Texas was tossing about ideas of secession recently in light of the questionable election practices in some other states. Of course most of this was likely bluster but the idea of states seceding from the US has been broached before and Texas is typically in the mix of such discussions.

If Texas left I bet a fair number of other states would follow, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas and maybe others. But let’s just say for the sake of brainstorming, Texas left all by itself leaving 49 states and DC. Texas as of the end of 2020 has 38 seats in the Congress, including the standard two Senate seats both held by Republicans. The Senate seats would simply go away and the US Senate would become a chamber of 98 seats. The current makeup of the senate presuming the Republicans hold Georgia is 52-48 Republicans. With Texas gone it becomes 50-48. The current house is 222-211 with Republicans likely grabbing two more seats making it 222-213 in favor of Democrats. Texas currently has 36 house seats of which only 13 are held by Democrats. Texas is very likely to gain seats this year when the census shows their massive growth and California is likely to lose 1-2 seats. But if Texas were gone, California and other states like New York and Florida would gain seats as well as a spreading out of Texas’ 36 house seats through other states. The house by law has 435 seats regardless of the population of the country.

In this scenario the United States would almost certainly become a one party state as Texas has acted as a counterweight to the California 58 electors juggernaut. This would likely be the end of the USA and certainly the end of conservative politics.

What if I told you, Texas isn’t the state that should leave? There is a scenario whereby one state secedes and it could very well result in a win-win situation. Literally a happy ending is plausible. That state? California.

California has just shy of 40,000,000 residents and the most progressive state government in the country. California would love to become a western European style, socialist country. If they seceded they would almost certainly evolve into that in a matter of a few short years. California if it were an independent nation and had its current economy effectively $3 Trillion, it would be ranked 5th in the world behind the USA ($21T), China $14T), Japan ($5T), and Germany ($4T), just a tick ahead of the UK ($2.9T)and France ($2.8T). Californians tend to over rate their percentage of the US economy often saying things on social media like “if it were not for California, China would have the biggest economy, and other such nonsense. Well sorry Golden State gang you are not that big a deal, in fact California contributes to the national GDP at about 114% of average per capita which means it carries a little extra punching power versus the typical state. But California is not even the most productive state. The USA would still be by a large margin the largest economy on Earth without California. One could argue the US economy would likely grow faster without California as their anti-business house reps would no longer have a vote in national policy.

So what if California just left? The Democrats and Republicans would still argue and we would still have a robust two party system with both parties being competitive in national elections and such. But the crazy hard left would likely be relegated to obscurity and that would be great for this country. It would be great for Democrats in fact as that party could get back to the basics of their post civil rights era platform of strong unions, clean air and water, and accessible health care. The woke left would be driven out of office and possibly they would just move to the new ‘People’s Republic of California’. Surely California would welcome them with open arms. The Senate based on the same scenario as above would be 52-46 in favor of Republicans and the house likely would bounce temporarily to Republicans with perhaps a 20 seat majority. California currently has 45 Democrats and 11 Republicans in the house. That would likely spread out across the other states more evenly.

California would either succeed or fail in their efforts to go all in on socialism, but at least they would not drag an unwilling America with them in that endeavor. I think California would succeed however as that state is almost socialist already. They already have a state funded healthcare system that covers almost everyone in the state. They want to push it nationally so they don’t have to pay for it anymore. Well as an independent nation they would have their own currency and could control taxation and regulations as they see fit. California would likely make it on their own, whether the state would be better or worse for its citizens is up for debate, it would however survive. The rest of us in the 49 States of America would be better off for sure.

Hey California, how ’bout you leave the rest of us alone and… well, just leave.