I’m an American who wants Puerto Rico to become America’s 51st state—and I want the entire country to be able to say “yes” at the ballot box. A national, good-faith, vote would not change the mechanics of admission; it would change the mood. It would turn a very important procedural step into a shared act of welcome—millions of Americans from all 50 states affirming to 3.2 million residents of Puerto Rico that they belong in full.
Across the map, commentators are already making that case. Georgia GOP chair Josh McKoon put it bluntly: “Unlike Canadians, Puerto Ricans actually want to become a state.” Jacksonville Journal-Courier
From Florida, Erika Benfield argues that supporting statehood is “not just fair—it’s now in the interest of Republican voters,” urging both parties to back it. Arizona’s Jaime Molera tells fellow conservatives, “In the recent election, Puerto Ricans made it explicitly clear that they are ready to vote for Republicans, and they are ready for statehood.” The Floridianazcapitoltimes.com
New York voices are in the mix, too. Writing in City Limits, veteran Tony Mele reminded readers that “in the past eight years, Puerto Rico residents have repeatedly voted against continuing under the current territory status.” City Limits
These writers aren’t debating legal fine print; they’re talking about dignity, clarity, and momentum. A national vote would spotlight facts, sweep aside myths (“they don’t pay taxes”) and let communities take down barriers and openly talk about culture and language. Most of all, it would give residents of Puerto Rico something priceless: proof that their fellow Americans chose them on purpose, not by default.
Critics like the Albuquerque Journal want Congress to slow down until every doubt is settled—the paper even warned that Senator Heinrich’s Puerto Rico statehood bill “could cost New Mexico one of its three U.S. House seats.” Heinrich’s Puerto Rican statehood bill could cost NM 1 of its 3 US House seats I want America to speed up how we settle those doubts: in public, together, with a Welcome Vote that replaces rumor with record and hesitation with a handshake.
So let’s pair congressional action with a public gesture on purpose. Call it a National Welcome Vote. Wrap it in a year of town halls, classroom lessons, service projects, and televised forums linking mainland communities with Puerto Rico. Then—ballot cast, message sent—move straight into the work of integration: tax alignment, full program parity, education systems that serve all Americans, infrastructure upgrades, and regulatory harmony. No more years of “should we have done this?”—just “let’s do this right.”
We say democracy is not a spectator sport. Let’s stop treating Puerto Rico’s future like a closed-door event. Congress can admit Puerto Rico. The rest of us can stand and cheer—in the clearest civic voice we have: a vote cast in hope. Let’s add a star—and let America say so.
Javier Ortiz has over 37 years of experience in technology, business, and the public sector, leads investment technical due diligence and innovation at Falcon Cyber Investments. www.falconcyber.com
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.