Secede and then we can trade :)
If they secede you will definitely not be trading with either half for a long time.
Better than the current situation honestly. Both being preoccupied is better than Trump’s admirations of Canadian minerals
I honestly think you’re soapboxing for clout.
It’s good that everyone is weaning themselves off American products, but you’re fooling yourself if you really think America having a civil war won’t make your life as a Canadian objectively worse.
I’m of the opinion that despite America not learning from fascism’s rise to power, most of the rest of the world did, and will back each other up much better than they did 100 years ago. In other words, we’re never annexing Canada or your minerals, we’re merely making life hell for ourselves (and anyone else who depends on our economy). Imagine the Third Reich except no invasions, just an internal Holocaust. I think that’s the worse case scenario. Canada isn’t invading to save our minorities, same as nobody invaded Germany to save theirs.
Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, yeah, but we’re living in really dramatic times.
we’re never annexing Canada or your minerals
I mean, a lot of people didn’t expect Trump to tear down the American government within months of getting into power either. With Trump stating that he wants to annex Canada “through economic means” and then immediately attacking us with ridiculous tariffs, it seems like he’s following through on that. I don’t think he’ll hurt us as bad economically as he’s hoping though, so I don’t think him declaring actual war on us out of the picture. It honestly seems like he’s already trying to warm his base up to the idea with us being “a national security threat” and “overrun by cartels”.
Idk, just try to picture the POTUS repeatedly saying he’s going to annex your home for months on end, and then try not to get a little bit on edge.
Edit:
America having a civil war [will] make your life as a Canadian objectively worse
Yeah I admit you’re most definitely right about this. It really wouldn’t be a good time
Not if you get all the nuclear fallout.
I think I’d rather be nuked than be lead by the orange man ngl
I doubt that’s true
I don’t know if you understand the pettiness and absolute disdain of the idea of being American that Canadians have. I live in Ottawa so I would be in the city that gets nuked if it came to that
Ok
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There is a precedent for lawlessness. Literally anything is constitutional now, you just do it and ignore the court ruling. Where have you been the last decade?
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Newsweek is pretty close to a tabloid these days. They are a tad better than the NY Post, but not by much.
Glad to hear, im Canadian and i have no problem buying American products from certain states.
“United” States stands divided. It just gets worse…and at an incredible speed. It’s always quicker and easier to demolish as opposed to building. Every one wants the easy money and the quick buck without a balanced expenditure of energy.
Thank goodness now we are talking. Time for California to move past the Orange Turd.
Turd gonna clamp down on California. He’s got to. Otherwise he loses grip.
The tighter his grip the more states that will slip through his tiny fingers.
Other states should join in. It’s going to be rough no matter how you slice it, but I’d rather the states take the fight to him and the feds. Start controlling the narrative and take it away from the idiots.
What’s really to keep states with ports from just taking over Customs, especially with doge firing and closing federal agencies? If the states control their ports they control what gets tagged for tariffs, or am I wrong?
No question.
Unfortunately this runs into constitutional problems. While the spineless subhuman creatures in congress and the supreme court seem to have no problem with Trump and his administration ignoring the constitution I fully expect them to come down hard on any state that does so (at least in cases that go against Trump and his policies).
Let the feds try to enforce it then. Texas immigration officers basically kicked the feds out when they started doing federally illegal shit, the federal government is barely held together these days. Force them to do something about it. If the flow of money between California and the US stops, California is the big winner so they have all the leverage in the world.
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If the union doesn’t provide any benefits and only costs money and prevents your state from functioning as well as it could and the union only makes solutions harder to solve … why stay in the union?
States stay together because of mutual benefit, not because of a document or promises.
And you could force a state to stay in a union by force but the cost of doing that far outweighs the benefits of a peaceful union.
Don’t forget they’re Democrats.
When the courts rule against them they’ll just meekly comply.
Is your state governor doing anything to oppose Trump?
If memory serves right the person you are responding to is probably British. Or at the very least I don’t think they are American, so don’t take much of what they have to say particularly seriously.
See my other response to peregrin5 but in addition you’re assuming rational actors all around. Actual reality is far more messy with many of those involved making decisions based more on feelings than any in depth reasoning. States stay together because there’s no obvious alternative. There’s no mechanism for a state to leave the union and doing so requires solving many problems that have no obvious answers.
Don’t have to care about being unconstitutional if you’re not part of the union.
Republicans would absolutely love it if the most populous state that consistently sends huge numbers of Democratic representatives to DC was out of the picture. You think Democrats can’t do shit now, see what happens when you lose 40+ democrats from the House.
Won’t matter to me. We’ll leave to US to the Republicans.
Yeah, I’m not cool with leaving my friends and family to just die because they don’t live in CA.
That wouldn’t be happening because they don’t live in CA, it would happen because of Trump who exists in this role whether CA leaves the union or not.
Do more democratic Senators and Representatives do anything or not? Because 6 months ago it was vote blue no matter who, now suddenly it doesn’t matter if we jettison 2 Democratic senators and 40+ Democratic reps as long as you get yours.
The “vote blue no matter who” people were just “blue MAGA” folks trying to justify their support of genocide and those senators and reps along with the DNC leadership are now happily sitting on their asses while Trump’s power goes unchecked, so who cares whether they keep their titles? It’s not as if they’re actually using their positions to fight back. They’re just acting as controlled opposition.
Tell them to move.
Yarvin’s technobrocratic dystopia will have a bunch of these little states run by CEOs, and you wouldn’t have any voice in how it’s run, but you would be free to leave. Is that what you want?
“Sell your home and leave your jobs and maybe it’ll work out” doesn’t fly as well as you think.
That’s great in theory but just as unrealistic in practice for California as it always has been for Texas. The single biggest stumbling block for any state to leave the union for any reason is the military. Most of the other problems can be resolved within the borders of the state, but the disposition of existing and theoretical new military hardware, personnel, and bases will always be a sticking point even assuming the federal government and the other states are willing to let them leave.
Any attempt to leave the US that has any hope of succeeding would be a very long and protracted process that would make Brexit look breakneck in comparison. We’re talking at least a couple decades at a minimum.
It’s either that or another civil war and that has so many variables I’m not sure anyone has any hope of predicting how that would turn out.
The single biggest stumbling block for any state to leave the union for any reason is the military. Most of the other problems can be resolved within the borders of the state, but the disposition of existing and theoretical new military hardware, personnel, and bases will always be a sticking point even assuming the federal government and the other states are willing to let them leave.
I mean it’s California. At that point just get a few neighboring states on board, take all the military hardware and shit and be like “Wanna go to war over it?”.
That’s the problem … if you are damned if you stay and damned if you leave … everyone starts weighing the options of either situation
The choices for staying become … stay and beholden to federal government that ties your hands, manipulates your economy and uses you for their benefit while never allowing you to do what your people want for themselves
or … secede and fight a political, economic and possibly even a military conflict to decide your own future
either options is terrible in the long run (if things continue as they are) but staying means things stay indefinitely terrible while seceding gives a higher chance of political autonomy.
If you’re going that far, why wouldn’t you want the other states? Just take over the whole government instead of trying to secede.
For one, because the way that the government is set up means that you would need the cooperation of at least 26 states to ensure control of the legislative and executive branches, and even then, the Supreme Court justices are lifetime appointments, so you’d have to wait a long time to get the judicial branch on board. So you’d have to wage a war of conquest to secure the entire country. For another, much of the country is a burden on California’s economy. They’re the 5th or 6th largest economy in the world on their own, and many of the states are dependent on their tax money and produce.
I think if you’re seriously talking about seceding, the most practical/logical plan would be a coalition of like-minded states seceding to form their own nation or EU style group of nation-states. The most likely to consider it would probably be the west coast and the northern end of the east coast (New England specifically), which would be a logistical nightmare for everyone involved - both for the US having hostile nations on all sides as well as any seceding states trying to trade across a hostile country between them. Though aid from friendly countries would be easily available, as both coasts border Canada (and Mexico on the west) and have plenty of infrastructure for trade internationally.
wage a war of conquest to secure the entire country
There’s not a large difference between that and a war for secession. Either way it’s violence.
Seems like it would be easier to untangle from the U.S. military if the California populace had access to… something… maybe something that throws metal really fast? Idk
Civil war it is.
Water is more of an issue than the military. The US relies heavily on California for food so that would be a bargaining chip.
Economics in general. California is responsible for a significant chunk of the entire US GDP as well as being one of the primary shipping hubs. My point was more along the lines that these other problems are tractable, you could for instance negotiate trade deals between the rest of the US and California. The military on the other hand is a much tougher problem akin to unscrambling an egg. There’s no obvious way to disentangle California from the greater US military.
Any military option automatically removes any economic benefits that could have been possible in peace time. As soon as any conflict appears, everyone will spend more money on fighting, defending that in saving or creating profit. No matter who may “win”, everyone will lose and it would take decades to recover from it.
Did you mean to respond to someone else? This seems like a bit of a non-sequitur from my comment.
That’s how you get invaded by the military
Thankfully CA can fund its.own military once we no longer need to send charity to all the red states with dirt for an economy. Actually, our police forces in the state routinely spend more money than entire foreign militaries. I’m sure with a couple trade deals and strategic defense pacts that California can easily become it’s own country.
We could do without almonds and wine. The US has more than enough soybeans and corn and wheat and potatoes go around. Nobody is going to starve without California’s agriculture.
Why are you growing water intensive almonds in what should be a desert anyway?
Most vegetables and fruit not imported from Mexico are grown in California. Enjoy your scurvy.
California’s food industry relies heavily on water from out of state, if those rivers dried up because flow got restricted to a trickle, it would be bad for their industry. None of this would happen without violent conflict though. Remember when the north burned the south to the ground? That is our historical precedent for how to respond to secession.
Much of the agricultural land would be fine. However the population centers in SoCal would have to make drastic cuts without the Colorado River.
I could see Oregon and Washington State throwing in with Cali, giving all of them a direct line to nice fresh Canadian Rocky BC Springs because we up here in Canada would be an instant ally of any states that broke off.
You cannot get water from southern Oregon into California by any practical manner. Same as the person you replied to, the Central Valley and coastal regions are inaccessible except from the Sierra Nevada or Colorado River.
Most of Oregon hates Portland these days, and I grew up in Portland. But I don’t think secession would be up to a vote, it would be decided by violence like it always has been. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be successful, but I think Portland would still be burned to the ground.
That’s always been the case that the rural backwater hillbilly sister-fucking areas hate the cities. The same is true in California. But it doesn’t matter because there are more people in the cities so they have more power so the yokels can’t do shit.
California is at the forefront of water conservation recycling in the US, and supports energy self sufficiency. The water issue is a problem, but not nearly as big as you might think. The state and water districts regularly fund new technologies and invest in storage. It would suck for a while, but in the long run, freedom from federal system might actually speed up changes that need to be made anyway.
Leaving the union? Yep you guessed it, unconstitutional. Secession would absolutely cause a war
Yeah, if things were so bad that you were considering secession you might as well cut to the chase and just try to overthrow the US government because they would absolutely go after you hard
P.s. for any government officials who read the above comment, I’m not advocating for overthrow of your stupid little clubhouse, I’m pointing out why secession is a bad idea. Also, quit wasting my tax dollars looking at stupid shit.
So? It’s probably worth it at this point. I’d enlist.
Would you rather be complicit with fascism or fight for something better?
Also, you’re overlooking how much CA funds the rest of the nation. Flyover states do not function without funding from states like CA and TX. Take the west coast from the rest of the US and all that’s left struggles to qualify as third world lmfao
Something something taxation… something something representation… help me out here americans
The article states California is negotiating with other countries to exclude California from those countries’ retaliatory tarrifs on US goods.
There’s nothing the federal government can do about that.
That’s not actually true, there are things the federal government can do. First it’s a grey area legally. The constitution says trade deals (and trade outside the borders of any one state) is the domain of the federal government.
The argument in this case would be “Is this a trade deal?”. It certainly sounds like a deal, and it involves trade, but the key technicality would be if California is giving anything in return. Are they promising anything in exchange for no or reduced tariffs or are they just asking with the promise of nothing in return? If they’re not promising anything there’s a pretty good chance they could win the argument that this isn’t a trade deal and therefore the federal government has no legal basis to intervene (although it’s worth pointing out that the current administration hasn’t particularly let legality influence their actions).
On the other hand if California is promising something in return there’s a decent chance the federal government could successfully argue that that meets the definition of a trade deal and is therefore prohibited. This also raises the question of why another country would agree to remove tariffs from California if they aren’t promising anything in return. The only answer I can come up with is to figuratively (and maybe literally at the same time) give the middle finger to Trump.
The Trump administration has demonstrated that the constitution doesn’t really matter. Why keep pretending like this is some sort of sacred immutable text? The spell has been lifted.
yes, without any shared understanding around whether we enforce all laws or just some, law books are just reems of scratchy toilet paper. So are everyones holy books, and any international agreements we have.
Trump doesnt care about laws and law enforcement has openly hated the public for a long time. Their oaths to serve the law are a vanity that they jettison whenever its convenient.
And Biden/Harris violating god knows how many genocide and arms laws for zionist $ and then losing the election and support across every voting demographic didnt help matters. I wish I could go back in time to the day Obama picked Biden as his running mate and shake Obama until he picks someone else.
Just because Trump and his goons are ignoring it doesn’t mean his cronies in congress and the supreme court won’t still use it to attack anyone they want to.
But without boots on the ground, enforcement won’t happen. If Trump mobilized military on his own nation, he will well and truly enter the final find out phase of his life. The social contract is wearing thin.
Wouldn’t take the military, he can call on federal marshals, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and probably even some of the local police would be willing to become his dogs. He could also in theory deploy one states national guard into a different state although that’s a little shakier legal ground. That’s assuming of course that the local officials would refuse to appear in court or a congressional summons voluntarily. There’s also other ways of exerting pressure like refusing to issue federal funds (although that’s far less effective against Democrat states since they contribute more federal funds than they receive, particularly California).
National Guard is military. Using federal law enforcement might be on the table but they’re woefully underequipped to deal with California as a whole.
It looks like they’re just going to lobby trading partners to please direct (actual) retaliatory sanctions towards products from red states, not their state. In general, I like that idea. But maybe now any excemptions for blue state products should come with a promise to actually fight the incipient fascist government…
They could implement this by just not charging the duties at the ports in California and see who blinks first.
Do they have control over that? I assumed that was handled by feds
Federal and local government are likely both involved. With the doge cuts, who knows how many boots they actually have on the ground for this these days?
Constitution? What constitution ?
What’s good for the goose…
California ! Uber Alles !
Unironically ? I’m so confused
Fun fact Deutschland Uber Alles was originally a call for German unification during the early 1800s and was originally a German republican rallying cry.
It’s a Dead Kennedys song reference that ironically did the German thing because of the governors (at the time) presidential goals and associated policies
Now it’s still relevant but
I kinda like it ?
I’m confused
Have never listened to the dead Kennedys so I kinda couldn’t get the reference so thanks for the context.
Edit: Who the fuck downvoted me? Why the fuck did ya downvoted me? Im 25 sorry I don’t listen to the dead Kennedys I guess?
Newsom is directing his state to pursue “strategic” relationships with countries announcing retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., urging them to exclude California-made products from those taxes.
It sounds like he wants foreign countries to do California a favor without getting anything in exchange (and even that might be unconstitutional). Or is there something that he has the authority to offer in exchange which I’m missing?
CA sales tax averages 10%. While it’s nowhere on the scale of the tariffs, it could offset the impact significantly if reduced or eliminated for goods coming from specific countries.
Additionally, the government of CA has enormous purchasing power. Directing where that money goes could serve to be a powerful tool in mitigating the trade war.
Plus, one element that most folks don’t think about is the financial weight of the CalPERS retirement fund. This organization controls a huge amount of investment money subject to state regulations as to where its invested. Opening up that revenue stream to select foreign companies could be a mighty tasty carrot.
Not disputing most of you point, but the sales tax in California does not average 10%. I live here, and don’t think I’ve ever paid more that 9. Most of the time, it’s lower than 8.
It widely varies by county.
And by city. Ya, there are some cities where it’s over 10. I’m just saying that’s not nearly the average.
Here we go, dissolution of the U.S. is starting. It’s a slow roll, but i think that’s where we are headed
If Texas somehow joins California, were fucked
Texas? Unlikely
I think that’s a reference to the Civil War movie a while back.
Bingo
I think it would be much more likely for the west coast as a whole to split. WA, OR, CA
I could also see Nevada, Arizona, and maybe even Idaho joining. Though Idaho would probably need to have it pointed out that they’re fucked without the other western states.
Suck it, Manifest Destiny!
The US has been there before with the Nullification Crisis of 1832. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_crisis?wprov=sfla1
I guess history really does rhyme.
been thinking and saying for years that we’re on the path to a soviet style balkanization. just wasn’t sure what would be the spark. this certainly smells like one.
We’ve been heading there for a long time and much of the rest of the world has been feeding into the two-sides divide. It’s easier to see when you already loathe both sides for different reasons. But the US has been a powerhouse many would love to see taken down. Generations of work towards that are paying off, and the US working class will suffer the most.
Will it be California first? Or maybe Alaska? Hawaii? We know one’s gonna try and split, just not which.
Cheeto will ‘gift’ Russia Alaska for its help with Greenland
I would love to visit the country of California.
Sadly it’s a near inevitable outcome of an overly powerful Federal Government attempting to deal with a population this large. The more powerful the Federal Government gets the less able it is to balance the different desires of its citizens and the less popular it becomes.
The solution was to NOT have such a powerful Federal Government but we tossed that out the window around somewhere between 1900 and 1920. It may not happen now over this but the clock is ticking and it’s going to happen at some point over something.
It will be terrifying and terrible when it happens.
Unfortunately, we keep giving a small amount of people a lot of power. The cons have way too much representation in relation to their numbers. The other huge problem is that we have a system of legalized bribery, which is just insanity.
A lot of this could be fixed by reforming the senate which is a big part of why that will never happen.
Agreed the problem was baked in during the Ohio Compromise and at other times, it has nothing to do with population size because we’re talking about a small number of elites, not popular will.
Well the south finally will get to leave the union and form florida-man-istan, jesus-wasteland-istan and all-hat-no-cattle-istan. Good luck to them. We should have a going away party before we put up a wall to keep them from trying to get back in.
Why not let them back in? There’s some good people in the red states; it’s a shame we can’t easily relocate all of them.
Nothing says a wall can’t have a door in it. If you want to come here, and aren’t a total douchebag, we can let you in. Maybe even let you stay if you want to. 🤣
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
…we’ll have to check their voting history first.
I escaped the south, they need to as well.
The amount of absolute evil down there is unimaginable.
We need to build a wall.
No politician in California is going to criticize the lack proper vote counting techniques in the USA states that caused this harm. This is because Californian leadership is in thrall to the oligarchs.
Also the man saying this is not the type of person to get out of the safe zone.
I’m not quite sure why people are thinking anything significant can or will happen. The United States cannot change at all
Good point, better to try nothing and give up.
lol i’m considering a move to Tijuana so i can commute to San Diego… if California can nix the chicken tax then i’m moving.
Funnily enough, there’s actually hostoric precedent for trying. Emphasis on trying.
Oh shit can they do that?
I don’t think so.
Politics can sort of be like playing a cross between chess and chicken. Strategic moves to see who blinks first. It’s a constitutional challenge that will need to be addressed by the federal government, taking their time and resources from their own unconstitutional efforts.
Or not. I’m just an Internet person who as far as anyone knows has zero expertise in these sorts of things.
Why not? If the last couple of months have proven anything, it’s that our entire system is a paper tiger.
cExit?
It’s really not legally possible, meaning your either having a revolution, a civil war, or the USA has no ability to stop you as it’s effectively over.
Unless CA has military bases that would fully side with them, as in all the ones in CA and they would need other states, THEN a war could be possible, but that is very unlikely, currently there’s no military that could beat the US military, so it’s not even worth going over unless the US dissolves.
CalOut



























