Heather Cox Richardson wrote on February 9th something that made me stop and think. As she usually does. Many of you who read me already read her, and if you do not, you should. I am not a historian, nor am I a journalist. I am, at heart, a storyteller who tries to stay grounded in facts and lived reality. Heather Cox Richardson is the historian. She is one of the voices I turn to when I want to understand the deeper roots beneath today’s headlines. And in the past year, one name keeps resurfacing, a name many had barely considered until recently, yet now seems to echo constantly. William McKinley, the so called Tariff King, whose policies fused tariffs, economics, and expansion into a single driving force. Geography followed advantage. Power followed usefulness. And within that machinery sat Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico was never brought in as an equal. It was absorbed as useful. Yes, Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but Puerto Rico is not a state, it is a territory. Its people cannot vote in presidential elections. They live inside the system, yet without full voice. Citizens, but not treated as equal citizens. Governed, yet not fully represented. Included, but not equal. That reality has never fully disappeared, and it continues to shape how Puerto Rico exists within the American structure today.
Then came the modern reminder. Bad Bunny. I am not here to analyze a halftime show, that is not the point. The point is the reaction, the insistence from some that he is “not American.” A man born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. citizen, still viewed by some as outside, as less than, as not fully belonging. This is not about music. It is about hierarchy. It is about how systems decide who is fully included and who is simply useful.
When I think of Puerto Rico, I think of a beautiful Caribbean island that has too often been mistreated, overlooked, and controlled without equality. And that reflection leads somewhere important. An 1898 edition of Harpers Weekly once showed Uncle Sam plucking “sugar plums,” the desired fruits of empire. They were not candy, they were land, resources, and strategic footholds. Those sugar plums did not vanish, they changed geography, and the gaze moved north.
Today, the desired fruits look different. Oil and gas, fresh water, critical minerals. hydropower, the Arctic including The Northwest Passage. Strategic geography and strategic leverage. The map changed, but the instinct did not. Usefulness first, equality optional. And that is where this conversation reaches Alberta, and ultimately all of Canada. To those Alberta separatists who imagine advantage, strength, or special standing by moving closer to power, look again at Puerto Rico, not symbolically, but practically. A place valued for what it provides, not empowered for what it is, governed within a structure where decisions are made elsewhere, for interests beyond its own.
So let us make this simple. Imagine a restaurant. From the outside it looks exciting, successful, irresistible. You read the reviews carefully and notice a pattern. Only certain people are treated well, others are tolerated for what they bring. Some leave respected, others leave diminished. Would you still go, convincing yourself your experience would be different, that you would somehow be welcomed as an equal. Look again at the sign on the door. It does not say Partners, it says Suppliers. And once inside, you are not seated at the table, you are on the menu.
Heather Cox Richardson does not write about the past to stir nostalgia, she writes to reveal continuity. Tariffs were never just economics, expansion was never just geography, and power has always moved toward what is useful. Trump did not create this instinct, but under this administration the pattern is no longer subtle, and now Canada, in all its regions and resources, is increasingly viewed through that same lens.
The sugar plums of 1898, the desired fruits of that era, did not disappear. They transformed into the resources most valuable today. Energy, water, minerals and access to new geographies, gateways and futures. So Alberta before anyone imagines strength remember it will be without equality, sovereignty without control, and belonging without respect. I implore you to remember that simple truth. And as Mark Carney warned at Davos, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.
Nancy's Notes 