#CalExit just received a big boost from an unlikely source: Peter Thiel, billionaire tech buddy of President-elect Trump.
In a “Confirm or Deny” interview with the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, the 49 year-old Thiel confirmed that he believed California should secede.
Maureen Dowd: California should secede.
Peter Thiel: Confirm. I’d be fine with that. I think it would be good for California, good for the rest of the country. It would help Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.
Apparently Thiel’s comment that “…it would help Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign” was made rather tongue-in-cheek.
But it does raise an interesting question. With California Democrats abuzz with rancor against Trump — making plans to be the heart of the resistance to his presidency — what will Trump make of his contrarian tech pal’s remark?
Since Thiel not only supported Trump when it was extremely unpopular, but more importantly, where it was the most difficult place on earth to be a Trump supporter — Silicon Valley — it seems unlikely Trump will take him to task. His legendary loyalty will most likely cover all offenses.
After all, Peter Thiel made a fortune being a contrarian.
But Dowd missed an opportunity to ask a follow-up, something lik:, “How would it be good for the rest of the country to have California secede?”
Thiel’s thoughts on that would be interesting, because he’s an incredibly smart man — the kind we need advising Presidents.
As I wrote in a recent piece for Breitbart, food, energy and border security are huge components of national security. California is key to all of them.
California not only supplies critical energy and food products that would be difficult to produce elsewhere, but it is also home to a good portion of the defense industry.
Even though it isn’t what it once was, the defense industry in Southern California is still formidable — to say nothing of the strategic defense of the nation and the entire continent with crucial military bases stretching from San Diego to the Oregon border. Some things are harder to move than others, other things are impossible. It’s geography — not demography.
Admittedly, it’s a popular sentiment on comment sections of newspapers and Facebook to talk of California “falling into the ocean and the rest of the country will be better off”.
But would the U.S. really be better off?
Sure, it might feel good to have Hillary’s army fall into the Pacific’s deep blue waters for a moment. Remember Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, standing up on the rock as the Pharaoh’s chariots are churned under the rushing Red Sea.
Epic moment, but it would be a pyrrhic victory at best.
Without the “food basket of the world”, the strategic coastline defenses, the intrepid energy and defense sectors (among the most persecuted of any industries anywhere), the U.S. would be in serious trouble.
And without Thiel’s own Silicon Valley — the technology industry—that made efficiencies real, that were once the stuff of dreams, we’d be sunk. Technology companies and national security are strange, but necessary, bedfellows — to say nothing of the nuts and bolts of too many government bureaucracies maintaining trillions of bits of information securely.
Without strategic partnerships with companies like Thiel’s own Palantir Technologies, the dull, plodding bureaucracies that process all that information would grind to a halt.
Would #CalExit’s secession equal shutting down the government?
Now, that can’t be all good—or can it? Confirm or deny.
Tim Donnelly is a Former California State Assemblyman – Author, Patriot Not Politician: Win or Go Homeless – FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.donnelly.12/ – Twitter: @PatriotNotPol