Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Part 2 of the election panel. Sean Forbes chairs again, with Charles McGuinness, the party's vice chair Ash Seiter, and Theo Slater, who founded the California National Party. Same four issues, same zero-to-ten scores.

Issue one, the midterms: Ash expects more of the same, whoever wins; Theo expects a blue wave lowered by several feet of dirty tricks, a toothless majority, and asks whether America gets a Khrushchev moment after Trump. Issue two, why end this bad marriage: incompatible cultures, a donor state, fewer state legislators than Iowa, and the belly of the beast. Issue three, how CalExit happens: a California convention and a list of grievances, an Olive Branch Petition for the twenty-first century, the Irish model, or a slow drift as the empire loots itself into the ground. Issue four, what an independent California would look like: Scandinavian government, Finnish schools, a rail network, foreign investment in the shiny new nation, and Switzerland and Japan as models. Then a lightning-round conspiracy theory, and the book: The Courage to Secede.

Part 1, with Maya Ram and Hal Lohr, is episode 10.

In this episode

• 0:00 — Welcome, and the panel
• 1:34 — Issue one, the midterms: Ash on more of the same
• 5:59 — Theo: a blue tsunami, several feet lower
• 11:03 — Theo: a Khrushchev moment, or Obama after Bush?
• 16:22 — Issue two, why end this bad marriage? Ash: two diverging paths
• 22:50 — Sean: 44%, and how Washington would react
• 27:37 — Ash: Prop 50, and nothing the United States could do
• 29:03 — Theo: the belly of the beast, and the last days of Rome
• 35:11 — Theo: acclimated to worse governance
• 39:03 — Theo: the center won't hold
• 41:53 — Issue three, how does CalExit happen? Ash: a convention and a list of grievances
• 47:22 — Sean: an Olive Branch Petition, and the Irish model
• 51:31 — Theo: a slow drift, and no Senate
• 55:35 — Sean: the Berlin Wall fell in six years
• 1:00:07 — Issue four, what would an independent California look like? Ash: rail, schools and food security
• 1:05:02 — Ash: foreign investment for a brand-new nation
• 1:06:51 — Theo: Switzerland, Japan and soft power
• 1:08:29 — Lightning round: Ash's conspiracy theory
• 1:12:23 — Goodbyes, and the book

Facts, sources and further reading. We checked what was said in this episode, right and wrong, with links: checkpointcalifornia.com/011