California Against the World, part 1: What is Calexit?
This is the first first miniseries in a macroseries about California. Check back here regularly for updates. Subscribe to my email list so you don’t miss a thing.
California is the center of the world.
At least that’s what many Californians believe.
I know at least a few New Yorkers who would beg to differ.
I spent this past week in California, with stops in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and the Central Valley. This one state is home to the creative hub of the U.S., the tech hub of the world, and the most productive agricultural center on earth. In many ways, California is ground zero for western culture today. I’m writing a multi-week series on the ideology of California — something I’ll call Californianism.
This won’t be a series written only for Californians. Far from it. I’m using California as an entry point to study and reflect on some of the biggest issues of our time. We’ll cover topics ranging from economic growth to inequality, idealism to suicide, creativity, meritocracy and bias.
Today I’m going to start with a fringe topic: California’s secession from the United States of America.
A grassroots movement is gathering to declare California an independent nation. Journalists call the idea “Calexit” following the convention of Brexit. We’re going to look at where the movement came from, whether it could ever succeed, and what the impact would be if it did. Let’s get started.
Should we call it “Calexit” or “Cal-leave-ornia”?
While President Trump is figuring out how to deport illegal immigrants, some Californians are debating whether they ought to deport themselves. Leaders of a movement called “Yes California” want to declare California’s independence from the United States.
If the measure gets on the ballot and gains approval by a majority of voters, it would repeal clauses in the California Constitution stating that the state is an “inseparable part of the United States” and that the U.S. Constitution is the “supreme law of the land,” according to the title and summary prepared by the state attorney general’s office.
The measure would place another question on the ballot in 2019, asking whether California should become a separate country. If at least half of registered voters participate in that vote, with at least 55% of those voting to approve, the results would be treated as California’s declaration of independence. — LA Times
Yes California has 8,000 volunteers ready to go out and collect the 585,407 valid signatures required to place the issue on the ballot.
The idea of any state declaring independence sounds ludicrous. But organizers are openly considering the unthinkable. They are asking, if we were to start from scratch, would we design the U.S. the way it is today? For Californians, the answer is: maybe not.
According to proponents of Calexit, California’s size makes it more sensible to treat it like a nation than a state. “As the sixth largest economy in the world, California is more economically powerful than France and has a population larger than Poland.” — LA Times
The Washington Post put it this way:
“California — the most populous state, with nearly 40 million residents — subsidizes other states at a loss, is burdened by a national trade system, doesn’t get a fair say in presidential elections, is diverse and disagrees with much of the rest of the country on immigration, is far ahead of other states on environmental policy and, for the most part, is diametrically opposed to Trump’s positions.”
The Yes California initiative began three years ago but picked up steam in the wake of Brexit. Some saw in Britain’s vote to leave the EU a formula California could follow. Yes California was founded by a Republican, but the fringe movement’s popularity grew among Democrats after the presidential election. Liberals who otherwise were tweeting they might move to Canada found in Calexit an alternative. Maybe they could distance themselves from red America while staying put in the Golden State.
Who’s behind Calexit?
Louis Marinelli, a 30-year-old English teacher, is the unlikely leader of a potential revolution. His leadership is problematic for a very simple reason: he lives in Russia. As the New York Times reports, Marinelli
“ is on the defensive for accepting travel expenses and office space from a Kremlin-linked nationalist group. That acceptance has raised the prospect that Russia, after meddling in the election to try to tip the vote to Mr. Trump, as United States intelligence agencies have said, is now gleefully stoking divisions in America by backing a radical liberal movement.”
If Marinelli is an flawed figurehead for the movement , his dream of California’s independence earned some credibility when Shervin Pishevar and Peter Thiel announced their support for the notion (if not for Marinelli’s specific organization). Pishevar is the founder of Hyperloop One and a venture capital investor who had an early stake in AirBnB.
Peter Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is known for taking controversial stands. He was one of the few Silicon Valley leaders to publicly support Donald Trump. Ironically, Pishevar supports Californian independence because he is can’t stand Trump. Thiel supports it partly because he thinks it could help Trump win re-election (California’s 54 electoral votes are typically a lock for Democrats).
This isn’t Thiel’s first flirtation with a radical political experiment. In 2008, the investor committed $1.7M to the The Seasteading Institute, a project to create an autonomously governed libertarian settlement in the ocean. He has since distanced himself from the organization.
Right now almost no one is taking the Calexit movement seriously. But is it really so crazy to think secession could happen? In the next post we’ll look at what it would take to get a California declaration of independence to pass. Would it be legal? How would the rest of the U.S. respond?
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