When last we touched upon the strangely over-the-top Californian reaction to the Trump presidency, the secession movement, I took the occasion to bring up the rather less radical separatists in the north. “Already 21 of the 23 northernmost counties,” I wrote, “have made declarations to form the State of Jefferson.”
But now there is a new wrinkle.
“Former UKip leader Nigel Farage and Leave backer Arron Banks recently helped raise $1 million for Calexit, which would split California into eastern and western regions,” we learn from the Daily Mail and the World Tribune. Banks, citing the high disapproval ratings Californians give their government, said that “he and Farage wanted to show people in California ‘how to light a fire and win’ the Calexit referendum.”
Their proposal is distinct from complete secession. It would amount to a California split, with the west coast (Los Angeles and north to the border) splitting off from the rest of the state. This would form an East California and a West California.
Politically, this might appease the conservatives and moderates who live in more rural east and Southern California, especially since they are coming to increasingly despise Left Coast “liberals” (read: progressives). Whom they not implausibly blame for ruining the state.
But it leaves some Jefferson secessionists stuck with those “liberals.” This, if an oversight, is a big one. Would this not doom the scheme?
While the failed initiative effort of 2014 to split the state into six separate states was far too complicated to wrap one’s head around, the new Calexit effort seems too . . . simple.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “From Brexit to Calexit”
This proposal is most certainly doomed, not just because it ignores the proposed state fo Jefferson, but because it slices West California too narrowly. Socialist progressivism is no fun at all unless you have other peoples’ treasure to spend.
I don’t see that happening that way. For one thing the Nuevo Azeteca movement wants all of California back as well as all of the other lands that gringos have taken from them like Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In the future they will become a powerful influence with their growing populations.
IMHO it will be a northern California dominated by socialist whites and a southern Mexico dominated by militant hispanics. Much of the early history of these two countries will be dominated by being at each others throats.
The State of Jefferson movement is the only legitimate, Constitutional way to split a state. Article 4 Section 3 in the US Constitution is very clear what needs to be done. It can’t be done by initiative, or by referendum or a vote of the people. The problem is the lack of representation which won’t be fixed this CalExit way. Jefferson is the answer! SOJ51.NET
But it leaves some Jefferson secessionists stuck with those “liberals.”
The state lines can’t be drawn finely enough to satisfy everyone. Liberals and secessionists who don’t like their neighborhood can always move to the other state. They would experience far less upheaval than others who have moved from blue to red states (and vice versa).