A whopping 32 percent of Californians now support the notion of withdrawing from the United States and forming a separate country following President Donald Trump’s Election Day victory, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday.
From LifeZette
In 2014, only 20 percent of Californians were dissatisfied with their status as U.S. citizens and wanted to secede. But now, almost one-third of California residents are longing for Calexit. As the Reuters/Ipsos poll noted, a significant portion of those residents from the Union’s most populous state are Democrats who vehemently oppose the 45th president.
“This minority of Californians probably just like the way the words sound coming out of their mouths because the election didn’t go their way,” Eddie Zipperer, assistant professor for political science at Georgia Military College, told LifeZette in an email. “Anyone who actually means it, is a dangerously stupid person.”
The deep blue state easily awarded Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton all of its Electoral College votes on Election Day.
“This is just whining from the anti-democracy, anti-election crowd,” Zipperer said. “President Jackson, during the nullification crisis, and later Lincoln during the Civil War, set a pretty loud-and-clear precedent on what happens to states who attempt to dissolve our union. I don’t think the good men and women of the California National Guard wants [sic] California picking that fight.”
The poll, which surveyed 500 California residents, was conducted between Dec. 6 and Jan. 19. The 500 Californians were part of 14,000 adults polled nationwide. Of the nationwide pool, 22 percent favor secession from the Union, which is down 2 percentage points from 2014.
“There’s such hostility towards Trump that many citizens believe it would be smarter to leave than fight,” Steve Maviglio, a Democratic political strategist, told Reuters.
After Trump won the presidential election, the withdrawal movement — dubbed #Calexit — came into full force when a segment of liberal Californians introduced the Yes California Independence campaign.
“Being a U.S. state is no longer serving California’s best interests. On issues ranging from peace and security to natural resources and the environment, it has become increasingly true that California would be better off as an independent country,” the campaign’s website states. “In 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the international community with their ‘Brexit’ vote. Our ‘Calexit’ referendum is about California joining the international community.”
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