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BY JED JALECO DEL ROSARIO
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Sunday, March 5, 2017
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THERE’S talk of secession in the United States. The state of California is drawing up plans to secede from the rest of the US to become an independent country. This secessionist movement calls itself “Calexit” (after “Brexit”), and they came into being shortly after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.
For the Californian supporters of Calexit, Trump’s presidency is the second coming of Adolf Hitler, which is why they want to pull out of the United States, as they have already convinced themselves that the country has turned into the Fourth Reich.
This may seem like hyperbole but if one looks at the liberal hysteria over Trump’s presidency, it’s not that hard to see why a movement like Calexit exists.
However, to fully understand the rationale and psychology behind Calexit, it is necessary to understand the regional and demographic divide in the United States. These differences are at the core of the divisions animating US politics, and help to explain the secessionist tendencies in that country.
First of all, Democrat voters are concentrated in the east and west coasts of the United States, particularly in the major cities. In contrast, Republican voters tend to be spread out all over the American heartland, sometimes pejoratively called “Fly Over Country” by the urbanites.
Now, California perfectly fits the Democrat profile, whereas Trump’s supporters are overwhelmingly from the Midwest and southern parts of the US. In other words, one of the factors driving Calexit is the regional divide between the liberal regions, which are mostly on the east and west coast, and the conservative regions in the South and the Heartland.
Calexit is simply one of the more extreme manifestations of this division.
Next, there is the demographic issue. California has a very large non-white demographic (including Filipinos), and non-whites in the United States tend to vote Democrat (because of their positions on social welfare and pro-immigration).
In contrast, Republican voters tend to be white, working middle-class and Trump’s presidential campaign appealed to the concerns and interests of these voting groups.
This demographic issue offers another good explanation why Californians are trying to secede: The representative of their regional, ethnic and political rivals (white, working middle-class from the South and the Midwest) has been elected President, and they don’t want to live in a country where their rivals are in power.
Yes, Trump is a New Yorker (a liberal stronghold), but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he represents either implicitly or explicitly white, working middle-class interests, which is in conflict with white, upper-class and minority interests.
Back when Barack Obama was still president of the United States, they had nothing to be concerned about. After all, at one point Obama had been the darling of the Democrat party. Indeed, had Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton won the election, the Californians would likely have no problem with the status quo.
However, since Trump won, his victory has shocked liberals and Democrat voters in the US, and for those living in California that shock has morphed into a secessionist movement: Calexit.
Now, it’s important to point out that Calexit may not amount to anything. Despite its vast wealth, California also has a lot of problems such as water shortages and budget deficits, and it is too dependent on the US Federal government. So the state may not be able to pull off its plans for secession. But then again, who knows?
After all, the American mainstream media said Trump would never get elected, and yet here we are in 2017: Trump as president and California is threatening to secede./PN
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