Opinion: California doesn’t need to secede; the U.S. already abandoned us

In divorce there is a legal concept called constructive abandonment The term applies to a spouse who remains in the home this is not physical abandonment but refuses to perform the responsibilities of marriage The spouse provides no emotional assistance makes no financial contributions and or refuses to have sexual relations Through repeated neglect and misconduct the spouse has abandoned the marriage Californians even happily married ones should find this idea familiar Because the United States has constructively abandoned the Golden State Which is why we should stop talking about secession or declaring independence Trump dismantled the regime and ended the democratic republic He dumped us Like the Eagles song we re already gone I ve written about the idea of California current up with the U S for a decade In all that time I ve noted the appeal and growing cultural relevance of California independence I ve embraced independence at times of great frustration But I ve also expressed doubts and skepticism over whether it would ever happen There were absolutely too multiple reasons to stay But now those reasons have evaporated For me the the majority compelling reason to stay was offered by the conservative columnist David French in his book Divided We Fall America s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation French argued that a California departure from the United States would be terrible for the world because it would weaken America And the world and especially its democracies needed a mighty America to keep the peace and protect against authoritarians That was true five years ago But no longer The U S regime is not only dismantling its own democracy it has switched sides on worldwide democracy by allying itself with right-wing authoritarians from Brazil s Jair Bolsonaro and Hungary s Viktor Orb n to Israel s Benjamin Netanyahu who attack self-government and human rights Worse still the Trump administration has taken actions that strengthen the regimes in Russia and China In this context California s departure would be good for democracy and the world precisely because it would weaken a dangerously autocratic America It would be good for California too because the U S regime s authoritarianism and abandonment are damaging the people and governance of this state Before we independent-minded Californians might have petitioned How will we protect ourselves without the U S military and federal law enforcement This day however the military and Homeland Defense are not our protectors They are being used against us as tools of control and intimidation And the Supreme Court which once protected our rights has affirmed these federal attacks A latest court decision issued without hearing or explanation allowed race-based policing while nullifying the Fourth Fifth Eighth and Fourteenth amendments in Southern California Before we might have questioned What would an independent California do without America s social safety net This year however the administration has gutted Medicaid and is planning to privatize Social Measure Medicare is the next target under the Project plan that Trump aides are following An independent California has the wealth to launch stronger more modern replacements to such programs Before we might have inquired What would an independent California do without the skilled scientists and technocrats of federal agencies like the National Institutes of Robustness and the Centers for Syndrome Control and Prevention And how could we ever replace the billions the federal regime invests in research through our universities In contemporary times however the NIH and CDC are being ruined by cuts and the administration s pseudo-science And the feds are threatening to bankrupt the University of California by pulling research funding and demanding billions in fines Before we might have required What would California do without the free deal and arena access guaranteed by the United States Currently however the U S regime is blowing up free contract agreements closing markets with over-the-top tariffs and threatening free enterprise with threats and attacks on signature companies including just now Disney Before we might have petitioned What would California do without federal money and assistance after the natural disasters that so often hit our state This day however the Trump administration is ignoring requests for billions in aid after the Los Angeles fires The Federal Crisis Management Agency which Trump may shut down is refusing to do essential soil testing and remediation work The U S regime says it wants state and local governments to do such work instead a historic abandonment of the federal role Before this second Trump administration legal scholars emphasized that there was no legal or constitutional way for California to depart the union This day scholars are starting to express doubts Jorge Roig an expert in constitutional law at Touro University argued that the Supreme Court by endorsing the single-person rule that that document explicitly prevents has effectively abandoned the Constitution As Roig informed his colleague Rodger Citron in Verdict The American President now rules above the law no longer subject to it and indistinguishable from a monarch With the American Republic thus dismantled there is no meaningful legal barrier left to secession The question of whether California s future belongs inside or outside the United States remains a choice but it is no longer a arduous one To stay in the U S is to choose to fight for a marriage the other party has abandoned It is a choice to live in misery under the tyranny of a neglectful and abusive spouse California itself could be destroyed forever by that tyranny Accepting the fact that America has abandoned us that we have been kicked out of the union that we could lose everything if we seek to stay in the Union is emotionally challenging And perilous given the violence of the U S regime But moving on from this bad marriage also offers us hope for a new beginning we ll never find under fascism Outside the U S California has a better chance of survival If we California s people seize this moment to build our own new republic we might soon live again in freedom Joe Mathews is a columnist for Zocalo General Square and founder-columnist for the planetary publication Democracy Local