Don't Make Canada the 51st State. Make the U.S. Canada's 11th Province.

There's only one well-governed nation on the North American continent right now, and it ain't the United States.

Ladies and gentlemen: The next president of the United States?

I don’t know very much about Canadian politics, but CNN’s Mitchell McCluskey and Paula Newton report that Chrystia Freeland, until recently Canada’s deputy prime minister, and before that minister of foreign affairs and minister of international trade, may become Canada’s next prime minister. That makes the prospect I consider in my latest New Republic piece more tempting. Who would you rather be governed by—America’s plutocratic class, sitting in for the mentally disabled Donald Trump, or the author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else? (Freeland used to be a journalist.) My New Republic piece argues that instead of making Canada the 51st state, the United States should fall to its knees and beg Canada to pretty please make us their 11th province, because the Great White North, for all its present political turmoil, is right now the best-governed country on the North American continent. I quote the eminent Canadians Dahlia Lithwick and Michael Ignatieff in support of this idea, albeit somewhat whimsically. I tried to elicit comment from Freeland but failed, probably because whimsy doesn’t interest her right now. She’s hunting bigger game. You can read my piece here.