Do Americans wish they had manifested more destiny?

41 comments

1. “Fifty-four forty or fight!”

   No, no I don’t think so. I think the the opposite actually. Fun fact, it’ll be another 40 years before New Mexico will have been a US state for longer than it was part of the Spanish empire.

2. Do I wish we were larger? Sure. Having the resources of large swaths of what became Canada would be very advantageous.

3. We manifested it to the ocean. How much further could we go?

4. Yes, the negotiator we sent down to Mexico for the gadson purchase was horrible. We could have gotten Baja California and enough of Sonora for Arizona to reach the ocean. But he never counter offered Mexico and just said yeah that’s okay as long as we get our land for a rail line to Los Angeles.

5. I kinda wish we would have taken the west coast of British Columbia for the sole purpose to be physically connected to Alaska.

6. Okay guys, time to Manifest Destiny the Moon!

7. no not really

8. I wish we manifested it all the way to the tips of both North and South America just so we wouldn’t have to listen to the “America is a continent” people yell at us for referring to ourselves as “Americans”

9. We had the chance to buy Greenland when we bought the Virgin Islands. I kinda wish we did that.

   It would have been cool to have kept Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish American War instead of letting them go independent.

10. I feel like expanding into the Caribbean would have been a good idea.

    I base that on absolutely no knowledge of anything.

11. We should have manifested our destiny till Canada, Greenland, and northern Mexico

12. Hell yeah, lets go full empire and take Mexico and Canada by peaceful measures of gifting sopapilla and maple bacon donuts.

13. depends.

    logistically, it would make sense to own more land south of california and north to alaska.

    but socially & geopolitically, i wouldn’t trust us not to have made an additional second class of citizen out of people living in what is now mexico, and we could learn a lot from canada.

    goddess knows what cuba and haiti could have been with more decent political will.

14. Yes. We should’ve gone until we owned all of North America

15. Yes, we should have taken Cuba. Probably the whole Caribbean honestly.

16. Baja would have been a nice add. An anti Florida if you will.

    I can’t see us being “allowed” to take over the silver mines or oil deposits anywhere so that would limit us on Southern expansion.

    Northern expansion……meh. I mean cool and all but do we really want Alaska to be part of the contiguous US? They sure don’t.

17. We should be connected to Alaska imo

18. No, but I am open to Puerto Rico becoming a state if they wish to do so.

19. No we uh, we killed more than enough of the natives for my fill

    The one thing I’ll say is that Mexico’s border provinces would actually probably work better if they were part of the US, which would make both of our lives easier

20. If America wanted more land and people, I’d just advertise, “Hey countries of the world, if you want to be part of the United States, let’s talk!”

    Any place that gets both a thumbs up from the people and the government would be targets for annexation.

    Would it work? Probably not. But it would be the most ethical way to expand.

21. I just envisioned this as us moving the border north a foot at a time and when caught just yelling “destiny!”

22. We should complete our destiny and just take over Canada. There’s like five people that actually live there.

23. Who says we’re done?

24. We manifested so much destiny that we went west so far we got Hawaii

25. Not seriously. We sometimes joke about British Columbia connections to Alaska. We’re basically running an informal neo-empire since the end of the world war, anyway.

26. I want to manifest northern NY, VT, NH, ME so that our border with Canada is the St Lawrence River.

27. Look up the Mexican American war…. Post was we had plans to take most of Mexico in our demands the only reason we didn’t was because the negotiator didn’t want to do what the president said……. And made his own peace treaty. Polk was busy with other stuff so he just said what ever. Visually the additional land would look nice we could unite the west !

28. Nah. While being a larger nation is nice, our expansion to the west arguably delayed the abolition of slavery by generations and furthered the genocide of North American natives. The expansion solidified impressions that we’re an imperialist state, which we’re still trying to counter to this day, and continue to harm our image in international relations today.

    In short, I think we should have manifested less destiny, not more.

    I love this country. I still think it’s the best country on earth. But we have some shit to atone for.

29. do I wish that the us had brutally colonized more than it already has? uhhhh no

30. hell no. the amount of support for American expansionism in these comments is a little concerning.

31. That’s why we have a space program. Mars will be the 51st state

32. I wish we “Manifested” less honesty

33. Being descended from folks who were on the receiving end of manifest destiny, uh, I’m fine with “no.”

34. “Manifest Destiny” is the wildest shit I learned about in school IMO and is what made me realize what American propaganda is/looks like

    “Yeah man, it was OUR DESTINY to massacre all these people & take their lands” is some IRL Supervillain shit

35. I do not. We have more than enough.

36. Too big, I feel like we manifested too much destiny.

37. I’m shocked at all the people saying yes. The main strategy white Americans used to increase our territory was by slaughtering natives. Yes we signed some treaties but most of those treaties were with natives that we later betrayed or slaughtered.

38. Memes aside, no way. I’m kinda not a fan of imperialism. Like not a fan at all.

39. No. At least in one area I wish we’d manifested it less. We should’ve given the Philippines independence just like with Cuba after the war with Spain-absolutely beyond hypocritical that we’d just decide that the Cuban freedom fighters would be aided while the Filipino ones would be crushed as we just became their new colonial overlord.

40. I wish we manifested single payer healthcare and paid parental leave and 6 weeks required paid vacation

41. No. Hawaii should have been independent and the US should have honored their treaties with the native people. We unfairly stole land from Mexico so the US could have more slavery in places like the southwest. I’m also glad Canada exists.