Can You Support Statehood If You Don’t Like the Current Government?

President Trump spoke out against statehood for Puerto Rico because he doesn’t like the Mayor of San Juan. “With the mayor of San Juan as bad as she is … Puerto Rico shouldn’t be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what they’re doing,” he told Geraldo Rivera in an interview.

We see the same attitude on our Facebook page.

It’s easy to feel angry about comments like these.

Governor Rossello responded to Trump, criticizing him for rejecting statehood “based on a personal feud with a local mayor.”

“This is an insensitive, disrespectful comment to over 3 million Americans who live in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico,” said Rossello in a statement. “Equality for the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico is the biggest civil rights issue in the United States.”

But get back to the initial question.

Can you support statehood if you don’t like the current government?

Here’s another question for you. If you live in a state, do you even remember the name of the person who was governor when your state was admitted to the Union?

Do you know what kind of governor he was? Apart from his support of statehood, how did he affect the state you live in today?

What about the mayor of whatever town was the biggest in your territory?

We know from experiments that most people have zero knowledge about the territorial government of their state.  They sure don’t know about any mayors of towns in the territory their state used to be.

Voting

If you live in Puerto Rico, you will still get to vote for your government after Puerto Rico becomes a state. If you want to keep your governor, you can.

But you will also be able to vote for senators, congresspeople, and the President of the United States.

Puerto Rico will be a state permanently. The people in the government will change over time. Statehood will not.

The answer

You should support statehood regardless of your view of the current government. They are not part of the deal.

Tell your legislators that it is time for statehood for Puerto Rico. Then, if you live in Puerto Rico, vote for the government you want. If you live in a state, you can vote for your state’s government. This is how it works.