The NEW Nuclear Option. Puerto Rico and DC Statehood.

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€

So if at some point, Democrats manage to regain control over the House, Senate and White House, if Dems then moved to make Washington DC and Puerto Rico States, Would the GOP finally be done in for? The end to White Nationalists? Would the GOP be able to dupe Puerto Ricans into forgetting all the racist BS and get them to vote for them anyhow? How would this play out?

If this could be the solution to finally being able to shift the country left once and for all, could we do it? Should we do it? I want statehood to Puerto Rico regardless, I just have to wonder what the GOP response would be. Would this force the GOP to abandon their White Nationalists and their" Starve the poor" mentality? How do you think this would change the US?

Me, personally think this would be awesome. US Politicians would no longer be able to pretend like they are beneath them or what happens to them do not matter. After seeing how badly Puerto Ricans were treated after Maria, Republicans would have a reckoning on their hands. I feel that it would finally give us the possibility of being able to get real work done if we no longer had to just worry about defeating the GOP, so that we could then shift focus to getting more progressives elected and better managing the disinformation that is out there.

If Democrats can gain control in Washington for longer periods of time, they won't have to spend all their time just trying to fix what the GOP broke and will be able to actually move forward for once. Currently, the way it has been working is the GOP breaks it, the democrats come back in and try to get it back where it was before. If they actually had longer time in control, they would be able to do more than just get it back to where it was, but actually move forward for once. THAT could be the real difference here, and man, are we going to need it, since we need to impeach like 200+ judges in order to pass ANY progressive agenda in our lifetimes due to just how bad these judges are that Trump and McConnell stuck us with:

 
Last edited:

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male

So if at some point, Democrats manage to regain control over the House, Senate and White House, if Dems then moved to make Washington DC and Puerto Rico States, Would the GOP finally be done in for? The end to White Nationalists? Would the GOP be able to dupe Puerto Ricans into forgetting all the racist BS and get them to vote for them anyhow? How would this play out?
I can't really comment, but from what I can tell, the GOP is basically the party of "white America," or at least, a certain portion of white America. Even if those areas gained statehoods, I don't think it would cause the GOP to change in of itself. I figure that over the next few decades, the GOP either brings itself closer to the centre, does some gerrymandering, or goes extinct.

I don't know what the context is for Washington being a state, but I'm really not sure why Puerto Rico isn't.
 

Elijin

Elite Muppet
Legacy
Feb 15, 2009
2,045
1,007
118
From an outsiders perspective, I don't fully understand why PR isnt a state. Like they pay taxes, right? But they...dont get to vote? Is that right?

If so, wasn't America founded on the rhetoric of "No taxation without representation" ?
I could very well be misunderstanding or outright wrong on details here, I don't know a lot about PR.
 

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€
From an outsiders perspective, I don't fully understand why PR isnt a state. Like they pay taxes, right? But they...dont get to vote? Is that right?

If so, wasn't America founded on the rhetoric of "No taxation without representation" ?
I could very well be misunderstanding or outright wrong on details here, I don't know a lot about PR.
Yea, Puerto Ricans are US citizens, pay taxes, AND if they move to the continental US, they then can vote for President ONLY from another state, which is BS. They do not get to vote in presidential Elections while living in Puerto Rico and their congressional representative doesn't actually get a vote in congress.
I can't really comment, but from what I can tell, the GOP is basically the party of "white America," or at least, a certain portion of white America. Even if those areas gained statehoods, I don't think it would cause the GOP to change in of itself. I figure that over the next few decades, the GOP either brings itself closer to the centre, does some gerrymandering, or goes extinct.

I don't know what the context is for Washington being a state, but I'm really not sure why Puerto Rico isn't.
There is only one reason for this. Racism+ classism. They actually determined that Washington DC has more ground to become a state because it has more white people. Puerto Rico was prevented from becoming a state because it didn't have enough wealthy white people. They made it so ONLY wealthy Puerto Ricans could vote by making it so they had to have enough money to move mainland in order to do so, so the wealthy Puerto Ricans have a home on the Island and the Mainland and can vote that way.

Time to get nauseous:

D.C. was established by the U.S. Constitution to serve as the nationā€™s capital in 1790. Puerto Rico was annexed by the United States in 1898 and has been subject to colonial rule ever since. While statehood may be appropriate for D.C., the same is not necessarily true for Puerto Rico.

The United States claimed Puerto Rico along with Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines as spoils of the Spanish American War. At that time, annexed territories on the continent were automatically placed on a ā€œpath to statehood.ā€ The Constitution applied in full in these territories and their inhabitants were extended U.S citizenship and voting rights. Then, once territories were sufficiently ā€œAmericanā€ in characterā€”meaning enough Native people had been exterminated or dispossessed and enough white people had settled thereā€”the territories would be granted full statehood. Hawaiā€™i, which was annexed the same year as Puerto Rico, but which already was home to a substantial class of white capitalists, was placed on the path to statehood the same as territories on the continent.

By contrast, from the moment the U.S. annexed Guam, the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, statehood was out of the question. Racist conceptions of island peoples as inferior, savage, and strange foreclosed the possibility of statehood in the absence of white settler colonies. But white Americans did not want to move to these ā€œprimitiveā€ islands. With statehood off the table, the question facing the United States became how to effectively maintain dominance over its strategically important new possessions without fully bringing them into the Union.

Ultimately, Americaā€™s ā€œimperial problemā€ was solved by the Supreme Court in a series of blatantly racist decisions known as the Insular Cases.

In 1901, in the leading Insular Case of Downes v. Bidwell, the Court considered the question of whether the Constitutionā€™s requirement that all taxes and duties be uniform ā€œthroughout the United Statesā€ applies in Puerto Rico. The Court decisively answered that no, the taxation provisionā€”and the Constitution more generallyā€”does not apply in Puerto Rico. In the Courtā€™s view, applying the Constitution in Puerto Rico would lead to an absurd result: It would mean that territorial inhabitants, whether ā€œsavage or civilizedā€ would be ā€œentitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens.ā€ This could not be. Clearly, the ā€œalien racesā€ of the territories did not deserve the benefits of ā€œAnglo-Saxon principles of government.ā€

Based on this racist logic, the Court went on to set out what has come to be known as the doctrine of territorial incorporation. In short, the doctrine provides that it is up to Congress to decide whether and to what extent the Constitution applies in territories. If Congress chooses to ā€œincorporateā€ a territory, like Hawaiā€™i, the Constitution automatically applies in full. But in unincorporated territories, like Puerto Rico and Guam, people do not enjoy Constitutional protections unless and until Congress chooses to extend them.

Twenty years later, the Court qualified that territorial inhabitants are entitled to certain ā€œfundamental rights,ā€ but what exactly this means remains uncertain. What is clear is that these ā€œfundamental rightsā€ are something less than those enshrined in the Bill of Rights. For example, territorial inhabitants likely do not enjoy 14th Amendment birthright citizenship. Puerto Ricans and Guamanians are citizens because Congress has given them this status legislatively. But the people of American Samoa, another U.S. territory, are not citizens because Congress has never extended them this status (and many American Samoans feel they are better for it). And, of course, territorial inhabitants do not have the right to voting representation in Congress or the right to vote for their commander in chief.

Grounded in racist notions, all of these restrictions are a product of the territoriesā€™ colonial status. In the words of the Supreme Court, unincorporated territories are ā€œappurtenant,ā€ ā€œbelonging to but not a part ofā€ the United States.

To this day, the racist doctrine announced in Downes v. Bidwell and its progeny has been upheld and defended by the Supreme Court and every presidential administration (yes, even Obama) as an appropriate framework for administering the territories. It was on the basis of this racist doctrine that, in 2016, the Supreme Court held that territories, unlike states (and even Indian tribes) have no independent sovereignty. Rather, they are legally considered to be under the total dominion of the federal government.



SO yea, there it is. Racism+Classism is the only reason why this is still going on this many years later. Current Republicans want to keep it that way, and I really do hope if Democrats ever manage to get them into the states, Puerto Rico will manage to help elect officials who will actually work to help the people in their state rather than throw them under the bus like my states does.
 
Last edited:

Revnak

We must imagine Sisyphus horny
Legacy
May 25, 2020
2,944
3,099
118
Country
USA
Abolition of the Senate would be better, but it certainly would go a long way to making America more democratic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Seanchaidh

SupahEwok

Malapropic Homophone
Legacy
Jun 24, 2010
4,028
1,401
118
Country
Texas
This assumes that Puerto Ricans will automatically flock to the Democrats' banner. That is not so. It has a long history of Republican-aligned representatives and governors, a recent history of the Republicans pushing for PR statehood, and the people of the island themselves are strongly Catholic and very socially conservative. Among other things, they are not likely to vote for the party which supports abortions.

This is without touching how sleezy it is to advocate packing the Senate in the same way liberals are advocating packing the Supreme Court just to get their way. PR deserves statehood on its own merits. If it was guaranteed that they would elect Republican representatives, would liberals still support their annexation?
 

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€
This assumes that Puerto Ricans will automatically flock to the Democrats' banner. That is not so. It has a long history of Republican-aligned representatives and governors, a recent history of the Republicans pushing for PR statehood, and the people of the island themselves are strongly Catholic and very socially conservative. Among other things, they are not likely to vote for the party which supports abortions.

This is without touching how sleezy it is to advocate packing the Senate in the same way liberals are advocating packing the Supreme Court just to get their way. PR deserves statehood on its own merits. If it was guaranteed that they would elect Republican representatives, would liberals still support their annexation?
Bush Republicans pushed for Statehood, however, recent republicans ran off the Bush republicans and denied them statehood once they finally voted to agree to it. Current Republicans are racist and classist and are actively blocking Puerto Rico from statehood and treated Puerto Rico like crap over Hurricane Maria. The vast majority of the Catholics In Congress, however, are actually Democrats, I think there are like around 100 out of the 140 or so Catholics in congress that are Democrats, so assuming they would be GOP isn't accurate.

I agree that Puerto Ricans are socially conservative, that was why I stated this specifically in the OP:

" I want statehood to Puerto Rico regardless, I just have to wonder what the GOP response would be. Would this force the GOP to abandon their White Nationalists and their" Starve the poor" mentality? How do you think this would change the US? "

ALSO, it is important to remember Democrats ARE Catholics:

Currently there are 22 Catholics in the United States Senate, and 141 (out of 435) Catholics in the United States House of Representatives, including the current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.[8] In 2008, Joe Biden became the first Catholic to be elected Vice President of the United States. His successor Mike Pence was raised Catholic but converted to Protestantism later in life.
.

Considering all the underhanded BS that the GOP has pulled in order to lose the popular vote repeatedly, and still take office in addition to their gerrymandering software, I am not seeing this as even being a " sleazy" move. Why should we have anyone in the US not have "taxation without representation" apply to them?

Look at the reason WHY Puerto Rico isn't a state and whoever they wind up voting for later really doesn't matter as much as it is just the right thing to do either way. Hell if Republicans had just voted for them to be a state back in 2000, then they would be more likely to not be pissed at the GOP right now. Though after the way the recent GOP congress has behaved, they have every right to be.

The one thing that is most important here regardless of anything else though is that Puerto Rico deserves to be a state with full constitutional protections and the racist BS needs to STOP. Read post #4 in this thread and tell me otherwise. Yes, liberals should support their annexation regardless. If we ever hope to end systemic racism, we have to get rid of the racism in the system and stop treating humans as sub human. There is no other way to view this knowing WHY they have been denied statehood in the first place.
 
Last edited:

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 16, 2010
18,576
3,532
118
From an outsiders perspective, I don't fully understand why PR isnt a state. Like they pay taxes, right? But they...dont get to vote? Is that right?

If so, wasn't America founded on the rhetoric of "No taxation without representation" ?
Yeah, in the same way it was founded on "all men are created equal" and run by slave owners.
 

Specter Von Baren

Annoying Green Gadfly
Legacy
Aug 25, 2013
5,632
2,849
118
I don't know, send help!
Country
USA
Gender
Cuttlefish
I can't really comment, but from what I can tell, the GOP is basically the party of "white America," or at least, a certain portion of white America. Even if those areas gained statehoods, I don't think it would cause the GOP to change in of itself. I figure that over the next few decades, the GOP either brings itself closer to the centre, does some gerrymandering, or goes extinct.

I don't know what the context is for Washington being a state, but I'm really not sure why Puerto Rico isn't.
I'm pretty sure that it's because they've turned down the offer in the past. Apparently the majority of voters voted for statehood last time it was asked but it is believed only about 20% of their population voted and that the rest boycotted it so who knows how accurate that is.
 

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€
I'm pretty sure that it's because they've turned down the offer in the past. Apparently the majority of voters voted for statehood last time it was asked but it is believed only about 20% of their population voted and that the rest boycotted it so who knows how accurate that is.
That isn't why. Read post#4 above. Racism is the primary why Puerto Rico isn't a state. The supreme court rulings are part of why Puerto Ricans don't take it seriously enough to vote. McConnell keeps fearmongering " socialism!!" as his excuse..

ALL you have to do is read WHY it was refused statehood and constitutional rights for that matter above in post #4 and you no longer "wonder" about it. It is pretty blatant.
 
Last edited:

tstorm823

Elite Member
Legacy
Aug 4, 2011
6,468
923
118
Country
USA
Bush Republicans pushed for Statehood, however, recent republicans ran off the Bush republicans and denied them statehood once they finally voted to agree to it.
They didn't agree to it. They boycotted the vote.
 

SilentPony

Previously known as an alleged "Feather-Rustler"
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
12,050
2,460
118
Corner of No and Where
Go for the easier prey, get rid of the Dakotas and the Carolinas. Why the fuck do we need 2 Dakotas when 1 is already 2 too many.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Gergar12

Tireseas

Plaguegirl
Legacy
Apr 24, 2020
262
117
48
Seattle
Country
United States
Gender
Trans Woman
In the shortterm (10-20 years), probably if the two inductions are successful. Long term, presume nothing. Massachusetts has had Republican Governors and Senators in fairly recent memory. It would likely shift the median senator's demographic to a more suburban electorate, which means some things will improve, but others will not.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lil devils x

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€
In the shortterm (10-20 years), probably if the two inductions are successful. Long term, presume nothing. Massachusetts has had Republican Governors and Senators in fairly recent memory. It would likely shift the median senator's demographic to a more suburban electorate, which means some things will improve, but others will not.
20 years might be enough to fix most of the damage the GOP has done, fix healthcare, make lasting environmental changes and restructure the Judicial. IF democrats could get a solid enough of a majority in that time, they may even be able to overhaul the safety net with Pelosi's and Yang's UBI to address the automated revolution. It is just a matter of gaining enough progressive ground during that timeframe.

Yea, I know it is dreaming to wish for a 2/3rd of congress but if it ever happened, it would make it a hell of a lot harder for the GOP to break some of these things if we amended the constitution to include guaranteeing access to Medical diagnosis, treatment and medication, food, housing, utilities and transportation. The GOP would convulse, but that is all the more reason to do it. If they managed a 2/3 majority in congress and DIDN'T amend the constitution to include a solid safety net, they would deserve to lose after that anyways.
 

Secondhand Revenant

Recycle, Reduce, Redead
Legacy
Oct 29, 2014
2,564
139
68
Baator
Country
The Nine Hells
Gender
Male
It's definitely wrong, I think, to consider this a nuclear option. It's flat out what we should do because Puerto Rico deserves to be on even standing with the rest of the US.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lil devils x

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€
It's definitely wrong, I think, to consider this a nuclear option. It's flat out what we should do because Puerto Rico deserves to be on even standing with the rest of the US.
You are 100% correct. Just try to convince the GOP it isn't a nuclear option though. Everyone in the US deserves the same constitutional protection and the only reason they do not is due to blatant racism. I think it would be " sleazy" not to make Puerto Rico a state, there is nothing sleazy about making Puerto Rico a state.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Secondhand Revenant

Mister Mumbler

Pronounced "Throat-wobbler Mangrove"
Legacy
Jun 17, 2020
1,844
1,692
118
Nowhere
Country
United States
I think it would be " sleazy" not to make Puerto Rico a state, there is nothing sleazy about making Puerto Rico a state.
Well, it might be sleazy if you only do it to "do in the Republican party", though I do support Puerto Rico being admitted into the Union all the way.
 

lil devils x

šŸMore Lego Goats Please!šŸ
Legacy
May 1, 2020
3,330
1,045
118
Country
šŸUSAšŸ
Gender
ā™€
Well, it might be sleazy if you only do it to "do in the Republican party", though I do support Puerto Rico being admitted into the Union all the way.
They haven't been doing that though, they have been trying to get statehood for Puerto Rico for a long time now, EVEN while Puerto Ricans were still voting for republicans. GOP has been running " anti statehood" campaigns in Puerto Rico for a long time as well though. GOP has been able to convince people from voting against their best interests for a long while now.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,025
5,794
118
Country
United Kingdom
Puerto Rican statehood should absolutely happen. It sorely needs proper representation in Congress to prevent the utterly despicable dismissive attitude that Washington has towards it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lil devils x