Eighteen

No, this is what we do. 51=17x3. 52=26x2. 53, however is a prime number so it can't be divided.

We make PR a state, Guam, and DC.

AND WE BECOME.... One nation, indivisible.

You have . . . a point.
Squish the Dakotas together and make PR a state, we wouldn't even need a new flag.
- Wymonkota, anyone?
- As a former Dakotan of the north, screw South Dakota aka the lesser Dakota. North Dakota actually pays taxes unlike Switzerland of the us. A joke we had: how do you know you’re in South Dakota? Potholes every quarter mile instead of every mile in the road.
- I like your idea. But instead of squish, I say death match and we detach the loser.
No silly, we COMBINE some of the 18 low-population states so we can go back to 48! One nation 6x8, with a better balance in representation! Or 45 could be nice as well.
- overly positive elementary school teacher voice* "okay low pop states find your buddy." "to make it easier for some of you if your state starts with a cardinal direction congrats you've already got a preassigned merge buddy and new name!"... "ah no Kansas, 'Ar' is not a direction, you and Arkansas wont work you don't even share a border hun" "...unless" Kansouri-Oklasas
- Why combine extant states? Just pull a colonial Europe and draw a whole new map over it! Nuts to "natural boundaries" or "cultural similarities", everyone on the east coast from DC to King's Bay is now part of the State of Midlantic.
- We need to copy Canada: just give up and assign that unpopulated blob as “Northwest Territories “. All done in one move
- Just break a pool cue and force them to fight tbh
This needs to be a meme.
No factors, still divisible.
Guam + Marianas would make more sense, very low populations out ðere

They are exempt from federal income tax.
this is also why the license plates in DC have the slogan “taxation without representation”

God you can't even have colonies anymore, another victim of wokeness

But that would shift the election in favour of the Democrats...

Yes - if the GOP can't survive more proportional representation, they shouldn't.

Potentially. Puerto Rico is also a religious state.
- Religious doesn't MEAN republican, just so happens to be one of the things that usually indicates a Republican.
  I know plenty of smart religious people who are democrats. Most of the draw for the US is Christian nationalism (aka white supremacy) that I think won't work on most in PR.
- Most latinos are religious, or from religious areas, and, I would wager, most are pretty conservative in a lot of ways. However they, as a majority, go for the democratic party.
If it wasn't for gerrymandering and voter suspension they would've been extinct a while back. We might've even had something other than a 2 party system and ranked choice voting. People would be surprised by what could be if we didn't have a greedy minority in a big ass coat pretending we want to see them make all the money while they keep squeezing us for our pennies.
But hey, I should be thankful for my 30k a yr and paying for insurance that'll tell you to forget about surgery just slap a bandaid on it
- Don't forget the electoral college...
  Broken-ass excuse for a democracy that'll be shattered if Trump wins.

They can become a state if they want to. They have voted against it in the past.

Their most recent vote in 2020 results in favor of statehood (not by much). However, Congress has to make it happen, not Puerto Rico.

My understanding is that many Puerto Ricans don't even want statehood.

About 50-60% want statehood, it’s the majority opinion, but a lot of people like not having income taxes
They just want independence iirc
- That’s actually a pretty fringe belief on Puerto Rico

Just take statehood away from North Dakota and give it to PR so we can keep the number of stars and stripes.

Number of stripes isn't going to change; it'll stay at 13.
50 stars is boomer shit. Time for 51.
- Change the number of stripes, too. Add blue stripes, turn the red stripes pink, and ditch the Bald Eagle for a shark.
  Only then will America truly be Woke.
Add DC and make it an even 52
Combine the Dakotas. Combine Montana and Wyoming. Make Puerto Rico a state. Return the vast majority of the District of Columbia back to Virginia and Maryland, save a core that actually contains the Capitol, White House, etc (to retain the point - which was that the seat of federal government is not subject to any state).
- I think you underestimate the political power Wyoming wields. For a clue, take a look at one of Wyoming's largest industries.

I honestly don’t think this would ever get support. Puerto Rico is very republican last I checked so dems aren’t exactly incentivized to vote it in. And republicans don’t want it because that would be fair treatment to a minority so

I’m more interested in PR having representation then how it affects my own opinions.
- Yeah I agree, I meant more the actual lawmakers aren’t terribly incentivized
- If they have enough people for four representatives, then if they stay a territory they ought to get more than the single delegate they have in the House. I don't even care if that would add more siding with Republicans, they deserve more than they have.
Irony of the situation that the same Republican Party hates Puerto Ricans so much. I hope PR folks understand that when repubes say migrants are rapists, druggists, and murderers they also mean you - even though you’re not migrants - MAGA doesn’t give a fuck to the fact that you’re citizens.
- "No no no....he's talking about Haitians, those savages.
  We Puerto Ricans are the exemption. We're special."
Which is why, like in all past state additions, you do it in a way that is balanced based on contemporary divides, like slave vs free states. Puerto Rico and DC at the same time.
I don't think "very republican" is accurate but definitely not as left leaning as Dems like to believe. There is a deep seeded mistrust of government while at the same time high expectations of benefits from the government. ¯(ツ)_/¯ So the bottom line is that you just can't tell which way they would go and that's not a gamble either party wants to take.
Until the population clearly wants statehood or independence, we get the status quo

A better way to say is Puerto Rico has more US citizens than 18 US States. If the goal is to piss off maga that is.

This page from 2020 says 20

https://puertoricoreport.com/population-puerto-rico-exceeds-populations-21-states/

A comment on that linked story says:
Unfortunately, this article is 3 years old and the data is inaccurate. Immigration from PR to USA has been huge in last three years; thus, you should update your data!
- Yeah, But if you look even closer and do the math. They updated that article in 2020. Its four years out of date. Hence the reason why the url has 21 in it and the current version of the article has 20 states but the current number is 18 states.

I am surprised conservatives don’t want to add PR as a state, Republicans would definitely get more reps voting along religious lines in congress

It's because racism
- They'll take the votes. They just don't want to be seen with them.

Kamala should seize on this and say she'd push for statehood, if not for anything other than to watch Republicans say they would oppose it.

Dems don’t want it to have statehood either. It would make Puerto Rico less exploitable, and the donors don’t want that.

Surprised at 18, but guess it's not that surprising.

It's not hard to beat Wyoming in population especially.

why not oppose US colonialism and support Puerto Rican independence instead of statehood?

25% of their GDP is federal money given by the US government and they have $37 Billion in public debt. Independence would demolish their economy right now. They would need a long onramp (or offramp, as it were) to make that work, but if it's what they wanted to do, I would certainly support it.

i thought this would be a reference to the Alice Cooper song. but yeah, I support statehood for Puerto Rico.

Puerto rico should be finally freed from the the chains of the united states. Only the white man is free in the US and seems like this still holds true.

They'll be granted statehood. But in order to compromise with Republicans, the votes of Senators and House members from Puerto Rico will only count as 3/5ths of a vote on the House or Senate floor.
That would be fine, but it would be a hard transition. PR holds a lot of public debt and is almost entirely reliant on federal funding for healthcare, education, infrastructure, and disaster relief. If it was made an independent nation today it would be disastrous for almost everyone on the island. Becoming a self-sufficient polity doesn't require independent nationhood first. It would seem the first step would be to become self-reliant as a nation, and then seek independent nationhood after that has been achieved, or at least until the groundwork is established. 25% of PR's GDP right now is pure federal funding given by the US government. That size of a blow to the economy of PR would be horribly awful for the people.

DC also has more people than 2 states. Basically if you take the top 52 subdivisions of the US by population, the only 2 that aren't states "just so happen" to be the two with the highest minority populations.

just make all the minorities leave those places duh
then we don't have these pesky demographics to flare up on us
Well, DC was very explicitly created so that the capital would not be in any state, so while they should get senators and representatives, they should not become a state.

My family and friends who are Puerto Rican talk about this nonstop. People in gov positions who are Puerto Rican also being it up.
Most of the time it's brought up, it's never been newsworthy.

It would be more democratic if Puerto Rico had the same congressional representation as a state. Same with DC. Also, maybe the number of senators for every state should be proportional to population, again to make things more democratic.

Does anyone support this at the federal level currently?

Didn't they recently vote to not become a state?

Not as such, but it wasn't clear cut either. Partly due to the ballot language, it says.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_statehood_movement
Although the previous two referendums (November 2012 and June 2017) also had ostensibly pro-statehood outcomes, The New York Times described them as "marred, with ballot language phrased to favor the party in office".
For example, the fourth referendum, held in November 2012, asked voters (1) whether they wanted to maintain the current political status of Puerto Rico and, if not, (2) which alternative status they prefer. Of the fifty-four percent (54.0%) who voted "No" on maintaining the status quo, 61.11% chose statehood, 33.34% chose free association, and 5.55% chose independence.

Never happen. If it got enough support from the people, it would make it to the supreme court and be blocked

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States
The supreme court would have to get pretty fucking bold to weigh in on this as it is a clearly defined power of congress.
Then again its not like there are any fucking checks on power of the supreme court anymore as 2/3's of congress is required for fucking anything, which will never fucking happen on any topic ever again.
- I keep saying it: they need to abolish the size limit of the House. It's been frozen for 100 years while the US population has exploded. The result has been less representation for urban areas and more for rural, both in Congress and when deciding president via the electoral college. You actually normalize it so everyone's voice is heard equally? Congressional gridlock goes away. "Stolen" elections go away.

Puerto Rico should be it's own country.

Why not a state? Seems silly to think they'd want to build up their own military and international relations.
- I can see why some would want to be independent. There are downsides to being in a fixed currency union with the US. Inflation that's driven by a booming economy on the mainland can drive up prices in PR, even if there isn't a corresponding economic boom there to justify it. Puerto Rico currently has to endure the Jones Act, which substantially drives up the price of goods shipped there from the US mainland. They wouldn't be subject to it if they were an independent country.
  You mention a military, but as an independent country, they wouldn't actually have to field a big military. Look at the other states in the neighborhood. The Dominican Republic is a good model. They currently spend about 0.7% of their GDP on the military, the US spends about 3.5%. And that's what they spend sharing a giant land border with Haiti, a completely failed state. Most of their military is on that land border trying to keep people from coming across. As a whole, military spending in Central America and the Caribbean is quite low. The whole area is in the US's backyard, and the US is never going to accept some other nation going on a warpath through the Caribbean. If tomorrow some later-day Napoleon takes over the Dominican Republic, and they decide to invade island after island in some grand imperial war, the US is not going to sit back and just let that happen. For the independent nations of the Caribbean and Central America, the US's generations-long policy, overt or covert, is, "don't worry too much about overt military threats from your neighbors. If anyone actually threatens your borders, we'll stop them. Stay in our trading sphere and don't ally with adversarial powers to the US, and your security is assured."
  Realistically, an independent Puerto Rico would have zero external military threats to worry about. What limited military it would need would mostly be spent protecting its territorial waters from illegal exploitation, or in preventing migrants from coming in from nations undergoing severe political discord. But if anyone ever tried to invade them, the US would certainly step in.
  In fact, their only serious threat from invasion would come from the US itself. If an independent Puerto Rico decided for some reason to seriously ally itself with China, and let the Chinese Navy set up a huge base on the island, or something similar, they could end up as a second Cuba.
  But as long as they don't do that, they would face few security threats. Realistically, like other island states in the area, an independent PR would need very little military spending. Hell, the US would likely pay for the entire PR military through generous security assistance grants provided in exchange for letting the US keep military bases on the island.
  If the citizens of PR want to go full Cuba - seize all the tourist and other assets held by mainland investors, become friendly with Russia/China, go fully overt socialist or Communist? In that case, independence would likely turn out very badly for the future of the island. But if they want to become independent, but just take on a roll very similar to the other independent island states in the area? - Remain friendly to the US, keep trading with the US, largely rely on the US for protection from overt military threats, etc? They could actually do quite well by independence.
  Of course, there are advantages to statehood as well. Having your citizens fully eligible for all forms of federal assistance, when your population's average wealth and income is well below national averages? That has some advantages. It would allow PR to give welfare benefits to their poorest people at a level of generosity that they could never afford to do as an independent state. Plus having representatives and Senators can't hurt. Smaller states often are able to divert federal spending to within their borders in exchange for a vote in the Senate.
  So really, I can see valid arguments on both sides. But personally, I think it's time we settle the matter. I'm in favor of Congress passing a law which directly forces the issue. Pass an act that grants either full statehood or full independence to Puerto Rico - and make it entirely contingent on a final binding referendum. I think territories like PR are an anachronism in this day and age, and I think the US needs to get out of the business of holding heavily populated territories. I think our territories, at least those with any more than a trivial number of people on them - should either be granted independence, be fully integrated as proper states, or be folded into existing states. I don't mind some tiny rock with 5 people on it remaining a territory indefinitely, but we shouldn't have territories where thousands of people live on them without full representation. I'm in favor of passing laws that force the issue on all of our present territories. Personally I would be fine giving the US Virgin Islands the choice - join PR in statehood or become independent. For the ones in the Pacific, the choice could be - join Hawaii or become independent. Or maybe we could just fold all the remaining non-Hawaii states into a single new state called "The State of Outlying Pacific Islands". I'm sure the first act of that state's legislature would be to come up with a better name for the place.

Anything is a colony of you call it that.