To be fair, the schisms have been occurring for like 200 years.

Senators in the US senate serve 6 year terms and there are only 2 per state. This means that there is always an even number of senators and they have a lot of time in office before needing to focus on campaigning for re-election. Compare this to the House of Representatives where the terms are 2 years and states get allocated different amounts of representatives based on population.

Other things to note about senators is that there are certain procedural elements in government that only originate or happen in the senate: approving presidential appointees, judges, generals and admirals, authorizing treaties. The senate also has various committees that advise or manage various aspects of governance. Bills, including the budget, must pass both houses of Congress; in the case of the budget, it originates in the House of Representatives but must be approved by the Senate. The Senate has a lot of power to kill/block legislation because legislation requires both houses of Congress to pass it.

Historically, the Senate was the states’ representative in the federal government and, in fact, state legislatures used to select senators. Although senators are now voted for by the populations of each state, they still have a legacy of being “more prestigious” than the House of Representatives and often vote more conservatively (read as deliberate or less reactively).

Candidly speaking, senators are known to become legacies often staying in office for more than 20 years and it is not uncommon frontje children of senators to also become senators. I mention this, because socially senators are often perceived as being part of a supposedly “non-existent” US aristocracy.

Oh, I’m with you. I was just diving really deep into how absurd the 51st rhetoric is on our side.

It is clear that there is no intention of treating Canada fairly and, as you rightly pointed out, annexation would be violent and justifiably so.

I hate that you’re right. Normalization is the goal, but this is far from fucking normal. Even language like “51st state” betrays a wild ignorance of Canada and the U.S. procedures for admitting new states.

As a US citizen, Canada should not become part of the US.

It’s been 77 years since the US admitted a new state and almost 100 since we’ve raised the number of representatives. D.C. residents make up a large portion of the federal workforce and even they don’t have representation in Congress. Quite frankly, there’s no political entity in the US with experience bringing in a new state and all the logistics and legal work that it requires.

There is no path for Canadian annexation where the Canadians will be treated fairly.

If Canada entered collectively as a single state (pure nonsense, but hear me out), they’d get two senators and 1 representative to the house. The apportionments for US representatives would need to be raised to account for 40 million new people, which my guess wouldn’t happen, so instead California and Canada (who have almost equal populations) would just trade off allocations of representatives alternating with New York and Texas. Canada would end up with a lot of representatives in the House this way but wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as adding 20 senators if the provinces entered as individual states.

All said, not all of these seats would go democrat, but the GOP definitely wouldn’t be able to guarantee majorities or stalemates in both houses like they have been for the past 20-30 years. Even if the Trump admin pulled this con off and annexed Canada as a US territory, the GOP would just block entry as a state since I can’t imagine this Congress passing a joint resolution to allow it. Furthermore, Congress doesn’t even have to consider adding a new state even if the population of that territory keep petitioning for it (see ongoing D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood petitions).

Shit would get really complicated when the US has to handle the dissolution of parliament, withdrawal from the Commonwealth, and Quebec.

Oh, right. Golden plates make more sense for cults.

The reading rooms will be filled with golden toilets and copies of Mein Kampf inscribed with Trump’s ridiculous Sharpie signature. Under Mein Kampf you’ll find a print out of the McDonald’s menu and unused Trump casino cocktail napkins.

The stacks will contain nothing but books spray painted gold and autographed copies of The Art of the Deal.

The archives will only contain printed out copies of every tweet and truth-post he’s ever made.

I’m staying out of the whiskey war, but…

Occasionally I liked a cocktail with Cointreau, Tequila and lime on the rocks. I forget what it was called.

This is just a margarita on the rocks, sometimes called a classic margarita. 👍

Well, true. I wasn’t exactly implying that Trump was reading a history book and learned all about McKinley. More like he said, “we should be strong and take land that we want and undo everything Obama and Biden did and tax our enemies and have gold everything,” and someone replied, “oh, sounds like McKinley.” To which Trump replies, “Obama renamed a great president?”

You’re probably right about it just being petty, but…

President McKinley also annexed territory (Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines, Cuba, etc.), implemented insane tariffs, and pushed to keep the US on the gold standard.

Looks like Jackson isn’t the only president that Trump idolizes.

Mainly because they are members of the class of people that will benefit, directly and indirectly, from a Trump presidency.

Knowing this, they aren’t stupid for voting for the person who will enable the gross accumulation of wealth through the systematic deregulation of industries and privatization of government services. There’s one group of people who will benefit from this: the wealthy (who are disproportionately white and male).

The idiots are people who voted for Trump thinking that his administration will result in a net positive for them socially and economically.

Voting against your interests is dumb; voting inline with your interests is not.

And the ‘it’s just a flu!’ people pissed me the fuck off.

I think many people haven’t actually had the flu or have had it after a vaccination or a during mild year.

That shit is awful, and it can and has killed. Hell, 100 years before COVID there was the 1918 Flu Epidemic which killed nearly three times as many people as COVID. So when some chucklefuck prattles on about “it’s just the flu,” my response is always, “that doesn’t make it safer.”

I’ve experienced the language skills of Nederlanders first hand! What I found to be most striking was hearing people having trilingual conversations especially in restaurants where the waitstaff were actively communicating individually with dozens of people in two to three languages.

I’ve tried to keep up with language skills but starting a language in high school or college just didn’t work for me. Especially since the application of those skills prioritizes written communication. I always end up with an understanding of pronunciation, some grammar, and a handful of vocabulary that I can’t actively use.

I don’t think any Americans are judging you too harshly for UK spellings. I think keeping track of all the slang and colloquialisms would be the greater challenge. I was taught “grey” and “colour” as a kid and the only problem I have is with spellcheck. 😂

That’s one way to do it!

I had problems with TSA before because my real ID confused them and they didn’t believe it was a valid US ID. Granted, this was at a regional airport, but it’s literally the ID that complies with requirements set by Homeland Security for the specific purpose of use in airports by TSA.

Edit: and my ID isn’t even from New Mexico!

Your English is also better than people in my family whose ancestors were 18th-century British colonists.

I once had a heated argument with a coworker about where the capital of the US is located. He was of the opinion that Washington state was the capital and Washington, DC was a US city located in Colombia (he also had difficulty understanding that Colombia and Columbia were spelled differently). He wasn’t trolling; when I finally got to a map (pre-smart phone days) and showed him where DC is located, he got really mad.

Interesting take. I’ve always interpreted this phrase as a folksy way of saying a cascade of causality or a progression of responsibilities.

I think this phrase also has origins in extreme poverty, not from extreme wealth. Greed has a lot to do with why the world is shitty but I don’t think that’s the “wisdom” this phrase is trying to express.

Adjusted for inflation, that $0.25 is now equivalent to $68 million dollars, so…

Cue the Scroll Phone^TM.

I can’t even imagine the nightmare UI that would accommodate that type of screen.

Mechanically, I could see a device that has a slide down keyboard and a roll up screen. Functionally, I can’t see how it would be useful for daily smart phone actions like one-handed use or swipe-gestures.

He used a magic stone in the hat to “translate”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urim_and_Thummim_(Latter_Day_Saints)