What happens if California separates from the United States?

Americans are increasingly polarizing. According to the Pew Research Centre, even the centre's republics are more conservative than 97% of the Democrats, while the centre's Democrats are more liberal than 95% of the republics. In 1994 these statistics were only 64 percent respectively. Researchers say ideological tensions have never been bigger.

California is no exception. In the past few years, divisions within the state, and between California and the rest of the United States, have triggered at least six initiatives that were trying to lure California into small states or separate it from the rest of the United States.

According to Monica Toft, the arguments supporting these plans include the belief that the federal government does not represent the economic interests of California; that the state is as big as a proper government is possible unless applied to a smaller geographical extent; or in the incompatible differences between California and the rest of the United States, conveyed by the BBC, Periscopi.

To be clear, if you don't change something drasticly, California won't break away from the United States. Constitutional law denies you states the right to partition. However, such danger exists.

Civil war?

The possibility of violence, even of a formal struggle, is the first question and the most devastating question of hypothetizing what could happen if California were to secede. Another civic war may seem impossible, but if we consider that the southern United States did not expect a long conflict when it decided to secede from the north 157 years ago, then things get complicated.

The same has happened in other parts of the world when certain parts have decided to secede.

If the U.S. allowed California to leave peacefully or not, it would affect the president who would be in charge, says Stephen Saideman, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University of Otttawa in Canada.

Politics of Power

However, if partitioning were peaceful, democratic fears would become true. California is the largest state in the union by the population, and its removal would constitute a radical shift of the political field to the US. Power balance in Congress would be broken by giving full control of the republics.

Meanwhile, losing California's election vote would leave very little hope for the United States to see another democratic president in the near future.

In response to this shift in the political course, the rest of the Democrats would turn their policies right. If you don't have California as an anchor of the positions of the Democratic Party, then this grammatically changes gravity center,” said Grofman, another professor.

As for the economy, California would become the fifth strongest state in the world, but secession would leave the United States in much worse shape.

Moreover, California would become much more attractive than the United States for immigrants. The newly formed state would actually be called an immigration paradise by receiving investors and offering tolerant policies to other more unsurpassed workers.

A California break-up could also lead to successive secession of other U.S. states leaving the world without the major superpower. States such as Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova came out of the Soviet Union after the Baltic states first did. /Periscopi