October 18, 2022 • 27 mins
Could California really secede from the United States? A group of activists believe it’s not just possible – it’s inevitable. They call their movement CAL EXIT.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains graphic language and content that may be
alarming to some listener. Discretion is advised. I never started
off wanting to become a secessionist. This is a story
about an idea, an idea that started small and grew.
(00:22):
I was three years in and I was starting to
lose my mind. I was losing my grip on my
sanity because it was so much data, an idea so
controversial that until recently, it was risky to even say aloud,
Oh my god, think about what you're saying. And you're
gonna put your name on this and publish this. Are
you sure you know what you're doing? Because you don't
(00:42):
get to walk this back. What if it's time to
end the United States as we know it? Quality and
democracy are under assault. Protesters have now broken into the
US capital for Americans believe there will be a civil
war in the United States. The United States is in
(01:06):
terminal the client the trend line is obvious. It is
falling apart. We want to hope for the best, but
we need to prepare for the worst. More and more
Americans believe that the United States is hopelessly broken, and
so a group of activists in California have made a
radical proposal to leave. They called their movement cal Exit.
(01:32):
What when do we want it now? The term cal
Exit has taken social media by storm. So I really
see California as this kind of life raft where we
can escape the sinking empire. We don't have to go down.
The ship. Was started as a wild idea quickly grew
much bigger. There is a legitimate movement to have California
(01:54):
break away from the rest of the United States. It's
an idea that some people believe could us are in
a new era of justice, peace and prosperity for the state,
and others fear will plunge it into chaos. The most
violent civil wars are the ones over succession. Those are
the conflicts that governments will fight to the death over.
(02:19):
This is the story of cal Legs. It's the story
of two friends who set out to change the United States.
We met personally started brainstorming the campaign for California Independence.
They built a movement with hundreds of thousands of supporters.
My phone is ringing off the hook. They said, I
(02:41):
want to succeed now, I want the initiative right now,
and ended up in the middle of a still unfolding.
Criminal conspiracy. Now that's raising questions about whether Russia is
behind the succession campaign. The guy who's leaving the California
Independence woman is sitting in Moscow next to this guy.
We know it's funded either Kremlin, and that showed me
(03:02):
how crazy he was. It really let me kind of
peer into his soul and just see what a malignant
narcissist he really is. The United States is more divided
than ever. Could collexit be the solution or could accelerate
the breakdown of our democracy? Wake up to the bad scene?
Has it been on the ground. You could hear the
voices a seen about the crown, how it goes to
(03:24):
five winning up and uh everything go phone and going
to the gate on duh, duh, duh they go to
gate Uh from Interval presents an awfully nice this is
the last resort I'm shoot Episode one, the tipping point.
(03:45):
He was a kid, my mother choos. Last June, Megan
(04:06):
the Stallion was performing at Glastonbury Festival when she stopped
to let the crowd know how she was feeling. Audience
right now to save motherfucking choice. That's quite so let's
put all a lot of middle fingers up right now,
and we went into the campus ship to these motherfucker's
(04:27):
all right. That Friday, the U. S. Supreme Court had
overturned Roll versus Wade, ending the constitutional rights on abortion. Megan,
like many others, we're trying to process the horror of
it all. Performer after performer took the stage that weekend
(04:51):
to speak out. Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo, devastated and terrified.
So many women and so many girls are going to
die because of this. Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day. Fuck,
where God fucking renouncing my citizenship? I'm sucking. Millions of
(05:15):
other people raised their voices and protests that weekend. Across America.
People marched, they donated, and they looked to their government
for a response. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom announced a
plan to strengthen the state's laws protecting abortion rights. We're
(05:37):
going to enshrine that codify that as we should in
the state constitution. Why do we do? Why don't we built?
Yeah that watching all of this go down was a
guy named Marcus Ruiz Evans. We caught him up the
day of the verdict to get his reaction. People are
(06:00):
in pain. I mean, people are scared shitless in California today.
I know them. I live here in California has a
history of saying, we don't like what the federal government does.
We're going to pass the law to stop that. What
difference did it make? The Supreme Court upheld Trump could
redirect funding to the wall. The Supreme Court upheld Trump
(06:22):
could ban people from Muslim countries, and he could keep
Mexican children in cages on the border, and he could
sell off California lands to oil and there's literally nothing
the California government could do about it. And it is
because California has treated this way that we have said
you must calex it. For Marcus, this kind of talk
(06:42):
is very on brand because he has spent the last
decade pushing an idea most people would regard as impossible.
Marcus believes that California should succeed from the United States,
that we should quote unquote callegs it. The callegs In
movement was started by Marcus and another activist, Louis Marinelli.
(07:04):
Back In supporters believe that cal exit is the only
way Californians can live according to their values. That's great,
that Gavin Uson wants to trine it in our constitution.
But just because you put something in our constitution does
not give you any additional legal protection against decisions by
the Federal Supreme Court. So that's great you're doing that,
(07:26):
and that will absolutely not protect us from the Supreme
Court at all. We have to get connected as Californians
and push for cal Exit before they take away another right,
because this isn't gonna stop. Most Americans support abortion rights,
but that didn't stop the Supreme Court from taking them away.
Maybe that's one reason why, according to a Reason Pull,
(07:49):
a majority of voters believe our system of government doesn't work.
That's created an opening for people like Marcus Ruiz Evans
to argue that it's time for change. Still, though cal
Exit this is crazy talk, right. Most state has ever
seriously tried to leave the Union since the Civil War,
but some experts believe that this moment we're in could
(08:10):
be different. Hi, my name is Barbara Walter. I'm the
roar Chair of International Affairs at the University of California,
San Diego. That I've studied every single civil war that's
happened since the end of World War two and there's
been over two hundred of them. Walter helped identify two
factors that strongly predicted if a country would fall into
civil war. The first factor was something we called innocracy,
(08:34):
which is just a fancy term for a partial democracy.
Imagine a country where you have elections, but that the
person with the most votes doesn't always win. That's inn ocricy.
It happened in two thousand Al Gore winning the popular
vote by a slim margin, George Bush, though, taking the
election by winning the electoral college. And then the second
(08:58):
factor is something we call called factionalism, which is a
fancy term for when citizens in a country organize themselves
politically pretty strictly around identity. Today, the Republican Party is
almost white and Christian, in other words, a faction. So
(09:20):
you see, I also call myself a Christian nationalist, and
that's not a bad word, and there's nothing wrong with
leading with your faith, and I think that's what the
Republican Party needs to be about. So you start to
get political parties that are ethnically, religiously, or racially based,
and then those parties try to gain power not because
(09:43):
they want to share power with the other groups, but
because they want to actively exclude them from power. Our
radical democratic partners are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage.
They want to destroy you, and they want to destroy
our country as we know. It not acceptable. It's not
(10:04):
going to happen. And I'm seeing that both of these
two features were emerging here in this country, and they
were actually emerging at a surprisingly fast rate. We don't
(10:25):
always end up with the government that we vote for,
and according to Walter, we don't just see each other
as political opponents but his enemies. These factors could mean
big problems ahead. I have no doubt in my mind
that there is going to be, sometime in this decade
the very first, very real secession crisis the US has
(10:46):
faced since the eighteen sixties. Here's Casey Michelle. He's reported
on Collex for places like Politico and The Washington Post.
I don't know if that's going to be in Texas
or California or elsewhere. But given the fraying of political
balls and the broader political tensions, people are just gonna
start casting about for other ideas, and we're gonna reach
some kind of breaking points, some kind of tipping point
(11:07):
for Americans across the country to ask themselves, is this
something that we want to continue or if it's not,
what are the potential alternatives and what should really be
on the table. Marcus from Calls thinks that this tipping point,
it's actually already behind us, that calls isn't just possible,
(11:27):
but it's inevitable. Oh, we're convinced calls gonna happen in
the next five years. A lot of people think that
that's a little bit extreme, but our point is this,
when we started in two thousand and fourteen, people laughed
at us. No one's laughing anymore. On January six, an
(11:53):
armed mob of far right extremists storm the US capital,
hoping to keep presidant Trump and power for another time.
When you hear the phrase a tipping point, you might
think that January six was it. But January six wasn't
about splitting the country up. It was about controlling the government,
not ending it. If we have reached a tipping point
(12:15):
beyond which calls or some kind of succession crisis is inevitable,
there's an argument to be made that it actually happened
later a year after January six, when a tech executive
named Harry raga Van decided to move from San Francisco
to Florida. I got a Twitter d M from a
friend of mine. He was like, I think you're my
first friend to get a setting US congresswoman to declare
(12:38):
civil war over something you said. This is hardy. He's
in his mid thirties Starcare. Harry grew up in the Midwest,
where he wanted to work in tech. So when it
was time to start his career, he knew there was
only one place for him to live. California. It was
where you wanted to go when you wanted to make
(12:58):
it right. For a sexy state. It's also incredibly influential
by virtue of sheer size and resources. It's the epicenter
of like tech in startups. It has to be. At first,
Harry loved California. He met a woman and got married.
His career was going great, but eventually his feelings changed.
(13:19):
He thought San Francisco was too expensive, he didn't feel
safe in his neighborhood, and so in late Harry decided
to move to Florida. Some guy moving across the country
shouldn't have been news, but before he left San Francisco,
Harry has something he wanted to say, and so he
started tweeting, So here we go. I'm moving out of
(13:42):
the Bay Area. My biggest reason is that I believe
the Bay Area is no longer the best crucipal for
the American dream. Harry laid out his reasons for leaving,
and then he wrote this, it's such a cliche, but
we're moving to Miami. I know there's plenty to be
opprehensive about. Worst politics from our perspective, its own superficiality,
weather issues, critters, guns, but lots of love about food, warmth,
(14:05):
service industry, and vibrancy. Worst politics from our perspective. These
were the words that turn Hard's moving day international news.
Twitter lit up with outraged comments like this one. This
guy is moving from California to Florida because he can't
stand living in the mess that live politics created, and
he still has the updacity to talk down to Flirtians
(14:26):
about their politics. Libs are a cancer. There are the
absolute worst people in this country. And then there was
this tweet from another user. I support actively discriminating against
transplants like this through legislation. They shouldn't be able to
vote for a period, and they should have to pay
at tax for their sins. Finally, in response to that,
a congresswoman from Georgia named Marjorie Taylor Green tweeted, this
(14:50):
all possible in a national divorce scenario. After Democrat voters
and big donors ruin a state like California, you would
think it wise to stop them from doing it to
another great state like Florida. All possible in a national
divorce scenario. What exactly is a national divorce? Here's Casey Michelle. Again.
A lot of pro Trump voices have over the past
(15:13):
year started floating what they call a national divorce, and
it's kind of a cute way of saying we want
to dissolve the country. These calls for a national divorce
were mostly coming from pretty obscure figures, so to hear
it coming from a member of Congress was something new
and alarming and finally new role Americans must answer the
(15:35):
question posed on Twitter last week by Representative Marjor Taylor Green.
Should America have a national divorce? National divorce in which
we separate the red states from the blue stakes? National
di like? What on earth are like? This is a U.
S Member of Congress talking about tearing the union part
(15:55):
and if we've hit the tipping point. Maybe this was it.
This wasn't a debate about saving the country, it was
about ending it. Marjorie Taylor Green is well known for
her extreme positions, like denying the election results, but the
idea that a member of the U. S Government would
openly suggest that there shouldn't be a US government just
(16:17):
shows how divided the country is and is a warning
for what might be coming next. Well, I mean it
was immediately apparently national divorce means civil war, right, Um,
it's yeah, like it's it's I don't know, is that
even a euphemism like Support for the idea of a
(16:40):
national divorce has continued to grow. But her question does
represent the thinking of a lot of Americans on both sides.
Of Republicans in the South say they would support secession
to join a new confederacy. You have a lot of
people on the left and on the right talking about
the country splitting up. We are going to be a
country where the red states become redder and the blue
(17:01):
states become bluer, and maybe then the best help is
a friendly separation. In Texas, this year, Republicans added support
for a vote on secession to their official party platform.
New Hampshire is considering a bill to declare its independence.
And then, of course there's California. The campaign for cal Exit,
(17:22):
the secession of California to become an independent country, has
been gaining steam. OR recent Reuters poll found one in
three California support the idea of the state withdrawing from
the United States. Proposals for California secession have been around
for a while, but it wasn't until the election of
Donald's Trump in sixteen that people started to talk about
(17:44):
it seriously. Trump scared and alienated many liberal Californians. In
their eyes, the American flag waving at Trump rallies didn't
represent freedom or democracy, but something ominous. They went looking
for a way out, and search led them right to
cal Exit. This flag represents from you a flag of
(18:06):
imperialism and war and discrimination and all of those other
things more than it does like this flag of freedom.
This is Louis Marinelli. He co founded Calls along with
Marcus Ruise Evans. We interviewed Louis several times for this podcast,
and this type is from our first conversation with him
(18:27):
back in the middle of I think that not only
would it be beneficial for the people of California and
for the people the United States to have this type
of national divorce that allows the two to kind of
go their own separate ways and to pursue their own futures.
But also I think the California is an independent country,
would be able to do things to make the world
a better place. For some of the Californians horrified by Trump,
(18:51):
the vision presented by cal Exit was exactly what they
wanted to hear. I mean, imagine the California where you had,
you know, quote unquote free universe city education and quote
unquote free healthcare. I mean, you're kind of turning into
a country like northern Europe, which is, you know, according
to most surveys, are the happiest countries in the world.
And so that's kind of the direction that we'd like
(19:11):
to take California. I would like to make Californias that
app to people in the world. According to Marcus and Lewis,
Californians could free themselves of Donald Trump, they could protect
progressive values like abortion rights, and they could stop taking
ship from the rest of America. All they had to
(19:33):
do was cal Exit. This scene from the TV show,
the politician summed up the sales pitch. We can't agree
on policy in this country because we can't agree on facts. Okay,
I'd like to move on, And that's why I think
California should seceed from the Union. I'm sorry, would you
(19:54):
care to elaborate? California should be its own dependent country.
Most of our federal tax dollars go out of state
to people who think that we are lot smoking, Satan
worshiping abortion doctors or something, who can't shut up about
(20:15):
how our high taxes are strangling the private sector. And
yet somehow California manages to remain the world leader in growth, industry, innovation,
and culture. We have the best public university system in
the history of humankind. So maybe, just maybe we are
doing something right. And you have to ask yourself eventually,
(20:39):
are we ever going to change their minds? Are we
ever going to change them? No? This state is in
a bad marriage. And what do you do when you're
in a bad marriage, You get a divorce. Sorry, Texas
and West Virginia and Alabama. I'm sure you're a beautiful
(21:02):
deep down inside. But we're moving on. You can see
why the pitch for collegs. It might appeal to a
lot of Californians. But for me, I'm not sure what
to think. You might be wondering who am I. I'm
(21:25):
an Indigenous artist and activist. I'm twenty two, and in
a way, I kind of grew up living like two lives.
I was a poor Native kid, isolated in a very
white community and trying my best to stay connected to
our culture in Mexico. But I was also a rising
figure in the climate movement. I was six years old
when I gave my first speech. Hello, my name is Matthew,
(21:47):
and I came to talk to you today about how
sacred the earth is. As I grew older, I learned
more about my ancestors history and how governments today, especially
the US, continue to exploit indigenous communities, who are among
the most impacted by the climate crisis. Our government is
largely responsible for the climate crisis in the world today.
(22:09):
The environmental movement can seem separate from the rest of
the world, but if you look at it, it's connected
to politics, to human rights, to race relations. Like when
I was fifteen, I gave a speech to the United
Nations urging world leaders to take action on climate change.
We are approaching one years of Unitedations Climate talks, and
then the last twenty years, almost no agreements have been made.
(22:33):
We need you to take action before it's too late.
In the seven years since that speech when viral, I've
watched world leaders failed to meet the urgency of the
climate crisis, and back home, politicians from both parties were
selling out to the fossil fuel industry left and right.
I became more and more disillusioned by our institutions. While
(22:55):
I was doing all the activism stuff, I was also
falling deeper in love with music. I grew up listening
to cars, one Quality and the Roots, soaking up inspiration
for the songs that I began to write and perform
around my hometown. I wanted to be a part of
this legacy of artists using their voice to bring people together.
When I was seventeen, I went on tour for the
(23:16):
first time. It started to feel like I could really
be a part of that. All of my experiences have
led me to deeply believe in the interconnectedness of our
world and our struggles, but at the same time, our
society has only grown more polarized and more apathetic. That contradiction.
This part of what inspired me to write the song
you're listening to you right now. It's called say write
(23:39):
and open letters, close and now my kin? How they
shut in skins? So there's nothing left. I've been playing
it in the again and moving west. Question of my purpose?
How to wear my guest? I know we are war
coming for our flag? Never gonna love us? Why we
love a bad How we clip democracy? And stolen land?
Maybe revolution? So we Who I am? I wonder what
we're all to say? I want big systemic change in
(24:02):
the United States, But it's cal Exit the change we need.
I don't know. So we're gonna try and find out.
Over the next seven episodes will unpack the cal Exit story.
We're gonna try to understand what it would mean if
cal Exit actually happened. Do you fully comprehend the implications
(24:23):
of this? Why would the rest of the States? Why
would the rest of US Americans let California go without
a war? Along the way, we'll also ask a bigger question,
how did the US become so dividedd that people are
seriously talking about a solution? Is radical as a national divorce?
(24:44):
What will it take for those divisions to heal? It's
a question that feels way more urgent as we head
into mid terms that could decide the future of issues
like election integrity, the fight against the climate crisis, and
the right to an abortion, issues that could push our
country to the breaking point. The notion of succession is
very novel right it's gaining quickly. I think the abortion
(25:06):
debate is going to make it front and center. Genuinely,
I think it is going to really cause people to
question whether they are living in a unified country anymore.
What I do know is that the trends go one way,
and that if steps are not taken, America will fall,
will stop being a democracy in the near to medium future.
(25:26):
So let's get started. Next episode, we dig into the
origin story of the guys who started it all, Calgs
and founders Marcus Ruiz Evans and Louis Manelli, two dudes
that could end up being our new founding fathers. Who
are they, what do they believe? And how did they
go from best friends too? Well? This Lewis is out
(25:51):
of the movement. He is dead to the movement. He
will never be coming back. He's destroyed his reputation and
nobody wants to have anything to do with him. If
you say he's attached to cal exit. People are going
to call you out on that and call you guys liars.
That's all coming up on the Last Resort. The Last
(26:12):
Resort is an Interval Presents original production from Awfully Nice.
From Interval Presents. The executive producers are Alan Coy and
Jake Kleinberg. Executive producers from Awfully Nice are Jesse Burton
and Katie Hodges. Written and produced by Jesse Burton and
Dana Bulut. Associate producer is Suzanne Gaber. Project management by
(26:33):
Kadi Kama Kat Editing, sound design and mix by Nick
Sabriano and Keiana McClellan of Bang Audio. Post original music
by My Boy Mattaway, Yuhi and Me Shoots Scott. Theme
song by Me Shoot Tescott and Sweet. Sound fact checking
by Lauren Vespoli. Script consultation by William Bauer. Operations lead
(26:53):
is Sarah You, Business development lead is Cheffi a Lnswig,
and marketing lead is Samara Still I'm Your Host Shoots God.
For a full list of the sources used in this episode,
please check the show notes. Make sure to follow, rate
and review The Last Resort on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening.
(27:16):
I wrote the Wars do when we want? I wrote
the Wars Yeah,
This episode contains graphic language and content that may be
alarming to some listener. Discretion is advised. I never started
off wanting to become a secessionist. This is a story
about an idea, an idea that started small and grew.
(00:22):
I was three years in and I was starting to
lose my mind. I was losing my grip on my
sanity because it was so much data, an idea so
controversial that until recently, it was risky to even say aloud,
Oh my god, think about what you're saying. And you're
gonna put your name on this and publish this. Are
you sure you know what you're doing? Because you don't
(00:42):
get to walk this back. What if it's time to
end the United States as we know it? Quality and
democracy are under assault. Protesters have now broken into the
US capital for Americans believe there will be a civil
war in the United States. The United States is in
(01:06):
terminal the client the trend line is obvious. It is
falling apart. We want to hope for the best, but
we need to prepare for the worst. More and more
Americans believe that the United States is hopelessly broken, and
so a group of activists in California have made a
radical proposal to leave. They called their movement cal Exit.
(01:32):
What when do we want it now? The term cal
Exit has taken social media by storm. So I really
see California as this kind of life raft where we
can escape the sinking empire. We don't have to go down.
The ship. Was started as a wild idea quickly grew
much bigger. There is a legitimate movement to have California
(01:54):
break away from the rest of the United States. It's
an idea that some people believe could us are in
a new era of justice, peace and prosperity for the state,
and others fear will plunge it into chaos. The most
violent civil wars are the ones over succession. Those are
the conflicts that governments will fight to the death over.
(02:19):
This is the story of cal Legs. It's the story
of two friends who set out to change the United States.
We met personally started brainstorming the campaign for California Independence.
They built a movement with hundreds of thousands of supporters.
My phone is ringing off the hook. They said, I
(02:41):
want to succeed now, I want the initiative right now,
and ended up in the middle of a still unfolding.
Criminal conspiracy. Now that's raising questions about whether Russia is
behind the succession campaign. The guy who's leaving the California
Independence woman is sitting in Moscow next to this guy.
We know it's funded either Kremlin, and that showed me
(03:02):
how crazy he was. It really let me kind of
peer into his soul and just see what a malignant
narcissist he really is. The United States is more divided
than ever. Could collexit be the solution or could accelerate
the breakdown of our democracy? Wake up to the bad scene?
Has it been on the ground. You could hear the
voices a seen about the crown, how it goes to
(03:24):
five winning up and uh everything go phone and going
to the gate on duh, duh, duh they go to
gate Uh from Interval presents an awfully nice this is
the last resort I'm shoot Episode one, the tipping point.
(03:45):
He was a kid, my mother choos. Last June, Megan
(04:06):
the Stallion was performing at Glastonbury Festival when she stopped
to let the crowd know how she was feeling. Audience
right now to save motherfucking choice. That's quite so let's
put all a lot of middle fingers up right now,
and we went into the campus ship to these motherfucker's
(04:27):
all right. That Friday, the U. S. Supreme Court had
overturned Roll versus Wade, ending the constitutional rights on abortion. Megan,
like many others, we're trying to process the horror of
it all. Performer after performer took the stage that weekend
(04:51):
to speak out. Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo, devastated and terrified.
So many women and so many girls are going to
die because of this. Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day. Fuck,
where God fucking renouncing my citizenship? I'm sucking. Millions of
(05:15):
other people raised their voices and protests that weekend. Across America.
People marched, they donated, and they looked to their government
for a response. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom announced a
plan to strengthen the state's laws protecting abortion rights. We're
(05:37):
going to enshrine that codify that as we should in
the state constitution. Why do we do? Why don't we built?
Yeah that watching all of this go down was a
guy named Marcus Ruiz Evans. We caught him up the
day of the verdict to get his reaction. People are
(06:00):
in pain. I mean, people are scared shitless in California today.
I know them. I live here in California has a
history of saying, we don't like what the federal government does.
We're going to pass the law to stop that. What
difference did it make? The Supreme Court upheld Trump could
redirect funding to the wall. The Supreme Court upheld Trump
(06:22):
could ban people from Muslim countries, and he could keep
Mexican children in cages on the border, and he could
sell off California lands to oil and there's literally nothing
the California government could do about it. And it is
because California has treated this way that we have said
you must calex it. For Marcus, this kind of talk
(06:42):
is very on brand because he has spent the last
decade pushing an idea most people would regard as impossible.
Marcus believes that California should succeed from the United States,
that we should quote unquote callegs it. The callegs In
movement was started by Marcus and another activist, Louis Marinelli.
(07:04):
Back In supporters believe that cal exit is the only
way Californians can live according to their values. That's great,
that Gavin Uson wants to trine it in our constitution.
But just because you put something in our constitution does
not give you any additional legal protection against decisions by
the Federal Supreme Court. So that's great you're doing that,
(07:26):
and that will absolutely not protect us from the Supreme
Court at all. We have to get connected as Californians
and push for cal Exit before they take away another right,
because this isn't gonna stop. Most Americans support abortion rights,
but that didn't stop the Supreme Court from taking them away.
Maybe that's one reason why, according to a Reason Pull,
(07:49):
a majority of voters believe our system of government doesn't work.
That's created an opening for people like Marcus Ruiz Evans
to argue that it's time for change. Still, though cal
Exit this is crazy talk, right. Most state has ever
seriously tried to leave the Union since the Civil War,
but some experts believe that this moment we're in could
(08:10):
be different. Hi, my name is Barbara Walter. I'm the
roar Chair of International Affairs at the University of California,
San Diego. That I've studied every single civil war that's
happened since the end of World War two and there's
been over two hundred of them. Walter helped identify two
factors that strongly predicted if a country would fall into
civil war. The first factor was something we called innocracy,
(08:34):
which is just a fancy term for a partial democracy.
Imagine a country where you have elections, but that the
person with the most votes doesn't always win. That's inn ocricy.
It happened in two thousand Al Gore winning the popular
vote by a slim margin, George Bush, though, taking the
election by winning the electoral college. And then the second
(08:58):
factor is something we call called factionalism, which is a
fancy term for when citizens in a country organize themselves
politically pretty strictly around identity. Today, the Republican Party is
almost white and Christian, in other words, a faction. So
(09:20):
you see, I also call myself a Christian nationalist, and
that's not a bad word, and there's nothing wrong with
leading with your faith, and I think that's what the
Republican Party needs to be about. So you start to
get political parties that are ethnically, religiously, or racially based,
and then those parties try to gain power not because
(09:43):
they want to share power with the other groups, but
because they want to actively exclude them from power. Our
radical democratic partners are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage.
They want to destroy you, and they want to destroy
our country as we know. It not acceptable. It's not
(10:04):
going to happen. And I'm seeing that both of these
two features were emerging here in this country, and they
were actually emerging at a surprisingly fast rate. We don't
(10:25):
always end up with the government that we vote for,
and according to Walter, we don't just see each other
as political opponents but his enemies. These factors could mean
big problems ahead. I have no doubt in my mind
that there is going to be, sometime in this decade
the very first, very real secession crisis the US has
(10:46):
faced since the eighteen sixties. Here's Casey Michelle. He's reported
on Collex for places like Politico and The Washington Post.
I don't know if that's going to be in Texas
or California or elsewhere. But given the fraying of political
balls and the broader political tensions, people are just gonna
start casting about for other ideas, and we're gonna reach
some kind of breaking points, some kind of tipping point
(11:07):
for Americans across the country to ask themselves, is this
something that we want to continue or if it's not,
what are the potential alternatives and what should really be
on the table. Marcus from Calls thinks that this tipping point,
it's actually already behind us, that calls isn't just possible,
(11:27):
but it's inevitable. Oh, we're convinced calls gonna happen in
the next five years. A lot of people think that
that's a little bit extreme, but our point is this,
when we started in two thousand and fourteen, people laughed
at us. No one's laughing anymore. On January six, an
(11:53):
armed mob of far right extremists storm the US capital,
hoping to keep presidant Trump and power for another time.
When you hear the phrase a tipping point, you might
think that January six was it. But January six wasn't
about splitting the country up. It was about controlling the government,
not ending it. If we have reached a tipping point
(12:15):
beyond which calls or some kind of succession crisis is inevitable,
there's an argument to be made that it actually happened
later a year after January six, when a tech executive
named Harry raga Van decided to move from San Francisco
to Florida. I got a Twitter d M from a
friend of mine. He was like, I think you're my
first friend to get a setting US congresswoman to declare
(12:38):
civil war over something you said. This is hardy. He's
in his mid thirties Starcare. Harry grew up in the Midwest,
where he wanted to work in tech. So when it
was time to start his career, he knew there was
only one place for him to live. California. It was
where you wanted to go when you wanted to make
(12:58):
it right. For a sexy state. It's also incredibly influential
by virtue of sheer size and resources. It's the epicenter
of like tech in startups. It has to be. At first,
Harry loved California. He met a woman and got married.
His career was going great, but eventually his feelings changed.
(13:19):
He thought San Francisco was too expensive, he didn't feel
safe in his neighborhood, and so in late Harry decided
to move to Florida. Some guy moving across the country
shouldn't have been news, but before he left San Francisco,
Harry has something he wanted to say, and so he
started tweeting, So here we go. I'm moving out of
(13:42):
the Bay Area. My biggest reason is that I believe
the Bay Area is no longer the best crucipal for
the American dream. Harry laid out his reasons for leaving,
and then he wrote this, it's such a cliche, but
we're moving to Miami. I know there's plenty to be
opprehensive about. Worst politics from our perspective, its own superficiality,
weather issues, critters, guns, but lots of love about food, warmth,
(14:05):
service industry, and vibrancy. Worst politics from our perspective. These
were the words that turn Hard's moving day international news.
Twitter lit up with outraged comments like this one. This
guy is moving from California to Florida because he can't
stand living in the mess that live politics created, and
he still has the updacity to talk down to Flirtians
(14:26):
about their politics. Libs are a cancer. There are the
absolute worst people in this country. And then there was
this tweet from another user. I support actively discriminating against
transplants like this through legislation. They shouldn't be able to
vote for a period, and they should have to pay
at tax for their sins. Finally, in response to that,
a congresswoman from Georgia named Marjorie Taylor Green tweeted, this
(14:50):
all possible in a national divorce scenario. After Democrat voters
and big donors ruin a state like California, you would
think it wise to stop them from doing it to
another great state like Florida. All possible in a national
divorce scenario. What exactly is a national divorce? Here's Casey Michelle. Again.
A lot of pro Trump voices have over the past
(15:13):
year started floating what they call a national divorce, and
it's kind of a cute way of saying we want
to dissolve the country. These calls for a national divorce
were mostly coming from pretty obscure figures, so to hear
it coming from a member of Congress was something new
and alarming and finally new role Americans must answer the
(15:35):
question posed on Twitter last week by Representative Marjor Taylor Green.
Should America have a national divorce? National divorce in which
we separate the red states from the blue stakes? National
di like? What on earth are like? This is a U.
S Member of Congress talking about tearing the union part
(15:55):
and if we've hit the tipping point. Maybe this was it.
This wasn't a debate about saving the country, it was
about ending it. Marjorie Taylor Green is well known for
her extreme positions, like denying the election results, but the
idea that a member of the U. S Government would
openly suggest that there shouldn't be a US government just
(16:17):
shows how divided the country is and is a warning
for what might be coming next. Well, I mean it
was immediately apparently national divorce means civil war, right, Um,
it's yeah, like it's it's I don't know, is that
even a euphemism like Support for the idea of a
(16:40):
national divorce has continued to grow. But her question does
represent the thinking of a lot of Americans on both sides.
Of Republicans in the South say they would support secession
to join a new confederacy. You have a lot of
people on the left and on the right talking about
the country splitting up. We are going to be a
country where the red states become redder and the blue
(17:01):
states become bluer, and maybe then the best help is
a friendly separation. In Texas, this year, Republicans added support
for a vote on secession to their official party platform.
New Hampshire is considering a bill to declare its independence.
And then, of course there's California. The campaign for cal Exit,
(17:22):
the secession of California to become an independent country, has
been gaining steam. OR recent Reuters poll found one in
three California support the idea of the state withdrawing from
the United States. Proposals for California secession have been around
for a while, but it wasn't until the election of
Donald's Trump in sixteen that people started to talk about
(17:44):
it seriously. Trump scared and alienated many liberal Californians. In
their eyes, the American flag waving at Trump rallies didn't
represent freedom or democracy, but something ominous. They went looking
for a way out, and search led them right to
cal Exit. This flag represents from you a flag of
(18:06):
imperialism and war and discrimination and all of those other
things more than it does like this flag of freedom.
This is Louis Marinelli. He co founded Calls along with
Marcus Ruise Evans. We interviewed Louis several times for this podcast,
and this type is from our first conversation with him
(18:27):
back in the middle of I think that not only
would it be beneficial for the people of California and
for the people the United States to have this type
of national divorce that allows the two to kind of
go their own separate ways and to pursue their own futures.
But also I think the California is an independent country,
would be able to do things to make the world
a better place. For some of the Californians horrified by Trump,
(18:51):
the vision presented by cal Exit was exactly what they
wanted to hear. I mean, imagine the California where you had,
you know, quote unquote free universe city education and quote
unquote free healthcare. I mean, you're kind of turning into
a country like northern Europe, which is, you know, according
to most surveys, are the happiest countries in the world.
And so that's kind of the direction that we'd like
(19:11):
to take California. I would like to make Californias that
app to people in the world. According to Marcus and Lewis,
Californians could free themselves of Donald Trump, they could protect
progressive values like abortion rights, and they could stop taking
ship from the rest of America. All they had to
(19:33):
do was cal Exit. This scene from the TV show,
the politician summed up the sales pitch. We can't agree
on policy in this country because we can't agree on facts. Okay,
I'd like to move on, And that's why I think
California should seceed from the Union. I'm sorry, would you
(19:54):
care to elaborate? California should be its own dependent country.
Most of our federal tax dollars go out of state
to people who think that we are lot smoking, Satan
worshiping abortion doctors or something, who can't shut up about
(20:15):
how our high taxes are strangling the private sector. And
yet somehow California manages to remain the world leader in growth, industry, innovation,
and culture. We have the best public university system in
the history of humankind. So maybe, just maybe we are
doing something right. And you have to ask yourself eventually,
(20:39):
are we ever going to change their minds? Are we
ever going to change them? No? This state is in
a bad marriage. And what do you do when you're
in a bad marriage, You get a divorce. Sorry, Texas
and West Virginia and Alabama. I'm sure you're a beautiful
(21:02):
deep down inside. But we're moving on. You can see
why the pitch for collegs. It might appeal to a
lot of Californians. But for me, I'm not sure what
to think. You might be wondering who am I. I'm
(21:25):
an Indigenous artist and activist. I'm twenty two, and in
a way, I kind of grew up living like two lives.
I was a poor Native kid, isolated in a very
white community and trying my best to stay connected to
our culture in Mexico. But I was also a rising
figure in the climate movement. I was six years old
when I gave my first speech. Hello, my name is Matthew,
(21:47):
and I came to talk to you today about how
sacred the earth is. As I grew older, I learned
more about my ancestors history and how governments today, especially
the US, continue to exploit indigenous communities, who are among
the most impacted by the climate crisis. Our government is
largely responsible for the climate crisis in the world today.
(22:09):
The environmental movement can seem separate from the rest of
the world, but if you look at it, it's connected
to politics, to human rights, to race relations. Like when
I was fifteen, I gave a speech to the United
Nations urging world leaders to take action on climate change.
We are approaching one years of Unitedations Climate talks, and
then the last twenty years, almost no agreements have been made.
(22:33):
We need you to take action before it's too late.
In the seven years since that speech when viral, I've
watched world leaders failed to meet the urgency of the
climate crisis, and back home, politicians from both parties were
selling out to the fossil fuel industry left and right.
I became more and more disillusioned by our institutions. While
(22:55):
I was doing all the activism stuff, I was also
falling deeper in love with music. I grew up listening
to cars, one Quality and the Roots, soaking up inspiration
for the songs that I began to write and perform
around my hometown. I wanted to be a part of
this legacy of artists using their voice to bring people together.
When I was seventeen, I went on tour for the
(23:16):
first time. It started to feel like I could really
be a part of that. All of my experiences have
led me to deeply believe in the interconnectedness of our
world and our struggles, but at the same time, our
society has only grown more polarized and more apathetic. That contradiction.
This part of what inspired me to write the song
you're listening to you right now. It's called say write
(23:39):
and open letters, close and now my kin? How they
shut in skins? So there's nothing left. I've been playing
it in the again and moving west. Question of my purpose?
How to wear my guest? I know we are war
coming for our flag? Never gonna love us? Why we
love a bad How we clip democracy? And stolen land?
Maybe revolution? So we Who I am? I wonder what
we're all to say? I want big systemic change in
(24:02):
the United States, But it's cal Exit the change we need.
I don't know. So we're gonna try and find out.
Over the next seven episodes will unpack the cal Exit story.
We're gonna try to understand what it would mean if
cal Exit actually happened. Do you fully comprehend the implications
(24:23):
of this? Why would the rest of the States? Why
would the rest of US Americans let California go without
a war? Along the way, we'll also ask a bigger question,
how did the US become so dividedd that people are
seriously talking about a solution? Is radical as a national divorce?
(24:44):
What will it take for those divisions to heal? It's
a question that feels way more urgent as we head
into mid terms that could decide the future of issues
like election integrity, the fight against the climate crisis, and
the right to an abortion, issues that could push our
country to the breaking point. The notion of succession is
very novel right it's gaining quickly. I think the abortion
(25:06):
debate is going to make it front and center. Genuinely,
I think it is going to really cause people to
question whether they are living in a unified country anymore.
What I do know is that the trends go one way,
and that if steps are not taken, America will fall,
will stop being a democracy in the near to medium future.
(25:26):
So let's get started. Next episode, we dig into the
origin story of the guys who started it all, Calgs
and founders Marcus Ruiz Evans and Louis Manelli, two dudes
that could end up being our new founding fathers. Who
are they, what do they believe? And how did they
go from best friends too? Well? This Lewis is out
(25:51):
of the movement. He is dead to the movement. He
will never be coming back. He's destroyed his reputation and
nobody wants to have anything to do with him. If
you say he's attached to cal exit. People are going
to call you out on that and call you guys liars.
That's all coming up on the Last Resort. The Last
(26:12):
Resort is an Interval Presents original production from Awfully Nice.
From Interval Presents. The executive producers are Alan Coy and
Jake Kleinberg. Executive producers from Awfully Nice are Jesse Burton
and Katie Hodges. Written and produced by Jesse Burton and
Dana Bulut. Associate producer is Suzanne Gaber. Project management by
(26:33):
Kadi Kama Kat Editing, sound design and mix by Nick
Sabriano and Keiana McClellan of Bang Audio. Post original music
by My Boy Mattaway, Yuhi and Me Shoots Scott. Theme
song by Me Shoot Tescott and Sweet. Sound fact checking
by Lauren Vespoli. Script consultation by William Bauer. Operations lead
(26:53):
is Sarah You, Business development lead is Cheffi a Lnswig,
and marketing lead is Samara Still I'm Your Host Shoots God.
For a full list of the sources used in this episode,
please check the show notes. Make sure to follow, rate
and review The Last Resort on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening.
(27:16):
I wrote the Wars do when we want? I wrote
the Wars Yeah,
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