada grew to become the 51st state within the American union. What can be the electoral implications for the U.S.?
Democrats would profit
Trump and his Republican Get together would definitely not like the reply: the GOP would possibly by no means win a nationwide election ever once more. Certainly, the “state of Canada” would profoundly alter the electoral map of American nationwide politics, virtually completely within the Democratic Get together’s favour.
To see how, contemplate how the 51st state can be represented within the establishments of American authorities.
Let’s start within the Home of Representatives as a result of that’s the place integrating Canada can be the trickiest. Within the U.S., Home seats are allotted on the idea of representation-by-population, which, based mostly on the 2020 U.S. census, means one Home seat for each 761,169 individuals.
The chamber of the Home of Representatives is seen on the Capitol in Washington.
(AP Photograph/J. Scott Applewhite)
After all, this assumes that annexation can overcome American political fights over reapportionment and redistricting, and that Canada would settle for the American constitutional and authorized system for allocating seats that might whittle 338 Home of Commons seats all the way down to 54 and its 105 senators down to 2. However irrespective of.
Most Canadians would vote Democrat
Let’s look now at how Canadians would alter American elections. Grafting Canada’s political tradition onto U.S. get together politics can be awkward, so let’s make one other assumption. Presume that Conservative Get together of Canada voters would vote Republican and left-of-Conservative voters would vote for Democrats.
Typically, this would come with supporters of the Liberals, New Democrats, Greens and the Bloc Québécois.
Right here’s the place the 51st state turns into a giant downside for Trump. Since Canada’s right-wing events united in 2003, the Conservative Get together of Canada has received a mean of 35 per cent of the favored vote. Canada’s left-of-Conservative events, alternatively, have received a mean of 63 per cent of the vote in that point interval.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could also be extremely unpopular amongst Canadian voters, however most Canadians don’t vote Conservative by way of the favored vote. Trudeau waves following his victory speech in Montréal following the September 2021 federal election.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
In American phrases, meaning about two-thirds of voters within the state of Canada would vote Democrat and one third would vote Republican, or 36-18 within the Democrats’ favour.
Wanting again over the previous quarter century, that margin would have turned each Republican Home majority right into a Democratic majority (aside from 2010). Certainly, left-of-Conservative voters within the state of Canada would make it far harder for Republicans to win a Home majority ever once more.
Within the Senate, the two-thirds of Canada’s left-of-Conservative voters would doubtless ship a pair of Democrats to the Senate. That’s not sufficient to change the stability of energy, however in a world of single-digit margins of victory within the Senate, it’s not trivial. In spite of everything, each senator counts, particularly for issues like Supreme Court docket and cupboard confirmations.
Canadianizing the Electoral School
Now comes the massive query: how would the state of Canada alter the Electoral School?
Every state has Electoral School votes which can be the sum of their Home representatives and senators. We additionally know (with some exceptions) that the winner of the favored vote in every state takes all of that state’s the Electoral School votes. The place would the state of Canada’s 54 Electoral School votes go?
Given Canada’s left-of-Conservative leanings, the state of Canada’s Electoral School votes would doubtless go to the Democrat presidential candidate each time. That will have swung two Republican presidential victories within the Democrats’ favour this century (2000 and 2004) and would have made Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024 even smaller — so small, in truth, that American electoral math within the expanded U.S. can be essentially modified.
So maybe it’s time for Trump to acknowledge that Canada is a distinct nation with its personal historical past and political tradition. Higher but, Trump might acknowledge that his churlish taunts trivialize a unnecessary commerce battle that dangers a whole lot of billions of {dollars} and 1000’s of jobs on either side of the border.
Trump might acknowledge that the nations he’s antagonizing are a part of a strategic community of allies that sustains American energy on the earth. If that’s not sufficient for Trump to behave significantly, he might at the least comply with his electoral instincts.
