Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, but they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night, and they still buzzed Monday.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is competing with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Shortly after stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe said that, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced he was backing Harris.
After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
I think the cluste4fuck that was the aftermath of the earthquake in Puerto Rico was a unifying moment for America.
Trump’s supporters and haters all agreed that the President of Puerto Rico was a useless, arrogant, son of a bitch.
Reminder: The only reason Puerto Ricans cannot vote is because Republicans refuse to recognize it as a state, and they do that because they don’t want brown people to vote, and they don’t want brown people to vote because they don’t want them to exist.
As much as I hate the GOP, Puerto Rico has never attempted to apply for statehood. Their referendums on the subject have never shown a large enough amount of support for them to try a real vote. They’re typically around a 50-50 split.
What are the main reasons they have for not voting in favour of statehood?
State or not I think its pretty ridiculous that they are american citizens but can’t vote for president of the united states… People living in DC get to vote and aren’t living in a state.
But they choose to not. One of those cake and eat it too scenarios.
A territory like them is eligible for Federal money from various programs, while not having to pay Federal income tax. If they became a state, they’d then have to pay income tax, lose benefit of the free program money, but be allowed to vote.
If you don’t want to fully commit to the whole package and are milking the advantages of being a territory, should you really get a right to choose how the package that is being taxed and giving you free money is steered?
(Oversimplification, of course.)
If I were a member of a territory, I don’t really know where my thoughts would land.
However, as one that is taxed, it seems that allowing the untaxed to choose our taxed destiny would be disingenuous.
Only citizens residing in a state for the majority of the year can vote for federal elections. Basically you need a senator to vote federally. Hawaii and all other states were the same way when they too were territories. All PR needs to do is vote for statehood and then I guess the political shitshow starts as well as flag redesign.
Except we made an exception for citizens that reside in Washington DC. They have no representative in the senate, but were given 3 electoral college votes for president and vice president.
So we totally can (and have) extended the right to vote to citizens living outside one of the 50 states to vote, we just won’t for Puerto Rico. :(
That exception was the 23rd amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-third_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Puerto Ricans as an example don’t meet the same conditions e.g. paying federal income tax. Hence statehood as their option to representation.
After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Your team knew exactly who he is and you specifically invited him to be part of your event.
The Trump team also asked him to remove the word C*** from his set before he went on and he agreed.
The Trump team reviewed his set before he went on and did not have issues with Puerto Rico comments.
I’m wondering what Kimberly Guilfoyle - Don Jrs half Puerto Rican girlfriend thinks about it. I’m sure she’s doing mental gymnastics to justify it.
To be in a relationship with Donny-lite, you would have to be a pretty awful person to begin with. I expect she hates brown people just as much as he does.
I saw a video of the ‘comedy’ that was said about Puerto Rico and I am honestly just fucking baffled as to why they hate them that much? I guess all they need to be to be hated is just be browner than they are.
Also how come the issue of Trump’s disgusting behavior during Hurricane Maria and his refusal to fully help them beyond a stupid stunt that had him throw a paper towel at someone’s face.
Brown bad
- GOP
The GOP controllers aren’t the racists though. They’re rich, and puppets to the wealthy. In order to remain in positions of power, they create an enemy, in the form of bigotry and racism. Their sheep are racists. This is why though I trust very few politicians, I trust the Dems more atm because they are not using hatred and violence.
I’m not so sure, I bet some (or most?) of them are racist too. I’m sure they play it up, but do you really think they are all that accepting of people of color?
I think they are accepting of themselves and only thmselves so long as their selfishness is to benefit. For sure though, the act of leading people with racist rhetoric is as bad or even worse than racism itself.
I mean, JD Vance is married to an Indian woman.
I was thinking the guy is an idiot and meant to say Cuba but I have no idea. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anybody talk crap about Puerto Rico and it made no sense.
I assumed he meant to say Haiti, which is still awful, but at least it would have kind of made sense…poorly.
A lot of them don’t know that Puerto Ricans are Americans. So, add xenophobia to the racism.
Man when I went to pr for a quick vacation the amount of people asking about passports floored me. I was like it’s a us territory how have you not learnt that in school?
Also I got lots of local pr Spanish slang, they’re chill peeps and mofongo is the best. I think they should get statehood they’re bigger in population than the state I grew up in and it would be nice to shake up us politics with more senate seats.
No. This is NOT shaping the race. VOTE
This changes nothing not a single Trump voter changed their minds. The Trump Puerto Ricans agree with this. They just think it’s the ‘others’ fault.
VOTE
I wish you were wrong
Can American citizens living abroad vote?
Generally yes, but not in Puerto Rico. If they move to the mainland, they can vote for any elections there, but while living in Puerto Rico, they only vote for members of Congress that serve a mostly observational role.
How about someone from new York moving to Puerto Rico vs moving to France?
Unrelated but wow this is strange because I’m a New Yorker who’s lived in PR and moving to France haha.
What the other comment said is accurate though, I could vote absentee in both places, but lose that right in PR if I change my residence - lot of ppl do this for taxes. Afaik I could permanently vote in France as long as I have my US citizenship. Kinda messed up tbh.
But I swear if THIS is the thing that sends Trump’s campaign off the rails hahahaha. I fucking love Puerto Rico and the irony they’d sway as Presidential election is poetic.
They could vote absentee, but eventually they’d lose that right if they stayed in PR.
Yes, they have a right to vote in the state they last lived in (or, if they never lived in one, perhaps the state their parent last lived in?) but unfortunately Puerto Ricans can’t vote in presidential elections.
After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
“All the stuff about you people being vermin that poison the blood of America, though, we meant that.”
What an incredibly stupid thing for them to say. This was an official election rally, and they 100% vetted every joke before he went out there. If they didn’t, they’re incompetent. So either way, their own weak ass defense is damning.
People need to lighten up. I heard his full set and it was hilarious and very young in cheak
Hi. Looking at your recent post history, I think you might be a right-winger pretending to be a socialist who is arguing for not engaging in this election in order to ensure Trump wins. If that is true, you’re unpleasant.
Why are you spamming all my comments?
They told you why.
Well looking at his/her comments, they can’t even vote in this country. lol maybe it’s a Russian bot?
very young in cheak
What.
It’s okay. They edited it to “toung in cheak.” It’s all fixed now. smh.
Heh, I guess it’s an improvement!
Taxation without representation
the nation that started as a rebellion on this is doing the same thing to its own citizens? that’s like building the land of the free using slave labor!
I can just hear those MAGA morons smugly chuckling, “What can they do LOL they can’t even vote, fuck 'em!”
No, fuck you.
Puerto Rico needs to be a state already. Washington DC too.
Puerto Rico periodically votes on whether or not to pursue becoming a state, becoming a state doesn’t win except in one vote that was specifically a non-binding vote on the topic and that had much lower turnout than other votes on the idea.
DC was literally created specifically to not be a state, so that no state held the seat of the federal government.
Tell the Puerto Ricans that, we’re waiting on them reaching 51% in favor.
They reached a majority vote in favor of statehood in the 2020 referendum. We’re waiting on Congress. There’s supposed to be another vote in this general election.
Make them a state, or give them independence. The will of the people of Puerto Rico should decide, but the current status is untenable.
they should be a state. if they become independent the US will fuck them over forever.
Maybe Canada could take it? I’d vote for that.
Well, they’d be thrown in with the rest of islands of the Caribbean on that one. That’s something that should change regardless.
But first you should probably fix those islanders that aren’t even citizens.
Iirc making people citizenshipless is even against international law?
Sadly it’s not like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness
Canada, for example, withdraw the citizenship to children of Canadians that haven’t lived at least 1 year in Canada before 18yo
Which islanders are you referring to?
People born in Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa all have American citizenship (just like Puerto Ricans).
American Samoans don’t get citizenship
https://ballotpedia.org/Citizenship_status_in_territories_of_the_United_States
Ok, technically they are US nationals but not US citizens. They still have US passports, but their passports are slightly different.
International law defines a “stateless” person as neither a national nor a citizen of any country. So the UN Conventions on Statelessness do not apply to American Samoans. Likewise the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights provide guarantees of “nationality”, not citizenship.
not illegal then, you’re right.
But it’s still an absolute shamelessnes that they aren’t even citizens of the country their homeland, their native land belongs to.
they’re not even citizens of a protectorate.
People born in American Samoa generally consider themselves citizens of American Samoa. Even though they have US passports, they can vote for their own government and write their own laws. Including laws that might be overturned by American courts if American Samoans were fully US citizens.
For example, there are restrictions on buying land in American Samoa if you are not a “blood” descendant of American Samoans.
It is prohibited to alienate any lands except freehold lands to any person who has less than one-half native blood…
If a person who has any nonnative blood marries another person who has any nonnative blood, the children of such marriage cannot inherit land unless they are of at least one-half native blood.
In other words, Mark Zuckerburg cannot swoop into American Samoa and buy half of an island.
That’s why it’s not so surprising that the government of American Samoans, as well as a majority of its citizens, is opposed to becoming US citizens. They have seen what happened to native Hawaiians, and they don’t want the same.
Yeah, people can’t have no citizenship.
What happened “no taxation without representation” that the colonists fought for in the war of independence? Apparently it only applies to white people.
Same thing that happened to the WMD in Iraq. And the “good of the people” in Guatemala.
It was a lie from the start, it only ever applied to a few wealthy old white men who didn’t want any cuts to their profit margins after the British fought a costly war to defend them from French and Native retaliation.
If definitely only did apply to white people. And only men.
That’s why they don’t pay federal taxes
While they dont pay income taxes to the IRS, they do pay customs taxes, federal commodity taxes, and federal payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment) to the IRS, which sounds alot like federal taxes to me.
It also feels like it’s something different because they aren’t supposed to go into the general fund, but advance payment for specific benefits
But they don’t have a say in how the money is spent or whether the tax should exist. So it’s still the same issue whether it’s for a specific purpose or whether or not they benefit from it. It’s the freedom of choice that they still don’t have.
There is an attempt to conform to the taxation/representation issue, but it’s never going to be 100%. Non-citizens and foreign entities are going to be subject to certain taxes within the US as well. At a simple level, there’s no way avoid sales taxes. People have to pay sales tax in states they can’t vote in either
Sales tax is different. That pays for the infrastructure to get the goods to market, theoretically. Though admittedly that is not exactly true everywhere, the general idea of sales tax is for economic reasons, not residential.
And of course it’s not going to be 100%, but we’re talking about large portions of the population that were purposely excluded, e.g. women, slaves, etc., in the past, and currently lots of people of all genders and races who live in Puerto Rico, Guam, D.C, etc…
PR alone accounts for over 3 million adults, or about 1% of the US population, with little to no representation, most of them citizens. Wyoming only has about 580,000 people, or about 0.17% of the population, but controls 2% of the Senate, 0.23% of the house, and 0.56% of the presidential election.
bingo
Why does DC need to be separate anyway? Does any other country do it like that?
Edit: yes, a few, but not really any I would look to as role models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_district
It doesn’t, and the reasons for being that way are long in the past. The originally US wanted to avoid any state having the capitol at a time when states were more independent entities than they are now. People weren’t really meant to live there at all. Politicians and there staff would travel in from the surrounding areas. Of course, it’s evolved way past that, and the citizens of DC deserve the full representation of statehood.
Combine the Carolinas and Dakotas, add DC and Puerto Rico. No flag change.
Add DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and we have 53 states. 53 is a prime number, and therefore we would be indivisible.
Got it, so North Carokota, South Dakolina, and DC and Puerto Rico. I think it’s a great idea.
ok but why does carakota go kinda hard
I have no problem with Dakolina either
I was gonna say it’s ridiculous to make DC a state, it’s just a city!
Turns out more people live in DC than Wyoming or Vermont LOL. So I’m down!
Also I’ve heard that monkey’s brains, although popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often found there.
But it doesn’t have an airport. Or a car dealership. There’s a car dealership a few blocks from the Capitol building, but it doesn’t have one.
(This was an actual argument from the GOP on the floor of Congress.)
“The Constitution doesn’t say a state has to have an airport or a car dealership.”
“WeLL It ShOuLd! We DoN’t WaNt sHiThOlE sTaTeS!!1!!”
IIRC if DC became a state, only specific federal buildings, such as the white house, scotus & the capitol buildings would remain as a territory (due to the constitution), but, because of a amendment to the us constitution giving DC the same amount of voters _(members of the electoral college)_for the president as the lowest-representation (essentially always 3), which only citizens living inside the area would be allowed to vote for, only the citizens of white house would be able to vote for 3 whole electors.
I might be incirrect, as I am not a US citizen, but I’ve seen this mentioned somewhere long ago
If DC were converted to a state, presumably this would be changed so there would be no district. The federal buildings would just be buildings in that state.
Turns out communism was just a red herring!
A few people were clued into that reference, I see…
Look man. I know NC is far from perfect, but don’t lump me in with SC okay.
As a GA resident right across the river from SC, I understand that sentiment. SC sucks. Those bastards stole our city name and our fuckin baseball team.
If we combined Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, and both Dakotas into one mega state, they’d have about the population of South Carolina.
But somehow they get 17 electoral votes to SCs 9 and 10 senators to California’s 2.
So I vote for Monomskakota!
But think about all the food down there in SC, y’all can claim it. Maybe they’ll take some of the empathy and intersectional community minded mutual aid networks y’all got and we can all be a little fatter and happier.
Plus, we all get more papusas and salpicon!
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065
There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
The electoral college was purely designed to let southerners use their slaves for votes. Letting Puerto Ricans vote doesn’t help Southerners cheat.
Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens
So, is anyone still under an ilusion that the US is a democracy?
This fact alone has no significant bearing on it.
Do you know what a “democracy” means?
I’m sure you’re ready to contort it. Was ancient Greece a democracy?
So, do you know what a “democracy” mean?
Sure, it’s a form of government run by the people through various means which could include electing representatives to govern them. They could also directly vote for every law or policy. The people could include all people of the land or only citizens, only adults, only men, non-slaves, non-felons, etc. There have been many forms of democratic governments in our history.
This is the case for all American territories. A statehood referendum has been put up multiple times throughout the years and there’s never been a really definitive result.
Some people there want independence, others want statehood, I was told. No consensus either way.
I’ve never understood the whole Puerto Rico situation. Your country was built on the rage of having taxation without representation. Why is it that Puerto Rico isn’t allowed to participate in your elections despite being US citizens?
Because they don’t tax them. Puerto Rico doesn’t pay federal taxes
While they dont pay income taxes to the IRS, they do pay customs taxes, federal commodity taxes, and federal payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment) to the IRS, which sounds alot like federal taxes to me.
It also feels like it’s something different because they aren’t supposed to go into the general fund, but advance payment for specific benefits
It’s really racism. But if you want the legalistic explanation, here it is…
The United States started out with 13 states that were all ex-British territories on the Eastern seaboard of North America. There are now 50 states. Every state after the first 13 got its statehood by first being a territory, adopting a state Constitution at a constitutional convention, and then getting that Constitution approved by US Congress, and so being “admitted to the Union.”
Under the Constitution, only states (and Washington DC) participate in the electoral college. The concept of non-state “territory” did not necessarily exist when that part was written, because there were only the original 13, and the Louisiana purchase wasn’t done until later.
[Washington DC is a very special “district” that is not a state and not a territory.]
Puerto Rico has stayed at the territory stage since it was acquired in the Spanish-American war (started 1898). Why? Well, mostly racism. There have also been some popular votes in Puerto Rico, with very mixed results. In the currently evenly split political climate, getting any new state admitted is probably impossible (as it was before the civil war).
There’s also some undercurrent that maybe the US is kinda uncomfortable holding on to these overseas islands (which are mostly connected to the same Spanish-American war). Philippines became an independent country. On the other hand, Hawaii got statehood in 1959 (but there was a whole racist history there of white colonization).
Yeah this is kind of the answer I was looking for. I didn’t really ask the question properly tho. Thanks.
Because our system is
broken afdesigned and manipulated by powerful rich rascists who don’t want to give up control.They don’t pay federal income tax (but they do pay other federal taxes, like payroll taxes including social security).
Because racism.
