To hear governor Jerry Brown tell it, California is all that stands between Washington and the ruin of the nation. In his recent “State of the State” address, Brown promised to defy Donald Trump, fashioning it as a great patriotic quest: “When we defend California,” Brown said, “we defend America.”
California’s combative stance toward Washington began as farce the night after Donald Trump’s election when several hundred people paraded around the state capitol in Sacramento waving banners promoting what’s called Calexit, the agenda of the secessionist Yes California Independence Campaign. By the time the state legislature convened a month later, the laughter had been replaced with angry invective directed at the Trump team’s intention to deport undocumented immigrants, build a border wall, relax environmental regulations, and gut Obamacare.
