Since his re-election, Donald Trump has received much attention for neo-annexationist proposals he made on social media about the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada – including hours after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation. Also included. A day later, he threatened to use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st US state.
For a professed anti-interventionist, it is strange that Trump is enthusiastically adopting the ideas of the era of intense US imperialism.
Maybe this is what Trump is going for. Perhaps he is trying to revive the expansionist spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and James Polk.
Canadians who have paid attention to their history lessons will recognize some neo-Polism in these designs – a call to “54-40 or fight” for the 21st century.
mild reactions
Not surprisingly, Trump’s annexation proposals have been rebuked by the leaders of Panama, Greenland and Canada, some more strongly than others. Canada’s response has been mildest at best.
Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the man Trump now regularly mocks as governor of America’s 51st state, posted a 2010 video in which Tom Brokaw, an adviser, explains Canada to Americans.
Trudeau and Canadian cabinet ministers have also sought to meet with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to address Trump’s devastating tariff threats, which are a threat to Canada’s national interests. There is a greater danger than a hoax.
Some Canadians may hold favorable views of the United States, but vanishingly few are interested in making Canada the 51st state.
Still, let’s focus on Trump’s hypothetical. Let us tell you that Canada became the 51st state of the American Union. What will be the election results for America?
Democrats will benefit
Trump and his Republican Party certainly won’t like this answer: The GOP can never win a national election again. In fact, the “State of Canada” would change the electoral map of American national politics almost entirely in favor of the Democratic Party.
To see this, consider how the 51st state would be represented in the institutions of the US government.
Let’s start with the House of Representatives because this is where unifying Canada will be the hardest. In the US, House seats are allocated based on population-by-representation, which, based on the 2020 US Census, means one House seat for every 761,169 people.
With a population of 41 million, Canada would get about 54 seats, making it a larger state than California. Combine those 54 House seats with the two senators allocated to each state, and you have an electoral powerhouse north of the 49th parallel. None of this will be good news for Republicans.
Of course, this is assuming that merger would overcome American political fights over reapportionment and redistricting, and that Canada would accept the American constitutional and legal formula for allocating seats that would reduce the 338 House of Commons seats to 54 and That would reduce its 105 senators to two. But never mind.
Most Canadians will vote Democrat
Now let’s look at how Canadians will change the US elections. It would be strange to extrapolate Canadian political culture to American party politics, so let’s make another assumption. Assume that voters on the Conservative Party of Canada will vote Republican and voters on the left of the Conservative Party will vote Democrat.
Normally, it would include supporters of the Liberals, New Democrats, Greens, and Bloc Québécois.
This is where the 51st state has become a big problem for Trump. Since Canada’s right-wing parties united in 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada has won an average of 35 percent of the popular vote. On the other hand, Canada’s left-wing Conservative parties have won an average of 63 percent of the vote over that time period.
In American terms, this means that approximately two-thirds of voters in the state of Canada will vote Democrat and one-third will vote Republican, or a 36–18 vote in favor of the Democrats.
Looking back over the past quarter century, that difference would have turned every Republican House majority into a Democratic majority (except 2010). In fact, leftist conservative voters in the Canadian state will make it even more difficult for Republicans to regain the House majority.
In the Senate, two-thirds of Canada’s left-wing Conservative voters will likely send a pair of Democrats to the Senate. It’s not enough to change the balance of power, but in a world of single-digit margins of victory in the Senate, it’s not trivial. After all, every senator counts, especially for things like Supreme Court and Cabinet confirmations.
Canadianization of the Electoral College
Now comes the big question: How will the Canadian states replace the Electoral College?
Each state has Electoral College votes which is the sum of their House of Representatives and Senators. We also know (with a few exceptions) that the winner of the popular vote in each state takes all of the Electoral College votes in that state. Where will Canada’s 54 Electoral College votes go?
Given Canada’s left-conservative leanings, a Canadian state’s Electoral College votes will likely go to a Democrat presidential candidate every time. This would have tipped the two Republican presidential victories this century (2000 and 2004) in favor of the Democrats, and made Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024 even smaller – so small, in fact, that the American electoral calculus in the extended US is basically Will have changed from.
So perhaps it’s time for Trump to recognize that Canada is a distinct country with its own history and political culture. Even better, Trump can recognize that his nasty jibes trivialize an unnecessary trade war that threatens hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.
Trump may recognize that the countries he angers are part of the strategic network of allies that maintains American power in the world. If that’s not enough for Trump to act seriously, he can at least follow his electoral instincts.
,Author: Aaron Ettinger, Associate Professor, International Relations, Carleton University)
,disclosure statement: Aaron Ettinger does not work for, consult to, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and he has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment. haven’t done)
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