United States with California exit graphic
The disenfranchised, hurt-feeling liberals of California, who are herding towards 'CalExit' in ever-increasing numbers since the election of Donald Trump, are about to face up to an ugly reality in their perception of their virtue-signaling. As NYT reports, the president of the 'Yes California' movement lives in Russia.

In January, we detailed how activists in California have just taken an integral step that could leave America with only 49 states in the near future. Yes California, a pro-secession organization, received approval Thursday to begin collecting signatures from residents to put "Calexit" on the ballot for a 2019 special election.

Yes California has been working toward secession for some time, but with President Donald Trump's election last year, their efforts gained momentum as frustrated residents questioned their willingness to bow down to a president they don't support. According to a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos this month, nearly one in three supports secession — a sharp uptick from a similar survey conducted in 2014.

1 in every 3 Californians now support a "peaceful withdrawal from the union," which is a substantial increase from the 20% who favored such a withdrawal the last time a similar poll was conducted in 2014.
One in every three California residents supports the most populous U.S. state's peaceful withdrawal from the union, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, many of them Democrats strongly opposed to Trump's ascension to the country's highest office.

The 32 percent support rate is sharply higher than the last time the poll asked Californians about secession, in 2014, when one-in-five or 20 percent favored it around the time Scotland held its independence referendum and voted to remain in the United Kingdom.

California also far surpasses the national average favoring secession, which stood at 22 percent, down from 24 percent in 2014.
Of course, as most of the country made a shift to the right in November's election, California continued it's steady march to the left with Democrats now controlling a super-majority in both houses of the legislature.

Many Americans often joke about California leaving the union, highlighting how wildly different residents of the Golden State are from those of America's heartland. Indeed, Yes California appears to agree.
"America already hates California, and America votes on emotions," Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the group's founders, told the Los Angeles Times. "I think we'd have the votes today if we held it."
In a recent post on their website announcing their progress, they wrote:
"In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children."
It's understandable why secession has become a proposed solution considering California has long struggled with many systemic problems. As Yes California points out:
"Although charity is part of our culture, when you consider that California's infrastructure is falling apart, our public schools are ranked among the worst in the entire country, we have the highest number of homeless persons living without shelter and other basic necessities, poverty rates remain high, income inequality continues to expand, and we must often borrow money from the future to provide services for today, now is not the time for charity."
Though Yes California points out practical reasons for secession, they also argue the underlying justification for their movement from a philosophical standpoint:
"However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country," they write. "It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law."
Further:
"It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations. We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as just a U.S. state."
California has the sixth largest economy in the world, and while the probability of a CalExit may be low, the impact would be dramatic of that outlier event. So who - exactly - is behind the 'Yes California' movement that is trying to tear America apart... (as The New York Times reports)

Meet Louis J. Marinelli, the 30-year-old English teacher who is the president of the Yes California movement, which seeks independence for the state.

Yekaterinburg, Russia - a provincial Russian city, about 1,000 miles east of Moscow - is about as unlikely a place as any to find the leader of one of the more unlikely political causes to arise in opposition to President Trump.

Louis J. Marinelli
With renewed attention on the movement, Mr. Marinelli is under scrutiny for living in a country that many in the United States see as an adversarial power.
Russians who meet Mr. Marinelli sometimes mistake him for a political refugee from the United States, assuming he would be repressed for his antigovernment positions at home.

And back in California, he is on the defensive for accepting travel expenses and office space from a Kremlin-linked nationalist group.

That acceptance has raised the prospect that Russia, after meddling in the election to try to tip the vote to Mr. Trump, as United States intelligence agencies have said, is now gleefully stoking divisions in America by backing a radical liberal movement.

A former Republican turned liberal political activist, he said he turned to teaching English in Russia to pay the bills and because his wife is Russian. They met during an earlier teaching stint, and he said he intended to return to California when his contract expires in June.

He co-founded the California secession movement in 2014 in San Diego, flirting first with the name Cal-Leave-Fornia before settling on Calexit, after the successful "Brexit" campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.

While no indications exist of a direct Russian government hand in Mr. Marinelli's organization, a group that is nominally independent but nonetheless state financed, and supports only causes that dovetail with the Kremlin's foreign policy, paid for a hotel room in Moscow during a congress of secessionist groups from around the world in September 2016.
Mr. Marinelli, who said he supported only nonviolent means of opposition, described his presence in Russia as coincidental, and he denied any links to Russian officials. Before the American presidential election, Mr. Marinelli said he saw no harm in taking a year off to teach English in Russia; his movement had been only creeping along anyway, financed with his credit card and run from his home in San Diego.
"A lot of misinformation goes out about us, such as I know President Vladimir Putin or work in the Kremlin," Mr. Marinelli said.

"It's kind of funny, because if we had secret Russian support, we wouldn't be open. I live in Russia. I would have to hide that, not promote it. We have nothing to hide. We're doing some good work here. We're going to continue to do that."
Of course, his denial of any linkages to the Russian establishment should be taken as writ - as opposed to President Trump's denial, which - if one asked any Hillary supporter, or mainstream media anchor - is clearly a lie.

Finally, though Yes California stresses the importance of voluntary association, it's doubtful an independent California government would ask taxpayers what programs they'd like to fund. Ultimately, though California as a country would certainly be beneficial for decentralization and localization efforts, it would operate as a government and, as such, force Californians to participate.

Nevertheless, the movement reflects undeniable divisions within the United States, especially in the era of Donald Trump. Other states are also eyeing secession, including Texas, Washington, and Oregon.

As Anti-Media observed shortly after the election:
"People are rioting and protesting over Trump's win throughout California but celebrating in Alabama, and against the backdrop of an ever-encroaching federal government, it appears these differences are growing difficult to reconcile.