04 Is California Ready for Independence? With Marcus Ruiz Evans

Speaker 1 (00:00.27)
It's the idea that California could survive on its own as an independent nation. think most Californians are at the point where they understand that financially we could do that. 10 years ago, that wasn't the case. Now everybody says nation state, including the governor and the previous two governors before him and newscasters all over. We finally just got to convince people in California that it's politically and sociologically doable also, not just financially.

And why are you advocating that California become its own country?

I've been doing this for over 10 years. started promoting this idea around 2011, 2012. I think the reasons back then, even though Trump wasn't president are still the same reasons now. California culturally is out of line with America. It's just radically different. So we have a lot of people in California who travel around the world and they will all say, whenever I travel, I say, I am a Californian. I don't say I'm an American and I'm treated.

wildly differently than all the other people who say that they're an American. We have a lot of world travelers. We also have a lot of immigrants. And they will say, I came to America and I went to Kentucky and New York or Texas, or I saw the rest of it. And it's nothing like here.

So you've highlighted cultural differences and financial differences. I'd love to drill in. How do you summarize the cultural differences between California and the rest of the United States?

Speaker 1 (01:26.318)
Well, let's start with like the current ones. We have a lot of people who are joining and so I'll ask them, does it make sense to you that this is the third election in a row where you're terrified? Does that seem stable? It's not like you have an election and my guy lost and damn, there's really going to be some policies that are good for me. Aw, shucks. Wow. This is going to suck. People are saying I'm scared for my life. I'm scared. I won't have the rights that I expected.

I'm scared I won't have the society the quote America that I thought I had. hear that all the time. Or is the America that I thought I knew the look in their eyes, the expression in their voice is terror and fear. And it's not a joke. Like Republicans presented on Fox news or Breitbart. It's real and includes multiple groups includes women, LGBTQ, transgender Muslims, immigrants in general, all Latin people, undocumented people across the board.

anybody who's a protester and anybody who's basically liberal in general has conscience. They're all terrified. So I asked them, is this the third election in a row you've gone through this? Yeah, that's the second time you won, but it's the third election where you thought if I lose, I'm terrified and scared. Tell me what stable first world country operates that way. There isn't it. There isn't any. Nobody has good answer for that. They're like, in fact, somebody was sick, cut me off last night and finished my sentence.

It's just something you don't see in a first world country. I go exactly it. You don't. So period. Tell me the country where, you know, there's insurrections and then the guy who leads the insurrection is more popular than before the insurrection. Does that sound like a stable country? And then I'll ask, well, we had the Palisades fire. A lot of people haven't picked up that the cowlits that support this time was not because Trump was elected. We didn't get that push right after he got elected.

It was after the Palisades fire got going and people are dead and they're on the ground and they're homeless and they're destitute and they're beside themselves. And he says, basically, I'm not sure I want to help because I'm not sure I want to, like you guys. And then speaker Johnson says the same thing. Some of my Republican colleagues will say, well, Donald Trump did come and he did provide help. And I go, yeah. But, and this isn't more of an example, but let's say your mom is in a coffin. You're at her funeral.

Speaker 1 (03:50.656)
I walk up, I walk past you and I smack your mom right in the face in the coffin. And then I look at you and I go, ha ha.

See you later, homie. Now the next day, I pay for the whole funeral. I pay for your hotel stay. I pay for all the flowers. Are you going to forgive me? Are we, but aren't we cool? I came through with the money. Can't you just get over what I said? It's just talk, right? Can't you just chill out? That's where we're at. So we're asking about the emotional sociological factors. That's it. So.

terror, fear. Are you a woman? Did you think you had civil rights on a trajectory from the 1960s? Are you a transgender person? Did you think that rights would never be taken away from a privileged group for the first time since 1860 as did happen to transgender? Were you Muslim and you thought this country was built on religious freedom and then you found out the Supreme Court will allow a ban of people coming into this country because of their religion? Are you Latino? And you found out that the Supreme Court said it's okay to racially profile you.

If you look like me, are you African-American? And you've heard him say, those are my blacks. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. How many examples do we need? So there's that. On top of that, we can go back before Trump. California is a place of mass shootings. We had people literally come from Nevada with the intention to kill Californians. It was called the Gilroy shooting. Guy came in with an automatic gun, started killing a bunch of Californians. That was his intention.

No surprise, we're on Fox News all the time, it's the most anti-American thing out there. And then somebody acts on it. Wow. They haven't stopped their narrative on us. So there's still a lot of agitated people.

Speaker 2 (05:39.0)
So Marcus, what I'm hearing is a very thoughtful political and cultural critique of the United States. But part of what I think you're asserting is that California on its own could be better off. So rather than critique, what's the argument for why California could be better off as its own country?

Well, I'll give you sort of a political controversial figure at this moment, but Governor Gavin Newsom. So when COVID hit, Californians did not like Trump. Governor Newsom went on television and said, we're going to ignore whatever the federal government tells us about reopening our economy. That's secession talk. And he said, because we're a nation state, and he stated on Rachel Maddow, and everybody in California loved him for doing that. And then on that same show, he goes, and by the way, we're not working with.

America on getting our own material because we're such a big economy and we have international trade connections. We're going to approach China as a separate nation and just buy our equipment direct from them. So I'm not working with America. I'm going on the international stage to be my own nation. I'm going to ignore all federal regulations. By the way, call me a nation state, call me a nation state, call me a nation state. That's the governor doing it right there. That's an argument for, I mean, he's literally doing it. Californians don't view that as secession talk, but that's literally what it is.

A few years before that, there was a survey by, I think the Public Policy Institute of California, and it was showing like 65 % support for having our own immigration policy and ignoring the federal ones. before marijuana, well, marijuana is still not legalized federally, but it was like 73 % support for us having our own marijuana regulations and ignoring what the federal government says. That's...

called nullification of the law. was last seen in 1864 by Southern States. It's the what comes right before secession. Now, if you tell Californians that they're like, what are you talking about? I'm not for secession. I just want to ignore the federal government on marijuana and gay rights and immigration and clean air and water regulation. And I don't want to listen to them and I want to do whatever I want to do. That's not secession. That's crazy. I would never be for that. That's secession talk. They just don't know that. So they're already doing this.

Speaker 1 (07:52.844)
And they're already acting like a nation when our governors, including Schwarzenegger, Brown, and Newsom travel abroad to foreign countries and sign trade deals. That's the vestige of only the president of America. In fact, president George W. Bush criticized governor Schwarzenegger for traveling to Asia to sign trade deals with 100 countries for California businesses. Governor Brown did the exact same thing and governor Doosan did the exact same thing. Then.

Governor Brown and Newsom traveled to other countries and signed memorandums of understanding on climate change. Those are treaties. They don't call them treaties, they call them MOUs for legal reasons. But if you read it and you read what the treaty is, it's a treaty. So California is signing treaties with formal governments and sub-national governments. And the last two governors have done that. So we have governors acting like heads of state signing treaties and trade deals.

with multiple nations and going back three governors. That's acting like a foreign nation on world stage. Now, nobody calls it that, but that's technically what it is. You also have Governor Brown telling the Chinese government, when it comes to climate change, you should consider us a foreign country. Say that to the Chinese government, Governor Brown. No one criticized him for doing it, by the way. In California, there was no blowback. Governor Newsom was on Telemundo.

in El Salvador right after he got elected and he said, you should consider us as having a separate immigration policy from America. That's secession talk. They're both doing it. No one cared and there was no backlash because Californians don't view this as a session talk. But when you say I'm going to do my own thing, I don't want to do what the federal government says. I'm going to act like a separate nation on my own and I'm not going to ask the federal government. Politico Magazine.

had an article, a political magazine is one of the most respected political magazines in America. They had an article called Jerry Brown, President of the Independent Republic of California. That is a super serious political magazine and they put that on the cover. Why? Because Brown was challenging Trump.

Speaker 2 (10:06.552)
So Marcus, if you're a kid growing up in Fresno today, or a construction worker in San Diego, or a physician in the Bay Area, what is the functional difference between California flexing its muscle as an effective nation state and it being an independent country?

So first off, you have elections where you're not terrified. Majority of California is a minority, period. We have the largest LGBTQ population, I think, per capita in the entire planet. We have a highly empowered, highly educated female population, a gigantic Muslim population. Latinos are the largest ethnic group in California. All these people are threatened. How does that make sense to live in a first world country where you're supposed to be going to work and providing first world level status of economic

productivity and you're terrified if you're going to get rounded up or lose your rights. I've talked to these people. It's kind of hard to go to work and worry about growing your company and bringing on new employees and hiring that new thing when you're wondering, I'm transgender. Am I going to start being told it's not OK for me to be here? I'm a woman. Is there another right I've had since the 1960s I'm going to lose? I'm a Latino. I'm a Muslim. I'm an LGBTQ. It's destructive to the human mind.

Secondly, we're a donor state. We lose about 25 cents on every dollar that we give. We pay federal income taxes. Most people don't get this. think, well, the federal government still must give. No, we fund America. We subsidize 35 states. We've done this since the early 1990s, basically about 40 years. You've paid more so that 45 states can continue to do better than you. I've worked in government. I've looked at infrastructure. The federal government rates infrastructure.

schools, dams, seaports, airports, levees, you name it, roads across the board for all 50 states. Different agencies do this. World was dead last. Like our poor pupil spending is equivalent to Louisiana, which is the lowest in all of America. We have the highest head-on collision likely airports, the most what are called fracture critical bridges, which means that there's an impact with the truck on the bridge. It collapses in America. Our levees over Sacramento are as bad as the ones

Speaker 1 (12:18.254)
over New Orleans before Katrina and the federal government's done nothing to fix it. So people are always complaining about the roads. People are complaining about our poor schools. People are complaining about infrastructure. All that goes away. We don't have the kind of money that it takes to take care of ourselves because we're a donor state and we support 35 states. And they go, how does it make sense? Because I've lived in the West side of Fresno and I've lived in downtown Oakland and I've lived in the West side of Los Angeles where there's the shootings.

And I've gone to Barrio Logan, San Diego, and I've lived in the West Pocket in West Sacramento. I've seen our ghettos up and down the state. How is it fair to the poor children in those neighborhoods that we say, sorry, you get to live in crime and filth and with a less likelihood of living and being successful so that we can pay other kids we'll never see to do better than you? Because there's other poor kids in Kentucky. So we're going to help them out and you get nothing. Go ahead and suffer.

We have the money to help you. We're just going to choose not to spend it on you because there's other poor kids who aren't doing as poorly as you and who we've subsidized for three decades. Well, we're going to keep doing that. So we can still have the worst schools and the most gang violence and the most collapsed roads and the highest shootings and the most fracture critical levies and infrastructure ready to fall apart and airplanes ready to line into each other. And we can't build a high speed rail and we can't like the amount of money we lost in 2019.

was enough to permanently end homelessness in the Bay Area forever in one year. In one year, one year, which was a light year of loss, a light year, not a heavy year, we lost so much money we could have wiped out homelessness in the Bay Area permanently without raising taxes one penny. We could have permanently wiped out homelessness in Los Angeles area permanently in four years. So in five years, not raising taxes, just having our own money,

Homelessness would have been destroyed. We're four or five years in now and it's not gone. It's not any better than when Newsom took over. So this would all have been wiped out. Homelessness wiped out. I don't mean like it's better. I mean, wiped out permanently. That's the kind of money we're talking about. We're talking about no more ghettos. We're talking about normal poor kids and gang-filled streets. We're talking about whatever infrastructure problem you have or why can't this be better or why is our school so bad? That's just all gone. All gone.

Speaker 1 (14:44.886)
Life gets better. We're able to fund ourselves. We don't have to have ghettos anymore. Additionally, the economy is going to explode. So when I ask businesses, how would you feel about not paying state income tax anymore? Would that be good for your business or bad? And when I ask businesses, what if I could remove 50 % of your regulatory overhead, 50 % of all paperwork and every piece of paper regulation you have to deal with? Gone.

wiped out. that be good for your business or bad? Everyone says, are you kidding? That would be a boom for business. If I didn't have to pay state income taxes and I had 50 % regulation, less regulations, you'd have businesses coming back to California. Nobody wants to hear it. California, I'm sorry, being tied to America is bad for business. You're not going to see that print, but that's the fact. I got that idea from Abraham Lowenthal. He was pointing it out first. Our trade deals are held up by 10 years. Governor Schwarzenegger went to Asia.

and signed 100 companies on board, which would affect tech, ag, Hollywood. Barack Obama sat on approving those deals for five years. George W. Bush sat on approving those deals for five years. Governor Schwarzenegger criticized the Democrat and the Republican president equally. We don't need somebody telling us, I'll tell you when you can open a store. Like you sell apples and you're the best apple salesperson out there. And you know the most about apples.

But you have to ask me for permission if you can sell apples, even though you know more than me about apples. And I take five to 10 years to give you permission. And I go, what if that was gone? Would that be good for business? Yeah, Mark, of course that'd be good for business. Are you kidding? California's an internationally trade focused economy. We'd be able to sell lots to lots of customers. We'd be able to sell goods faster. We'd have more customers buying our laptops, cell phones, all our technology products, all our

Perhaps people are scared of being spied on all of our Hollywood movies, sending their children to our universities, coming here to visit wine country, Yosemite, Los Angeles, San Francisco. We're losing money. That all goes away. So we're talking about a gigantic economic boom, the likes of which this place hasn't seen since maybe the 1980s when Reagan invested the military economy in here. And we're talking about all your rights preserved. And we're talking about you no longer living in fear.

Speaker 1 (17:11.662)
And we're talking about you having better social services and normal ghettos without raising taxes. It's as close to Shangri-La as I could paint, but it's not fantastic. Everything works out when you look at the dollars and cents.

It's a super vivid picture. So let's shift gears and talk about where you stand with this CalExit movement. What are you fighting for right now? What are the headwinds in your way? What are the tailwinds at your back?

I predict that if people knew that secession was completely legal and the way they're pursuing it, we'd have 300 % more support for CalEx than what we have right now. I predict that we're only getting about a fourth of the actual latent support that's sitting there because people are under the assumption it's illegal. And the ones that we're getting are kind of people who say, well, I know it's illegal, but I want to support it anyways. And I'm constantly telling people it's fully legal. just real quick, Texas versus Wayne is a real Supreme Court case. It exists.

Texas versus White says there's only two ways to succeed through, quote, revolution or consent to the states. They will completely omit the phrase consent to the states and act like it doesn't exist. That's confusing people. That's why we got four separate California attorneys general, including Javier Becerra, who worked for the Biden administration and someone Californians may recognize named Kamala Harris also approved our secession petitions. We've been doing this for years.

Kathleen Keneally did and now Rob Bonta. And they all said Texas versus white exists. It is a real case. And it says you can see through consent of the states. Finally, there's a guy called Erwin Chemerinsky. Erwin Chemerinsky is out of UC Berkeley. He is the most cited legal expert in all of America, according to his Wikipedia page. He's also the top constitutional scholar in all of California.

Speaker 1 (19:04.474)
He's regarded widely as both and he started two University of California law schools. He was asked about CalEx in 2017 in a GQ article by Daniel Reilly. And he said, a simple majority vote of Congress could be all that's necessary to qualify consent. Not an amendment, 51 % vote of Congress. We have 51 % votes with Republicans who are in control now. We wouldn't need any Democratic votes.

We could just have Republican votes after we say we want to leave, and we could completely get out completely legally.

All right, so you've painted a picture of Shangri-La for why Californians should want to secede. You've addressed concerns about the legality of secession. But underlying legality, think there might be something harder, which is the fear of secession and the images of civil war, not just in our own history, but civil wars around the world, which are almost never pretty and often very violent and very destructive.

How do you talk to people who have fear of a violent civil war being the necessary path to actually bringing about secession?

So I tell them, Kellett's, the way to prevent a civil war. And most people get that. So if you talk to conservatives, well, I tell them that. And I also tell them that we're pursuing this legally. So if we go and we ask for permission to leave and Republicans hate us, and as I say, they kick us in the butt on the way out the door, why are they going to come attack us? Secondly, there's something called the release valve. So if you look at Europe in the 1900s,

Speaker 1 (20:45.41)
They had a lot of anarchists and a lot of like social revolutionaries. The way they did with that was they immigrated them to America. So they just started sending a lot of their radicals politically for America. So we started getting politically radical, but our system was better able to handle it. That's the release valve. We don't have one right now. So what happens is if you watch Fox news or Breitbart or whatever, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters.

All the bad guys are Californians. Watch these conservative shows. All the bad guys are the boogeymen are Californians. So we also present some of the most radical ideas in the legislature in Congress. California is at the leading edge. So we have these really radical progressive ideas that nobody else is talking about. And we're the only ones that introducing it. And that's partly what causes a lot of the California legislators to be seen as boogeymen. They're presenting these

very radical ideas from the perspective of Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, which is most of the American land mass. If we're gone, that agitation factor is removed. What exactly do Trumpers need to fight against if evil Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are gone? We just took away all your boogie men. You can calm the hell down now. Also, we're not presenting our radical California ideas for transgender kids.

surgeries or whatever the hell they're making up at the moment. So you can calm down too. It's called the release valve. It's been well proven to work for keeping country stable. Us leaving means that we're not agitating against the conservatives so hard and they're not having the vociferous agitators and the most radical ideas being entertained. You'll have a reduction in pressure. Also, we're asking to peacefully leave.

So what would you say to a mega Republican in Kentucky who is afraid of losing the economic support and the technology industry and Hollywood that California brings to the country?

Speaker 1 (22:51.028)
I would say to you find me that Kentucky and first before we assume they exist. So I've gotten this question. The Republicans will never let California go the economic driver. The Republicans literally held a conference when they were in DC a few years ago, talking about how California is a welfare state and the conservative states are tired of subsidizing us. The LA Times and San Francisco Chronicle panned that and said, wow, this is the total opposite of the truth. But you had the entire party back it up.

That should not surprise you. So they literally say the total opposite of what you said. And it's literally their leaders. And they literally did that in Congress and literally said, no, no, no, no. We subsidized you. The other thing is when I talk to conservatives, that's what they think. We we at CalExit, as hardcore California as we are, we have multiple contacts across America to conservatives because we want them to vote us out. So we started building connections to conservatives. lot of liberals in California were disgusted by that. They go, look,

If we're doing this legally, we've got to get the votes. And if we're not trying to get the votes, then it looks like we're not trying to do this legally, which makes us look like we're not good people. I'll leave it there. So we have to go the legal route and we have to be seen pursuing the legal route. When I talk to those conservatives, they're like, we'll let you go, man. Nobody wants you. We don't like you. And we think things would be better off. And they think we're a welfare state. I challenge any liberal show me one episode of Fox News.

Breitbart or any conservative podcast, radio show, television show in the last two decades. Show me one episode where they said, actually, guys, California is great for the economy. Turns out they know business better than us. When we were talking about how they're bad for business, we lied the last couple of decades. Actually, they're better than us. And when we said that they have sanctuary cities and we have to subsidize that and they can't manage their forests and we have to subsidize that, turns out that was a total lie.

They subsidize us. So actually we're the welfare queens to them. They're better at business than us. They subsidize us and we haven't really helped them over the last couple of years. So all of our talk about sanctuary cities and their bad government and they can't run their government and they're horrible for businesses and businesses are leaving and they can't manage their force. That was all a lie guys. Everything we said about it for the last two decades. That was just a total lie. Completely a lie. Now continue to elect me in office. That's called political suicide. So.

Speaker 1 (25:16.512)
Show me the Republican who's ever said that and show me one episode where any Republican ever said that in any production over the last two decades.

Let me take it from a different perspective. So I'm sitting here in Seattle. We voted very similarly to Californians in the last three elections. Someone in Chicago could say the same. Someone in New York City or Boston could say the same. What if they say, Hey, hey, hey, California, we're with you. Can we come?

People have suggested that I would refer you to the Newsweek article. It was talking about a conscious uncoupling and said something about Gwyneth Paltrow. And basically it was a map of California and the liberal states you just mentioned forming a coalition with Canada leaving America. I'd also point out that there was an official Canadian government minister of the Green Party who last month suggested the very same idea live on television, an official member of their government.

I'd also point out that Californians loved, loved it when Governor Newsom said, we're forming a pact with Oregon and Washington, and we're going to ignore what the federal government says and do our own thing. Everybody here was like, yeah, right on. So we are for California independence. But if Oregon and Washington also want to go and also want to be independent and want to approach us in a league, I think there's a, there's a probably a warm reception for that.

It's up to the people of the California. It's whatever the California voters want. My opinion doesn't matter on that, but I think you'd get a warm reception.

Speaker 2 (26:45.556)
So what do you say to people who might suggest that this just sounds like sour grapes over the last election, that this is just the blue states whining? And would you call out, by the way, the very independence-minded folks in Texas or other conservative parts of the country who have themselves advocated for a national divorce that would reflect very different politics and very different culture around the country?

Well, we're really good friends with the Texas independence movement and we have told them about 30,000 times. We don't share your values. You don't share our values. We don't want to live in Texas. You don't want to live in California. you guys do some stuff that would horrify me. I know we do some stuff that terrifies you. So why don't we be friends and part as friends rather than continuing to try to bludgeon each other and talk trash on each other? I mean, it's bad.

If you look at the marriage rate between people in the political parties, it's the lowest it's ever been in America. It's decreased by 300 % in the last seven years. The University of Virginia, Sabato Crystal Ball Center, which is routinely referenced for political discussion, had a poll, I think, a few years ago. 78 % and 82 % of all Biden and all Trump voters view all voters of the other side as, an existential threat to America. That's language reserved for a Russian nuclear strike on New York City.

or a terrorist attack on Chicago. Americans now use it when referencing the other party. Additionally, I refer you to landslide voting election districts. if you look at landslide election districts, 538 with Nate Silver, very reputable organization covered this. If you go back to the 1990s, most counties you could compete in as a Republican or Democrat in a presidential race. There was only a few counties that they called landslide election counties where

We vote Democrats 30 % higher than any Republicans. So don't bother coming out here to Fresno County because every Democrat that runs out here loses by 30 percentage points to the Republican, but also be Republican landslide election counties the same way. So people knew just don't even bother because it's already going to go one way. Only a third of America was a landslide election county in the 1990s. 80 % are now. You have wiped out the ability

Speaker 1 (29:02.99)
for anybody to run for office and try to reach for the middle ground or the other. It's all landslide election counties. I did interviews with 200 professors of political science and universities across America. And many of them told me going back to the Obama era, they stopped trying to reach out for undecided voters. Now they would say they were, but they actually spent no money doing it. I talked to some people who were on the inside. All the money went to get out the vote.

You're starting to see the language shift at Obama for get out the vote, not reaching out to the undecided middle of the road voters because they knew there were none to get. And so the whole strategy was activate your base. Obama knew that and Obama operated that. So you've got to go back to 2008 when basically the Democrats and the Republicans gave up trying to reach undecided voters formally and they've never returned to that ever.

That's a really powerful metaphor. Let's talk though about political division because even within California, while California has voted for Democrats in a landslide in the last three presidential elections, I believe the number is that more humans voted for Donald Trump in California than from any other state. So there are political divisions in California, lots of people who are probably very happy with the current administration and the direction of the country. What does an independent California say to those people?

Well, I would disagree with that profile. So I know Californians voted a higher number for Trump. As a Latino, I've had to explain this to a lot of people. So go back to the recall elections against Governor Newsom. A lot of Latinos voted for the recall against Newsom and then Newsom went on TV and famously criticized Latin people for the way they vote, which is kind of racist in my opinion. But anyways, it happened. They didn't vote against Newsom in the recall because they love Trump and they love Trumpianism and they want to be rounded up.

Latin people have typically small income jobs. They're typically private individual workers. They run their own company or they mow lawns or they take care of someone. Some of it's a cash based business and a lot of it's one on one. When COVID hit, a lot of them work good with paperwork, a lot of more undocumented, a lot of them company maybe work as all on the up and up. They couldn't get the PPP loans. So they were just told, don't work and suffer and no money's coming.

Speaker 1 (31:26.434)
The entire Latin culture is a I don't take handouts and I work hard and take care of myself culture. So you basically said commit cultural suicide and we're not going to help you and don't take care of your families. So they voted against that out of sheer necessity, not because they're like, I love Trump and I love a guy who says all Mexicans are rapists. That's not what happened. So we can fast forward to now and you can talk to I'm in I'm in the Central Valley. It has the highest ratio of Latinos of any area of California.

So as diverse as LA and the Bay Area is, we have a higher percentage of Latinos as the overall population than all of the rest of California. We're often called the future of California because demographers look at the Central Valley and see that that's where the future might be. So as backwaters we are, we're the future demographically. I've talked to Latinos here. I am Latino. They want jobs. They want jobs. They're tired of being told don't work and it's OK. They were never OK with that.

And right or wrong, they see Trump as opening up the economy and good for jobs. And the Democrats have frankly been, you know, shut down the economy. You don't need to work. We'll give you some cash. Hold on and be quiet. They didn't like that. So it's against the Latin culture and it's against the jobs. That's not politics. There isn't a rush of Latin people going, you know what? Maybe we are the problem in America. Maybe Trump was right. We are a horde and we do bring disease and rape and nobody's doing that. So.

People missed this observation last time with the recall election. And I can't tell you the number people that I'm seeing miss this observation this time. The people who voted for Trump are only found in a conglomeration in the Northern Fifth of California, which you call the Jefferson movement. There's no strong concentration of them. I'd point out that even Orange County and San Diego and Fresno, which are considered conservative bastions, are actually majority liberal now.

Now, they may have swung to Trump, but I had this argument with Republicans. They say, look at this election now. Trump took so much of California and I go, you're looking at the map of only red and only blue. Can we look at the map of five colors, not just two, where you show me the percentage of change? Every single Republican I talked to is like, what, what map are you talking about? And then I'll pull it out and go, see this percentage of change? All he did was move light blue counties.

Speaker 1 (33:51.15)
to light pink. That's barely a shift in politics. I studied politics for 15 years. That means they could go right back to the very next election. It wasn't hard blue to hard red. It wasn't light blue to hard red. It was light blue to light pink. That means you went from 48 to 52%. That's barely anything. So Republicans will not show that map, not acknowledge that map and show only red or blue. Sure. Right.

I'm sorry a 3 to 4 % percentage change isn't a sweeping victory. It's just it's not show me a 1012 percentage points. I'm sorry 3 to 48 nothing. It could be wiped away because of one bad news story next election.

Well, and what I'm hearing is that, you you believe that the kitchen table issues that swung a lot of people toward Trump in the last election, the price of eggs, work opportunities and other things that in an independent California, where you're retaining more of what we're spending in federal tax, there's actually better economic opportunities for more people.

400%. Yeah. Even with Trump allowing more jobs, he's not opening up the international trade economy. He's not reducing federal regulations on us selling goods. He's not removing federal regulations in all businesses. So those are three things right there where independence would be better than anything Trump could do for growing the economy.

So what if by 2028 California prompts a vote in Congress and secession is approved? What's your what if question?

Speaker 1 (35:24.174)
we would become independent. I think the people are there now. In 2016, we got really big, but a third of the people at our meetings, go, are we sure we want to do this? Are we sure we want to do this? Come on, we're leaving America. And there was a lot of nostalgia and there was a lot of sadness and there was a lot. We'd have meetings where we're trying to talk about getting something done and there'd always be a, okay, here's my question. Are we sure we want to do this? It was a big problem with organizing. Nobody's saying that this time, not one person.

There's no reluctance. There's no reticence. It's all let's do this. Last time it was a lot of activists who had done street demonstrations and that's awesome. Every movement is fueled by that. This time we're seeing a lot of the professional class, bankers, CEOs, film producers, doctors who have a reputation and a career and are facing retirement and they're coming out to us because they're scared.

Here's a different what if question. What if this is the best time to pursue CalExit because we do have a self-proclaimed deal maker as president, a self-proclaimed deal maker who's got experience at divorce. What is the divorce settlement that could put Californians at ease and would put remaining citizens of the United States at ease that two separate countries could be good for everybody?

We're ready to make a deal with Trump. We've said that we think Trump hates us. We think the Republicans don't like us. We think he wants to make deals and he likes to be seen as a savior. So hey, right. Because Roe v. right. Trump's backing away from it now. But his whole thing is you guys want to Roe v. Wade for decades. You couldn't do it. I did it. I, Trump did it. You wanted conservative court for decades. Nobody could do it. I, Trump did it. Right. He's I changed the game. Nobody could do it. Only I could do it. And I'm fixing the Republican Party for decades in the future.

He has two wins on that. Here's your third one. You never have to deal with Nancy Pelosi anymore or that crazy place that produces all those crazy people. They're gone. You'll never deal with them again. We think that's a dream for Republicans and we think Trump's the kind of person who would like to say, I alone got rid of California for you. So you never have to deal with them in another election. That's Trump all over the place. That's Republicans would go for it. The deal's there.

Speaker 1 (37:40.78)
We're ready to make a deal. we both said that, you know, while I was personally offended and I felt that he said all Mexicans are rapists, I'd be willing to meet with him, shake his hand and make a deal because that's the legal way out. And we're willing to do that. And we think that they're willing to make a deal, too.

Marcus Ruiz Evans has laid out a bold vision of California's future. A future in which the state is free from what he sees as an outdated, misaligned union with the federal government. Marcus offered compelling arguments for why independence might not just be possible, but preferable for the Golden State and perhaps the