Posted on 02/05/2025 5:36:31 AM PST by MtnClimber
California’s latest secession push is a delusional stunt driven by contradictions, but Trump’s growing support proves that voters may be waking up to reality.
Californians disgruntled with President Trump are promoting a ballot initiative to allow the state to secede from the United States. The initiative is being promoted by Marcus Ruiz Evans, a Fresno resident who describes himself as an activist, debate moderator, and author. After the initiative was cleared for circulation by the California Secretary of State, in a local television interview, Ruiz Evans claimed that 2016 polling found 32 percent of Californians supported full secession.
It’s worth wondering whether Evans, the politicians and journalists who will inevitably capitalize on his project, and the millions of Californians likely to support it have considered what life would be like in an independent California. Would it still be a one-party state? Would it double down on all the progressive policies that dominate policy today? And how would that look?
Imagine California’s politicians without a federal government to moderate the implementation of their cherished beliefs. Imagine a state where oil and natural gas production is halted completely and only all-electric vehicles are built. A state where construction of single-family homes is outlawed, water is rationed, and household appliances are all “connected” and monitored by the public utilities to efficiently “manage” energy consumption. Isn’t that where California is already headed? Imagine all that going into high gear.
California’s policymakers claim these steps are being taken to save the planet. Imagine a California where if you openly question the theories and “settled science” being used to essentially put the entire populace on lockdown, you are not merely ostracized but prosecuted. Why wouldn’t that happen if the fanatics that drive the progressive movement in California didn’t have to respect the U.S. Constitution?
The other cherished belief among the progressives who run California is, of course, the plight of the underrepresented and disadvantaged, a plight attributable to alleged institutional and systemic racism, sexism, etc-ism. The introductory remarks made by a television journalist in the January 28 report on Ruiz Evans’s initiative sum up the mentality among his potential supporters:
“With the current political climate, uncertainty among minorities is at an all-time high.”
To be fair, there are a lot of ways to take this comment, but if politically biased journalists are banking on the national “political climate,” ala Trump, to be universally repellant to the state’s millions of Latino, Black, and Asian residents, they are making a huge mistake. In 2024, Trump’s share of the vote improved nationwide among nonwhites, and California was no exception. According to an analysis published by the ultra-liberal “nonpartisan” website Cal Matters, “Most… of California’s 12 Latino-majority counties gave a larger share of their vote to Trump compared to 2020, and counties with a higher share of Latino population swung further toward Trump.” The reason? As Cal Matters acknowledged, “The bottom line is money.”
So how’s that going to work? When it comes to the solvency of the average household, what California’s resurgent “resistance” hasn’t come to terms with is that the woke, identitarian, racist, resentful ideology of the allegedly disadvantaged, underrepresented, and oppressed minorities is utterly incompatible with the ecological, Gaia-worshiping, climate crisis-obsessed, renewable energy, “smart growth” green movement. They are on a collision course. And yet these two fitfully aligned ideologies constitute the supposed moral foundation of progressive power in California.
In both cases, these ideologies are a disaster. California’s decision to turn the state into a petri dish for green bleeding-edge technologies has made the state unaffordable. Its decision to elevate identity over competence, training K-12 students to consider themselves either oppressors or victims depending on what group identities they can claim, is a psychopathic dead end that destroys the character of anyone who accepts its premises.
What Trump understands, along with most of the rest of the country, is that there is only one practical way to strive for “equity” without destroying equal opportunity, and that is to reward competence, integrity, and achievement, i.e., merit, and nothing else. And the only way to achieve broadly distributed prosperity, which is what California voters, regardless of their group identity, seem to care about the most, is to restore a balance between genuine environmental concerns and economic opportunities.
California today is proof that extreme environmentalist regulations make life impossible for working families. Before stepping into the great unknown of independent nationhood, Californians need to look in the mirror. Trump isn’t the one who threatens their freedom and prosperity. The delusions of progressives and the special interests that profit from those delusions are the forces that keep them down.
As it is, maybe a publicity-seeking major donor will come along and finance this latest iteration of CalExit. Proponents have until July to gather the nearly 600,000 signatures necessary to put the initiative on the state ballot. Even if it passes, however, it would only be an advisory measure. Its only concrete effect would be to create another state-funded commission to study the feasibility of secession.
California’s disgruntled Democrats and Never Trumpers may still be the majority in the state, but that majority is dwindling. In 2016, Trump received 31.6 percent of the vote in California. By 2020, that had improved to 34.3 percent, and in 2024 it was up to 38.3 percent. The “resistance” is shrinking.
Ultimately, California’s political future will not be improved through the anger of its fractious progressive coalition, whether they recognize their discontent as a consequence of their own contradictory and universally destructive policies or allow it to be manipulatively channeled into resentment of Trump. The real question is what positive solutions can be offered to California’s disgruntled voters.
If Trump, for example, successfully cuts through California’s monstrous thicket of state and local bureaucracy and environmentalist obstructionism to swiftly bring help and rebuilding to burned-out neighborhoods in Los Angeles, his supposed toxicity will dissipate into the wide Pacific, and California will realign with the rest of America.
California can’t keep itself afloat even without a defense budget.
There’s no way Democrats nationally could support this.
If you back out California vote totals from recent elections, Trump would have won all three of his elections comfortably.
California leaving the union would have a profound political impact on the rest of the country. And the impact would not be something that liberals want to see.
The question of succession by states was seemingly decided 1861-65, by my reading of the history.
Blow a few dams, cut off the supply of the Colorado River and California would be drinking their own pee in weeks. No chance.
Canada is 10 provinces + 3 territories.
But you are right - it has approximately the population of California (40 MM for Canada and 39 MM for Cali)
As to Greenland, it is not “owned” by Denmark, but is a separate country under the Danish crown.
I think many of the legally migrated Mexican-Americans voted for Trump
Gee, imagine that. Democrats wanting to secede, again! Obviously, they don’t know their history. This was settled in 1865by Abraham Lincoln.
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I doubt they will be able to pull it off with California’s new Mesozoic landscaping. It would make more sense to turn California into a statewide Disney Mesozoic Theme Park.
That’s right. California’s water rights is setup as if it was a state of the union. Secede, and Trump will cutoff CA at the source. All they have to do is shut off the electricity.
Since California, at least the biggest cities, have already resigned from America, how can it possibly secede?
We learned yesterday that the as yet unburned portions of LA are in fact already Mexico, secession is a moot concept
Not a good idea to allow CA to secede. CA has major sea-ports that would then be under CA control. If you think imports are expensive now wait until CA has to make up their annual massive tax revenue shortfalls. Taxing port of entry commerce is low-hanging fruit.
While OR and WA have ports, they would have to expand greatly to match the flow of goods docking in CA. And the commie leadership in OR and WA will probably raise commerce taxes as well.
Besides for some reason it takes Congressional approval to secede - not gonna happen at least not until the left gets control of all three branches of gubmint.
Again, Texas vs White, 1869. https://www.britannica.com/event/Texas-v-White
“Texas v. White, (1869), U.S. Supreme Court case in which it was held that the United States is “an indestructible union” from which no state can secede.”
Wonder if some of the counties of certain states can secede and join other states as so many in East Cali-pornia, Oregon and Washington wish to do.
Too bad the 50 States cannot secede from Washington DC and establish a new Capital City. Criswell Predicts decades ago said the new Capital would be Wichita, Kansas. His prediction rate for accuracy is “0”.
No. The American People are not about to allow this valuable piece of real estate to slip away from them, but if the California Democrats want to secede individually from the USA and become citizens of some other country, the chute will joyfully be greased for them.
Gaza is being prepared for you. Looks like pallisades. Build back better.
If a majority of the California Legislature passed a resolution petitioning the US congress for independence -- and congress agreed -- it would be legal.
But the real subtext is they think we can't get along without them.
If CA secedes, the GOP would enjoy a 40 vote advantage in the House and a two seat gain in the Senate.
CA would lose all Fed funding, $143B per year. They are already running a deficit, and would go bankrupt in year one.
Most of CA’s electricity comes from other states.
Likely more than half of their tax base would leave.
Likely CA would try to reach out to China to be their sugar daddy, but China would do more taking than giving.
All that being said, they’re really insane and just might do it.
Let them secede. Then we can send in undercover ops to foment a revolution and put a puppet government of sane people in place.
How bout they all just leave? Let the conservatives stay but we go back in and rescue that beautiful state. It’s a wonderful place, but the liberals suck. They’re a blight on mankind. Get rid of them and we’ve got a chance.
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