Will California Secede? Post-Trump, The US’s Cultural Fault-Lines Are Widening

The election of Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States has probably deepened the divide in America. There have been protests in many cities, sometimes violent, where people have carried banners to say Trump is not their president.

A secessionist movement is also said to be gaining ground in California, the state which Hillary Clinton carried effortlessly. California is the USA’s biggest state with 55 electoral votes, and even this did not help Clinton win. There is a Yes California Independence Campaign, barely noticed before the Trump victory, that is gaining traction now. The campaign hopes to put a question in the 2018 election ballot to authorise a full-fledged independence vote in the following year.

The Yes California website has this to say about why it would like to support secession.

"As the sixth largest economy in the world, California is more economically powerful than France and has a population larger than Poland. Point by point, California compares and competes with countries, not just the 49 other states.

“In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidising the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.

“However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidising other states of this country. It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law. It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations.

“We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do better as an independent country than it is able to do as a just a US state.”

The truth is that the US is an unnatural state. Created by waves of immigration, it is now being split apart by further immigration from the south, and Hispanics and Latinos are already the largest ethnic group in the US. They are 38 percent of the population in California and Texas, and close to a majority in New Mexico (47 percent). Florida has 23 percent, which is why Clinton ran Trump so close in this state, and there are large chunks of Hispanics in Arizona (30 percent), Nevada (27 percent) and Colorado (21 percent). Clinton fared better in states with a higher Hispanic vote.

An earlier article in Swaraiya noted that America was not one country with a unifying culture – even if that is how it looks from the outside. This is what we wrote then, quoting Colin Woodard, who sees America as an aggregation of as many as 11 nations. In his book, American Nations: A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures in North America, Woodard says that the two poles which lead these 11 national cultures are Yankeedom and the Deep South. Broadly speaking, Clinton won Yankeedom, and Trump the Deep South. (See Woodard’s 11-nation map here)

Yankeedom, which is the American north-east, includes areas north of New York City, and parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yankeedom was initially peopled by “radical Calvinists” and it has no problem with big government. Clinton should have won Yankeedom hands down, but Trump took Wisconsin.

The Deep South, which voted solidly for Trump, comprises Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. Of these, at least two – Texas and Florida – are becoming increasingly Hispanic, and may soon become more Democratic than Republican, unless Republicans become more like Democrats.

A close partner to Yankeedom is New Netherland, which, as the name suggests, was peopled by the Dutch. It has a commercial heart, with a high tolerance for diversity. It comprises New York City and parts of New Jersey. Clinton won these with ease. Another ally of Yankeedom is the Left Coast, which comprises the Californian coast, parts of Oregon and Washington State. This too Clinton took.

The Deep South’s closest allies are in Greater Appalachia, a region which abhors Yankee values, and values personal liberty to the limit. This region includes parts of Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Texas and Illinois. Apart from the Deep South, this is broadly Trump territory right now.

Also, allied to the Deep South to some extent is the Far West, which includes the states of Montana, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Kansas, and parts of California. Clinton won half these states. Hispanic America is another nation, which Woodard calls El Norte, comprising parts of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona.

Sandwiched between the two extremes of Yankeedom and the Deep South are the Midlands, which tend to include several swing states that decide US elections. The Midlands were largely settled by English Quakers, and are politically moderate, comprising the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. Trump carried the Midlands.

The three remaining cultural states of America are Tidewater (comprising Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina), which Woodard says is in decline, New France, which exists in two places – in the areas bordering Canadian Quebec and around New Orleans in Louisiana - and First Nation, which is peopled by native Americans, who hold a huge expanse of territory that borders Canada and enjoy sovereignty.

Broadly speaking, Trump won because he carried the bulk of America’s 11 nations, but not the most populous ones – Yankeedom, the Left Coast, New York and some other states in the Far West.

The logic of this voting pattern suggests that America is ripe for a partial separation of its different peoples. It may not happen, but as California’s secessionist movement shows, it is not unthinkable either.

(Note: Parts of this post have been integrated from an earlier post by this author on the same subject)