Trump’s vengeance against Sanctuary Cities could trigger CalExit
Most people I know are against CalExit, the scheme, modeled on Britain’s “Brexit” from the European Union, for California to break apart from the U.S.A. and form its own country. Newspapers are editorializing against it; politicians, including Gavin Newsom, who’s likely to be California’s next Governor, denounce it, and polls show that ordinary Californians don’t favor the move—at least, not yet.
But hidden in the poll numbers are hints that things could change, and quickly. The number of Californians favoring CalExit has grown by 12 percent in the last three years—and the election of Trump, a man deeply loathed in blue-state California, also has added to people’s inclination to look for alternatives to living under his regime. Granted, those in favor of CalExit still account for less than one-third of all voters (32%). But “There’s such hostility towards Trump that many citizens believe it would be smarter to leave [the union] than fight,” according to a Democratic political insider, Steve Maviglio, who was former California Governor Gray Davis’s press secretary.
What would it take for a majority of Californians to favor CalExit? What might be the precipitating event? Well, with Attorney-General Jeff Sessions’ remarks the other day about cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities—a Trump campaign promise—we might be seeing the beginnings of the move towards a California Nation.
Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, my local newspaper, gave the Sessions threat huge coverage on the front page, overshadowed only by the (truly awful) news that the Raiders are leaving my home town of Oakland. (Oakland to Mark Davis: drop dead.) The Chron analyzed many areas that the Trump regime might eliminate from funding, ranging from money for providing police with body cameras to forming gang task forces in police departments, from providing trauma services to crime victims to ending certain probation-related programs in the courts.
The blackmail aspect of Trump’s threat cannot be overlooked, and will not be among Californians. I may be living in a blue bubble in the bluest of coastal California regions, but there are millions of people like me who feel the same way. Imagine if Trump follows through on his sanctuary city punishment. Cities such as Oakland, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and at least 16 California sanctuary counties (not all of them coastal), will scramble to come up with replacement funds. Resentment in these areas will build, and will be fueled, no doubt, by other mean steps the Trump regime takes that are anathema to liberal sentiment. Nor is California alone: hundreds of other cities and counties around the country, from Georgia to Iowa, Minnesota to Nevada, have sanctuary policies, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, citing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data.
It’s not all that hard to envision a scenario in which increasing dissension in California to Trump leads locals to demand action from our elected officials, including Congressmen and Senators. We are witnessing, right now, how local activism is influencing our politicians as hasn’t been seen in decades; I’ve written about how Senator Dianne Feinstein suddenly discovered her inner warrior woman after hearing from constituents concerned she’s not taking the Trump threat seriously enough.
What happens when the majority of the California congressional delegation feels the heat? When Feinstein and her fellow Democratic Senator, Kamala Harris, feel it? When the Governor feels it? When Boards of Supervisors, county officials and Mayors begin demanding it? When that 32% of Californians now favoring CalExit rises to 40%, 52%, 59%?
We haven’t faced the situation of an American state leaving the union in 157 years, since 1860, when South Carolina seceded from the U.S., thereby precipitating the American Civil War. In that case, Lincoln was adamant in preserving the Union; he could have told the South, “Fine, leave, we don’t need you,” but he took the opposite step. What would Donald J. Trump do if and when California declared that it will no longer forward tax revenues to Washington…that it will resist Washington’s efforts in the areas of immigration enforcement? What happens when the Governor and the legislature appoint a formal task force to study and report on all issues connected with CalExit? Will an aggressive, paranoid President Trump take counter-measures, or will he tweet, “Goodbye, California, you’re not really America anyway, bye bye?”
We may be about to find out.
