In Praise of a Disunited States of America

The Nation Could Use More Declarations of Independence, and California Should Take the Lead

The further I drove into Oroville, the more disappointment I felt.

I had my passport with me, but no one asked me to show it. American flags still hung from stores along Montgomery Street. Homes near the Feather River were flying our state’s banner. City Hall had not been replaced by a new national capitol. And as hard as I looked, I could find no new standing army, or presidential palace, or the Oroville Food and Drug Administration.

It was as if the city council of Oroville, 70 miles north of Sacramento …

by Joe Mathews | July 3, 2023

Is It Time for California to Go?

America Keeps Failing the Golden State—And the Supreme Court Decisions on Abortion, Guns, and the Environment Are Pushing Us to the Edge

by Joe Mathews | July 5, 2022

To encourage us to think about the unthinkable, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists sets a Doomsday Clock, showing how close humanity is (in metaphorical minutes and seconds) to the …

Who Benefits From ‘Buckxit’?

A Wealthy, White Atlanta Neighborhood’s Bid to Secede Shows What Happens When the Toxicity of National Politics Seeps into Local Affairs

by James C. Cobb | February 3, 2022

Former House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill’s observation that “all politics are local” has been borne out in countless cases where divisions over hot-button state and local issues have derailed efforts …

Jefferson Davis’s Lesser-Known Nemesis

Henry Stuart Foote and the Confederate President Supported Slavery—But Loathed One Another

by Ben Wynne | August 12, 2020

On Christmas morning, 1847, six important men assembled at a large boarding house in Washington, D.C., ostensibly for casual, after-breakfast conversation. In the parlance of the era, it was a …

Do Successful Secession Movements Have to Be Democratic?

At the End of the Day, Splitting Up Your Country Requires Everyone to Agree on the Rules

by Thomas Benedikter | March 12, 2019

How should countries split themselves up?

Democratically, of course. But saying that is only a start to answering a complicated and difficult question.

And it’s an urgent question, because recently there has …

California’s Not Built to Become Its Own Nation

#Calexit Distracts From the State’s Golden Opportunity to Counter American Nationalism

By Joe Mathews | November 24, 2016

California may have the size and economy and independent spirit of a good-sized country. But California is not a nation. Which is precisely why it would be so self-destructive to …

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