#WhenCaliforniaSecedes…

… It will quickly turn into a Third World dump and beg to be let back into the Trumpenreich.

Seriously, this is the dumbest idea ever.

I mean, go ahead. It’s pretty much a lost cause at this point, the ghost of America’s Christmas future a few more decades down the line. Only half its population are Whites or from high-performing Asian groups (closer to 30% amongst children).

They won’t even have the Facebooks and Twitters to keep them afloat.

Silicon Valley derives much of its power from having unrestricted access to the vast US internal market. But what possible reasons could the tech giants they have for preferring a market of 40 million to one of 280 million?

  • Is it California’s low taxes and pro-business regulations?
  • Its high levels of educational attainment and human capital?
  • Its high credit ratings and fiscal strength?
  • Their strong, genuine commitment to their SJW ideals coupled with California’s wonderful political climate so replete with Black Blocs, Bob Avakian cultists, and “they” Latino nationalists?

Silicon Valley will flee for Boston or Austin faster than you can say “exit.”

And then the Hollywood elites will forget their high principles and decamp to some new nest of degeneracy.

There will be what you could call a restoration of the historical balance. California will drift into Mexico’s sphere of influence, as it was prior to 1847.

Okay, I was exaggerating; it won’t literally be a Third World dump, though GDP per capita will probably fall to something more in line with its human capital (especially once the smart fraction brains drain away), maybe a Greek-like $25,000 / capita instead of the current $60,000. Still, it won’t be a bad place to live in by any major metric, by global standards. I agree with Fred Reed that many Americans tend to have a rather unrealistic view of Mexico, and California will be transitional between the two.

Still, I do think many Californians instinctively understand that their living standards will plummet after Calexit, even those who are very triggered by Trump, so they’ll be doing a lot of “checking out” but very little actual “leaving.”

Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.

 

Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.

 

Apart from writing booksreviewstravel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.

Comments

  1. If California seceded from the union, Trump could just declare war and invade it again. Then treat it like a conquered territory, not a federal state, and therefore ineligible to participate in future national elections 🙂

  2. Verymuchalive says

    You are right about Hotel California. Lots of checking out, but very little leaving. Not least because the mestizos know that their welfare benefits would drop drastically in an independent California.

  3. RadicalCenter says

    You’re right. We could even cause a reduction in California welfare programs — and/or a big painful hike in already-high California income and sales taxes — before cali secedes.

    Cut all fed funding to pro-invader a/k/a sanctuary cities and watch the traitorous pricks scramble to tax the Hell out of the remaining working people to keep funding their Mexican welfare state.

  4. I live here, in occupied California, and I’m 100% in favor of secession. Not that I disagree with your analysis. That’s spot on. I just, on principal, am always in favor of secession. I think almost every country is too big, and too populous, to be fairly governed. I’d rather see an upper limit of roughly Ireland, in both size and population, for any country. As such, I’d want to see a further breakup within California, after the initial split from the feds. It’s blatantly obvious that the conglomeration known as California is made up of at least 3 incompatible sectors, (southern coast, bay area, and everyone else) none of whom like each other, or has any desire to remain chained to the others.

    I think we’re to the point that an amicable split, somewhat resembling the collapse of the Soviet Union, is the only way to prevent the civil war that we can all feel coming. I don’t think it’s imminent, but I do think it’s becoming inevitable. And the closer we get to a violent split, the less likely we are to have a peaceful one. Just give me enough warning to get out of this future third world hell hole before it happens.

    On the subject of Americans’ views on Mexico, I think that can be attributed to exactly what Trump said in the campaign. Mexico doesn’t send it’s best and brightest. My impression is that the ones who come up here are the most ambitious of the unemployable. Mexico isn’t a bad place to live, if you have a decent job. So the ones who can get decent jobs are happy to stay where they are. The ones who can’t, come up here, leaving Americans to form their opinions about Mexicans in general, based off an unrepresentative sampling.

  5. I think we’re to the point that an amicable split, somewhat resembling the collapse of the Soviet Union

    Dude, the collapse of the Soviet Union was neither amicable nor was it bloodless. Believe me, I was there. Peace, man.

  6. till, I do think many Californians instinctively understand that their living standards will plummet after Calexit, even those who are very triggered by Trump, so they’ll be doing a lot of “checking out” but very little actual “leaving.

    Anything down to Redding should stay, the rest can go to hell (especially Stockton). As long as Shasta remains in normal lands, who cares. If not for fvcking Californians, real estate prices in Washington and Oregon would have stayed more-or-less realistic, they drove them beyond any common sense, SOBs.

  7. It’s an amazing idea.

    Splitting bigger countries into smaller and smaller ones would make countries more equal. Russia, China, India, and the US will definitely split into warring factions sooner or later.

    Probably India first – within a 100 years.
    Then Russia, US, and China.

    Too bad I won’t get to see it.

    (plays Pixies’ “Where is my mind” – the closing track of Fight Club)

  8. Net California assets easily exceed $10T so they could pay their current budget with a net asset tax (NAT) of under 2% and eliminate other taxes. Now, that doesn’t provide them with the military they need but if they blow off the moribund government bureaucracy, with its unfunded liabilities, increase the NAT to 4% (this is still a Huge tax relief from the US Federal tax burden) and put the budget into a $3.3k monthly citizen’s dividend to able-bodied men to finance their own weaponry, training and social services to their immediate locale, CA might just make it while the US collapses under the weight of its own unfunded liabilities, debt and institutional sclerosis.

    With a citizen’s dividend, these men would immediately start thinking rationally about immigration. They’d probably build a wall along the Sierra Nevadas.

  9. Kevin O'Keeffe says

    Better yet, if California were a reconquered territory, part of its “Reconstruction” could involve large population transfers across international borders. If you take my oh-so-subtle meaning. Just food for thought. Once California had been properly adjusted (presumably including a new state of Jefferson carved from it’s northernmost counties), it’s negative impact on our electoral process would be greatly mitigated. Some of those who’ve decamped for Texas and Colorado, might even return.

  10. Let’s look at a real secession attempt in North American: Quebec province from Canada. Some things I haven’t seen anyone considering:

    1. California will be obligated to pay for their share of the national debt. There’s no escaping that one;
    2. What currency will California use? Dollars? Why would the United States accept your dollars? California would likely be warned that they must create their own currency. Will the state allow a CalFedRes to create your money, getting into the same currency slavery as the old union? The smart way the U.S. government could fix this would be to make dollars in colors like most European and Canadian currencies are, making the old green dollars stick out like a sore thumb. Think of the exchange rate (buy rate) for California currency. Who would accept it? What if the U.S. government made a blanket decree that any foreign country must refuse to accept California currency or face consequences. Look at Cuba’s embargo still going on;

    3. Water. A big one. Why should Colorado keep diverting its river west to California. California would have to negotiate a riparian treaty with the U.S. government, assuming that the federal government is not in revenge mode. There are plenty of places like Argentina that veggies and fruits can be purchased at a competitive price or lower;

    4. Travel to the rest of the continental U.S. More than likely, as a penalty, Californians will have to apply for travel visas to cross the border wall that Trump or his successor would build on the California border. This would be an obvious necessity to keep out illegal aliens from all over the earth invading the 49 states of America;

    5. Military bases. This is an interesting one. Unknown numbers of Californians working at these military bases would be let go, and American citizens brought in. If you think that California is going to take these bases and all their military hardware think again and think Guantanamo;

    6. Border patrol and national defense. Where is California going to get the finances to create its own military? And is the state going to become a refugee state, if the legislation is passed that’s being put forward at this time? I guess there won’t be any need for border agents. The swarms of the unwashed fleeing the drug wars in Mexico south to El Salvador’s MS13 will be salivating to get to your open door;

    7. Export duty imposed on goods to California like automobiles, trucks, heavy equipment, all that stuff. Remember, Trump is going to be forcing manufacturers to leave China and return to the U.S. One look at the penalties the U.S. has imposed on California will be enough to deter them from crossing the border, your border. Remember, he said any American company that creates goods outside the U.S. is going to pay a 35% tariff. And likely, any goods going TO California will be penalized with a tariff as well.

    This is enough to ponder.

  11. I think that we should note the difference in the response to the idea that California might secede opposed to the idea that Texas might secede.

  12. Water is an underappreciated issue, one of the major reasons, if not the primary for the secular, the Israelis won’t leave Palestine.

  13. California voters gave us the reelection of Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and the reelection of Truman in 1948, which led America to World War I and the Korean War.

    It is time to disenfranchise CA once for all.

  14. Hmmm I wonder what the adjusted demographic numbers are for the US if California does leave?

    Really find it kind of surprising that I don’t blink an eyelash at the prospect of California leaving, seceding, whatever you want to call it. Actually I relish the idea.

    Maybe the divisions in this country are more pronounced than I thought, and I already thought they were pretty bad.

  15. RadicalCenter says

    From your mouth to God’s ears, as the old saying goes.

  16. RadicalCenter says

    Understand your sentiment. As California residents, we will be especially sad to have to leave. If California becomes an independent country or simply in open active rebellion against the fed gov and against other Americans, it will likely become too dangerous here for decent people of any background, especially non-Mexicans. Then again, things are going that way already.