The Fall and Rise of the California Republic
by Annalee Newitz
The Trans March in San Francisco is usually pretty chaotic—there are no fancy floats or formal activities—but this year a group had gotten their shit together to make an enormous, street-spanning trans flag. Its pink, white, and blue stripes stretched for nearly a quarter block. It felt like there was an unofficial flag theme this year: enormous red-and-green Palestinian flags unfurled in the air over us, rainbow flags floated alongside them, and a lot of groups handed out small trans flags that marchers carried, too.
There were no star-spangled banners. But there were some California flags flapping above the crowd, with the state’s golden bear looking slightly stoned above an LGBT rainbow band. There was patriotism here, for a country that almost exists.
Californians have started talking about seceding again. The second Trump regime has stepped up economic threats and military violence targeting the state, particularly in Los Angeles, where a recent show of force by the military and federal law enforcement in MacArthur Park drew Mayor Karen Bass out in person to demand their departure. With its population of more than 39 million, and a gross state product exceeding $4 trillion, the California Republic has long operated like a country-within-a-country. The place lends itself well to fantasies of secession, and I’m not immune: my new book, Automatic Noodle, is about what happens to California five years after winning a war of independence.
Since Trump’s inauguration, secessionist organization CalExit’s leadership claims they’ve gotten a huge spike in signatures for a ballot measure that would ask Californians to vote on whether they would like to see the state become “a free and independent nation”; they’ll need to gather nearly a million signatures by mid-August. Meanwhile, the Independent California Institute, another pro-secession outfit, commissioned a YouGov poll to gauge Californians’ interest in “autonomy.” Over 50 percent of people polled agreed that the state would be better off if it seceded.
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