On Freedom

by Timothy Snyder

Citizens who happen to live in Washington, D.C., which is more populous than Wyoming or Vermont, are not allowed to elect representatives to Congress. Citizens who live in Puerto Rico, which is more populous than twenty-one of the fifty states, cannot vote for president. They elect a resident commissioner to Congress, but that official has no vote. Americans should not be denied representation by the accident of where they were born, or where they find a job, or where they fall in love. Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., should be states. Fifty-two is a nice number: about the number of weeks in a year, the exact number of cards in a deck, and precisely four times the number of original colonies. For each stripe there could be exactly four stars. It would be an elegant flag.