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

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 “midnight” of the apocalypse (nuclear or otherwise) and human extinction.

California may now need its own Independence Clock, showing how close we are to that seemingly unthinkable moment when our state departs the U.S., to become an independent nation.

In recent weeks, that prospect drew unmistakably closer, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

First, justices overturned more than a century of legal precedent …

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

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 | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Jefferson Davis’s Lesser-Known Nemesis

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

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

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

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 …