The problem is, for reasons I stated above, I think the GOP may want California to leave, and I am basically certain the president’s top advisor wants California to leave. You don’t have any bargaining chips when the other side’s goal is to get you to leave the table.
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By what mechanism?
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I will say as a lifelong west coaster (born and raised in Seattle with a five year stint in Utah as a teen and then ten years in California as an adult), folks I’ve known throughout my life have always somewhat resented the east coast centric nature of Federal power, decision making, and just center of gravity. Those east coast 'crats and “important people” think that the center of power is out there (and it is to some degree) and the rest of the country should follow behind. I’m sure people in the middle of the country think that about both coasts but, from a west coast point of view, why does all federal power have to center around DC? Why does east coast culture determine how we’re governed all the way over here at times? Maybe we would do better on our own than with those unenlightened cretins back east.
I’m not pretending this an entirely rational feeling (at all) but it is present with a lot of folks. I couldn’t care less what some idiot in Virginia or Maryland thinks we should be doing out here. Why should I, really? This gets even worse when the feds act socially or culturally disconnected from things out here. “Oh, you have opinions about illegal immigration from Mexico? That’s nice. I bet you get a lot of Mexicans in Maryland.” I’d rather deal with folks from Northern Mexico than the East Coast and there is a lot of shared culture here because of the heavy Hispanic presence which, as I’ve had to point out to people, dates back to the USA stealing this part of the country from Mexico.
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I mean, more money leaving than comes in isn’t nothing, per-se. Though it seems unlikely to be the entire reason. But what, exactly, do they get as benefits from the feds?
- Drug policies the state doesn’t like
- No universal health care
- Military protection from…?
- Social policies the state doesn’t like
- Environmental policies the state doesn’t like
I dunno. Not like the Feds would let them walk away without an (actual) fight.
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Propaganda (thanks, talented Hollywood creatives) delivered via Internet-connected devices (thanks, talented Silicon Valley techies) promoting by example (thanks, big prosperous CA population) something that it’s very difficult to make a rational argument against.
This would not be California asking for Hillary Clinton to be elected President (that’s easy to argue against). It would also not be California asking for the abolition of the Electoral College (that’s also easy to argue against). It’s asking for a reform to the Electoral College that most Americans (judging by the popular vote results) would already be inclined to go along with.
No, a portion of the right-wing populist wing of the GOP (Bannon amongst them) wants California to separate. There are a lot of Republican stakeholders (some with heavy-duty military-industrial connections to the state) who’d push hard for the opposite.
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More like “Environmental policies that are often a joke and don’t go far enough so we have to pass better ones.”
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I think Calexit is a stupid idea, and I love it.
Bring Western Washington and Oregon with you.
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Same up here in the Northeast. We pay more in federal taxes than we collect, and we have enough natural resources and a diversified enough economy (everything from agriculture to education to industry and tech to tourism) that we could do just fine on our own.
Even with a greater understanding of class and power and economic structure, it still feels really unfair that we should have so much of our policy decided by states who are so dependent on us, have all their economic eggs in one basket (mining, one dominant industry, agriculture), or pride themselves on once having tried to secede from us.
I mean, for fuck’s sake- We were most of the 13 colonies that founded this country. The states that aren’t part of the “liberal coastal Yankee elites” are only states in the first place because we bought them for you. [insert sarcasm tag] YOU’RE WELCOME.
Do you know how sick I am of hearing those people talk about being the “REAL America” when my family held office in the colonies, sent delegates to sign the Declaration of Independence, and fought in every war from the Revolution through Vietnam, producing at least one president, who BTW, (at least symbolically) ended the Civil War?
“REAL America”, my yankee ass. Take your Confederate flags and GTFO of my country.
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I’ve long predicted “federalism in name only” as an eventual likely outcome. Think “Sure, we’re all part of the USA!” and then each state does what it wants anyway, beefing up its guard, setting its own policies and generally resisting Federal governance. A weakened Federal government leads to this as a likely outcome over time. So, no succession, officially…
Of course, this is actually the scenario in “The Water Knife” to the point where California has a closed border to the rest of the USA to keep out water refugees and troops taking river control points in other states.
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Wave a couple of slices of veal around from the window of a oil-smoking car and their rag-tag little rebellion will fold immediately.
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I have been joking about this for London since the Scottish referendum. Nowadays, it’s not really much of a joke.
"Oh, you horrible, racist arseholes think you can go it by yourself? That’s totally OK. Really; go on and do your own thing. You’re scared of immigrants despite having never met anyone who isn’t a WASP before? Ok, that’s fine.
The rest of us, who generate all the GDP growth in the country, who understand how enriched their culture has become as a result of outside influence, and who literally bankroll the rest of you god-awful parochial twats will continue to do our own thing. Please don’t drag us down with you."
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It’s happening already: pot legalisation, sanctuary cities, environmental regulations, gay marriage, and screw the rest of the country and the GOP if they don’t like it.
Four years from now I wouldn’t be surprised to see California having its own single-payer universal health insurance system, with most residents accepting higher taxes in exchange for the state using its population to negotiate hard deals with hospitals and pharma and for not having to deal with a for-profit healthcare insurer ever again. That’s another reform CA could sell to the rest of the country by example.
Seconding the recommendation on “The Water Knife.”
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Exactly.
Brutal book though.
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And satellites!
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You mean like this:
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Hate, not heritage! And really excellent shrimp cocktails…
No.
As someone who lives in a blue city in a red state, fuck all of this and the horse it rode in on.
More accurately, every state in this country is some shade of purple.
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No capacity to research the veracity of this. But it does look like the main proponents of #CalExit is a Nazi. Go figure @albucyd :
A former right-wing activist from Buffalo, New York, Marinelli first moved to Russia almost a decade ago. He studied at St. Petersburg State University, the alma mater of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He returned to the United States to campaign against LGBTQ rights as part of the National Organization for Marriage.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/From-his-home-in-Russia-Calexit-leader-plots-10796796.php
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I have long advocated that San Francisco be considered separate from the California mainland, though I don’t go so far as to want border controls on the bridges.
We are open to negotiation about the state of our holdings in San Bruno and Millbrae.
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But since California farmers are using water that is heavily cost subsidized, their produce would become more expensive without those subsidies.
That might be the main issue behind the California state of mind. When a person drives an electric car because of zero emissions, without considering that the electricity it uses comes from coal, that is indicative that they have not really thought the issue through. California not building power plants for ecological reasons, then buying large amounts of power from neighboring states is a similar issue. California has no LNG ports, so a large LNG port had to be built north of Ensenada, with a pipeline to Ca.
The main point for anyone considering succession, is that you are not talking about just separating yourselves from the things you disapprove of. There is a whole, complicated web of interdependence. The platform of Yescalifornia.org has very little to say about gas and oil, and does not mention water at all.
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