51st state

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Yeah, I know. It's a sensitive time, so hear me out, please.

It's a joke that I have flipped in the past or posted the Canadian version of it: United Provinces of Canada and the Jesusland Confederacy. But it became hollow when tRump began talking about the 51st state. Even then initially I took a joking approach, much as you have, pointing out the EC votes, the extra blue Senators, etc.

But it soon become a sour joke when it became clear tRump is serious so I stopped a couple of months ago.

Right now, tRump has started a war against Canada, a trade-tariff war. Right now, we feel under attack from a country that embraced us until tRump knifed us in the back.

The embrace has always been a mix of a hale-fellow-well-met friendship and a crushing bear hug of US cultural and investment imperialism. Canada has had to work hard and expensively for my whole life to maintain a distinct culture and avoid being swamped and drowned by US culture.

So, I may have over-reacted a bit, but not by much. The "joke" feels like it is part of the attack these days, especially when it seemed to be so cavalierly delivered, as if it were only natural that tRump's claim was right, that everybody in the whole world wants to be American. Perhaps I was overly sensitive, but I do think it would be best if DU Americans had a bit more sensitivity during these times. Ask yourself how you'd react in 2042 if a dominant China was "joking" about making Hawaii, Alaska, and the West Coast provinces of Greater China while the airwaves were filled with C-pop, and executives and school children were all scrambling to take immersion Chinese lessons.