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.”
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.
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.
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And?
They’re brown AND their country has a very Spanish sounding name. I can hear <insert drunk uncle> talking about it now: “any sumbitches from a place called PWER-TOE REEE-KO ain’t Mexicans just as much as any sand n*****s from Saudi Arabia ain’t AY-RABS!”
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.
Arroz con Pollo. I can eat that all. Day.
Amen to that! I was worried I’d get fat in pr, but ended up losing weight. Maybe I should move…
Every time there’s a vote on becoming a state they vote no. I don’t think it should be forced on them.
It’s not forced, every state was a territory and chose to become a state. That’s the prescribed way for this to go. Why do we want to change that now? Part of statehood also changes things like federal aid etc as you’ll now be paying federal taxes but a part of this representation involves all this extra.
I’m not suggesting we change it. Puerto Rico has held votes on whether to become a state, and traditionally voted no. That’s all the reason I need to let them stay a territory.
I’m not opposed to them becoming a state if they want, another commenter told.me the latest vote was ‘yes’ by a narrow margin so who knows what will happen next.
The last time there was a plebiscite in 2020, voting on whether to become a state or not, the outcome was for statehood by 52.34%.
I didn’t know about that one. Traditionally they’ve always voted no. Why didn’t they move forward with it?
It hasn’t moved forward because Congress has to approve it. Just because Puerto Rico wants to be a state doesn’t mean they’ll be instantly let into the Union. Here’s a link to the voting results. Its in Spanish since it’s from the biggest newspaper on the island.
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.
Trump has a bad record with Puerto Rico, hes shit on them a few times and blocked aid when they were hit with a hurricane during his admin
Can American citizens living abroad vote?
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.
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.
Merci pour la réponse, ça m’éclaire sur la situation. That’s messed up situation for Puerto Rican. Think Canada could snatch them off us hands? They could even make Spanish their official language.
They could vote absentee, but eventually they’d lose that right if they stayed in PR.
People need to lighten up. I heard his full set and it was hilarious and very toung in cheak *edited
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!
no it wasn’t.
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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?
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I wish you were wrong
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.”
His “set” absolutely reflects the views of Trump and his campaign. That is why he felt comfortable saying those things.
It’s not like the racism of Tony Hinchcliffe was a secret that he kept carefully hidden from public view which caught the organizers by surprise. It took me about a minute of searching who this guy was before landing on the Tony Hinchcliffe Wikipedia page which covers his racist performance in Austin just 3 years ago.
His whole set was also loaded into the teleprompter, so they knew what he was gonna say.
This was my thought. Like I find it VERY hard to believe his set wasn’t at least somewhat vetted beforehand. I cannot imagine they’d just let a comedian go up there and have absolutely no idea what he was going to talk about. That just seems like a total dumbass move so maybe it’s possible with Trump
Plausible deniability, a term coined by reagan’s minions to protect him from being impeached like nixon. It worked, ollie north took the fall
I cannot imagine they’d just let a comedian go up there and have absolutely no idea what he was going to talk about
Have you listened to, or read, any of Trump’s word salad?
I don’t think I knew who he was back then. I looked it up and he’s not even trying to be clever, there’s no set up or premise, just slur. So cheap.
Edit: timestamp link.
there’s no set up or premise, just slur
Truly the pinnacle of Republican “comedy”
Why the fuck are US citizens not allowed to vote in a US election?
one more reason why the popular vote would be better than the shitshow this is
Because each state is given the power to elect a president, not the voters. Puerto Rico isn’t a state so their voters aren’t represented properly.
What happened to “no taxation without representation”…?
Easy, 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
Taxes are just when the goverment demands money. It doesn’t require they spend (or not spend) on anything in particular.
That’s not true. There are technically different classifications. For example, fees are specifically not taxes.
Do they receive those benefits?
Yes.
Ask some of the 14-17 year olds working their first jobs paying tax without the ability to vote. That was never a real concern for anyone outside landowning whites.
Never existed in the US. Women, slaves, prisoners, permanent residents, etc… It’s always been in the hands of the rich. They just pretend to listen to the people. But as Trump has many times noted, the vote doesn’t matter. The state can send delegates with any instructions they want and the federal government can decide state delegates are not valid and exclude them. Most states have laws to follow the vote, but it’s not the federal government’s job to enforce those laws if they chose not to follow them. That would be for the people of that state to fight later.
Lots of people move to Puerto Rico for tax purposes.
What a shit system
i mean the technicallity is that washington dc isnt a state either, so the better answer is that you need to live in a region where you have representatives.
Also because DC and PR would most likely vote democrats it makes it harder. Most of the time when a state joined the union there was a fight.
Dc does not have voting representatives in congress. They only get electoral votes because of the 23rd ammendment
but the context of the news report is about the president, which they can vote for.
The better question is “why didn’t the 23rd grant voting rights to all US citizens in all territories?”
gonna be honest with you, its racism.
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History tells me that if the US is disenfranchising a group of people, it’s usually racism
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 problem with the south, is that everything they do looks like it’s all about racism, but they actually use their virulent and brutal racism to cover more evil selfishness. They’re just monstrously racist as a hobby, corruption is their true passion.
the electoral college values different things than the will of the populace
Which was actually supposed to prevent Trump, but the founding fathers couldn’t have predicted the modern world.
Well, they did. It was referred to by the Framers as a “Living Document” and they intended us to re-write it as we grew as a nation:
"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another…
On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation…
Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right."
-Tommy J.
What happened to that law?
The Dixie-crats.
This message was brought to you by Brando.
Puerto Rico is a protectorate and has its own government. Puerto Ricans can’t vote while on the island, but can vote in the US
No, that can’t be right, because half the comments here say it’s due to racism. So if a Puerto Rican moves to a US state, they still can’t vote, right?
They can and do
No, that can’t be right, because half the comments here say it’s due to racism.
Both those things are true, racists prevent it from becoming a state to prevent it from voting dem.
So if a Puerto Rican moves to a US state, they still can’t vote, right?
They can’t do this directly anymore, so they are just disenfranchised on Puerto Rico.
Every US State has its own government, too. I don’t see that as an excuse.
The Constitution says that each state shall send electors to the electoral college. So Puerto Rico’s status as an unorganized territory is a bit of a blocker.
The District of Columbia is also not a part of any state, as specified in the Constitution. However, DC explicitly got some electors in the 23rd amendment, so they can vote for President.
Really, the idea that the United States might have overseas territories that are not on track to statehood is itself an invention of the twentieth century. (Owing to the 1898 Spanish-American war, which caused the US to take over several parts of the ex-Spanish empire).
Yes, I understand that that’s the reason, but a reason is not the same thing as an excuse.
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.
But first you should probably fix those islanders that aren’t even citizens.
Iirc making people citizenshipless is even against international law?
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.
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
What happened “no taxation without representation” that the colonists fought for in the war of independence? Apparently it only applies to white people.
It definitely only did apply to white people. And only men.
Landowning white men to be precise.
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.
bingo
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.
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.
Combine the Carolinas and Dakotas, add DC and Puerto Rico. No flag change.
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.
Turns out communism was just a red herring!
A few people were clued into that reference, I see…
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
I’m not sure if that’s right or not, but there’s been some loopholes around DC’s status before. For example, all members of Congress are considered city alders for DC. In practice, they delegate that to local elected officials and everything works like a normal US city.
Same trick here. Delegate those EC votes to follow the popular vote of the city.
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.
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!!”
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
Edit: my information was out of date
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.
yeah but it won’t. if they become a state they get a voice. if they become independent they will get devastated by the US just like Haiti. and a lot of other countries.
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.
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.
You have been misinformed.
I’m glad this back and forth could end with such an enlightening declaration.
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.
is this a new problem?
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.
They say he was going off script for that part. But of course they would say that.
Ya, that whole set-up, punchline situation just came to him in the spur of the moment.
I don’t believe them either. Just saying that’s the lazy excuse they gave.
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!
Well as long as we don’t live in an oligarchy I guess we’re ok then
Tell your hermanos, hermanas, amigos and amigas.
Biden calling Trump supporters trash is far more damaging.
The double standard is eye watering.
Trump painted ALL Democrats as literal demons for years. Not figuratively, like literally, you could fill encyclopedias with his rhetoric. And it barely moves the needle.
But one gaff from Biden is damaging?
Ugh. You are probably not wrong, unfortunately.
Remember deplorables? All political positions aside you could argue this is worse than that. Deplorables has an intellectual level to it. It in an odd way almost sounds like a compliment.
“She used a big word on us”
This is just a mindless insult said by the current president against millions of people that would vote for more of him through Harris. It’s a terrible look.
I wish I was this deluded. Life must be so simple when it can whatever you want it to be.
Yeah I’m sure it pushed all the Trump supporters who were about to vote for Harris into rethinking their positions…
After 8 years of Trump showing us exactly the kind of garbage person he is, the crimes he commits, the people he supports, how unpatriotic he is, the ideals and policies he endorses… if you’re still in his camp mayhaps you are trash.
Im not and I really don’t care about proving people like you wrong.
No calling trash trash is fine
But he didn’t call trash trash
How so?
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.
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