In response to suggestions by a lunatic in the US Oval Office, Green Party Canada’s leader Elizabeth May suggested Canada should invite western states Washington, Oregon and California join B.C and split from Canada to form the ‘Cascadia’ eco-state.
(Note this article is from Jan 8, 2025 and Elizabeth May has since become co-leader of the party alongside Jonathan Pedneault).
Never going to happen. The USA will not let CA leave.
So, I think this could happen. Trump and Musk are just trying to speedrun smashing the administrative state; it’s difficult to overstate the enormity of the damage they’re going to do to the federal government’s ability to govern over the next two months. Laying off all these administrators and closing their offices is going to create a glut of administrators at the same time as it creates a demand for administrative capacity to make up for what the feds dropped. Plus, they’re going to want to stop California, but how will they when they’ve gone and replaced every competent person in the DOJ/DOD/FBI/CIA with incompetent stooges?
California has an advanced enough administrative state to handle breaking off, jokes aside. California also has the economy. Here’s the kicker: California has the geography. California would be a complete bitch to invade; for most of the coastline, the mountains (hills, as the locals call them, but they ARE mountains) just run right into the ocean, and the ocean is notoriously a bastard for much of that coastline; as for an overland route, there’s basically, like, three big highways that cross the Sierra Nevadas to inland Cali. A couple of big bombs or cal fire bulldozers would make short work of them. Plus, California has a LOT of agriculture to support itself with. Basically, the one weak spot is water supply, and we could be doing a lot better than we are if we just tightened up on our industrial, livestock, and rich dumbass consumption.
The geography you are talking about is important as a minor modifier in the context of highly professional fighting force using it. By itself it changes nothing compared to dry flatlands, a bit more costly transportation. When a military doesn’t have a road, they first make the dirt road (throwing sand and gravy here and there), then lay armed concrete shields in line, and then may even use asphalt on top of that. I don’t know anything about that, so may be a bit more complex, but the point is that it’s a solvable problem.
I would honestly love to see a gravy road.
Jokes aside, there’s a reason why there’s only a few major roads going through the Sierra; it’s a major PITA to lay new routes, and even rebuilding old ones is a huge pain (I should know, I’ve seen them get washed out). Many times, these roads have many and large choke points where your maneuvering choices are a rock face on one side and a cliff or drop off on the other. Even if you could repair the roads quick, they’re ripe for guerilla warfare, sabotage, and espionage. Really, it would be IED central, and those IEDs would likely set off land-slides that would have to be dealt with to get the road usable again. And keep in mind that we’re talking about crossing an entire mountain range to get into the interior of California. Invading Cali by land would be a real bad time.
Right. But there’s no shortage of aircraft, fuel and airbases well within reach.
EDIT:
I didn’t mean gravy road, I meant that as sort of a stabilizer it’s needed inside the elevation for that road. Actually I don’t know much about building roads. Countryside pathways are my level.
I would point you to the siege of Hostomel airport in the Ruso-Ukrainian conflict. It is ridiculously easy to render an airport unusable, temporarily if you think you can hold it, and semi-permanently if you’re less confident.
California’s economy is extremely dependent on being part of the USA. They barely cover the hap between money taken from the government and what they contribute and it is fairly easy to make the case they take more.
The government would not need to invade. The moment they make clear that CA farmers cannot access the Colorado river waters like they used to and that any foreign tech company is no longer able to access US DOD money you will see tech be willing to move and agriculture collapse in CA. After gutting any aide and scholarships for students attending CA schools and the USA will have crippled the top 3 industries in CA without firing a shot.
CA wouldn’t be akin to France ir Italy if it left the USA it would be more like Mexico economically.
But…but…I’ve been told that there’s a big faucet up here in Canada that we can turn on for y’all to make it all better.
/s. (god I can’t believe I live in a world where I need an /s tag for this)
Bro, Mexico isn’t really that badly off. They’ve got their problems, for sure, but who doesn’t?
Second, California is sure to have its own defense industry, and I don’t know if you’d see tech abandon their silicon valley HQs. It’s going to be hard to walk away from that pool of skilled labor they’ve concentrated in that area.
True but many of the people who back this will mouth nonsense about how CA would be the 5th richest nation when that position entirely depends on being part of the USA. Once the agriculture businesses cease getting US subsidies and the tech sector flees California would not be so wealthy.
Tech will go where their money goes and those employees will follow.
Or any other state
True but few are as important as CA.