S4E7: Kal Penn and the Republic of Rough and Ready

Summary

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Podcast Summary: SNAFU with Ed Helms

Episode: S4E7 – Kal Penn and the Republic of Rough and Ready

Release Date: November 19, 2025
Host: Ed Helms
Guest Co-Host: Kal Penn
Expert Guest: Richard Kreitner (journalist, historian, and author)

Overview

In this episode of SNAFU, Ed Helms teams up with actor and former White House staffer Kal Penn for a humor-laden, thoughtful look at a truly "screwed up" chapter in American history: the brief, ill-fated secession of the mining town Rough and Ready, California, in 1850. The conversation explores themes of secession, scapegoating in American politics, and the ongoing allure of breaking away—from the Gold Rush era to today's bubbling independence movements. Historian Richard Kreitner joins to discuss the legal, cultural, and political roots and realities of modern secession attempts.

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Episode Structure

1. Kal Penn’s Personal ‘Snafu’ Story (03:15 – 06:43)
2. History Deep-Dive: The Republic of Rough and Ready (06:52 – 24:16)
3. Lessons and Reflections on Secession and Scapegoating (24:16 – 27:22)
4. Interview with Richard Kreitner – Modern Secession Movements (27:57 – 51:45)
5. Final Thoughts and Takeaways (46:13 – 48:25)

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Kal Penn’s Snafu in the White House

• Kal Penn shares a hilarious personal story from his time as President Obama’s liaison for young Americans and AAPI communities, involving an email chain with the National Security Council about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), inadvertently laughed at in a professional setting.
  • Quote (Kal Penn, 04:32):

  “Yo, their main terror group are the MILFs. Amazing.”

  • The story highlights the cultural awkwardness and the collision of pop culture and bureaucratic language in government settings.
  • Ed Helms jokes about Obama delivering the punchline in person.

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2. The Republic of Rough and Ready: The Ultimate Secession Snafu

Gold Rush Chaos and Discontent

• 1849: Gold Rush swells California’s population—from a few hundred non-Native settlers to over 300,000.
  • Population fun fact (Ed Helms, 07:38):

  “32 million, plus or minus a Kardashian.” – Kal Penn
  “It’s 39.43 million. Give or take a Kardashian or Hemsworth or two.” – Ed Helms

• Mining town “Rough and Ready” named after General Zachary Taylor's nickname “Old Rough and Ready.”
  • On the town’s name (Ed Helms, 09:12):

  “It feels just wrapped up in kink in, in a good way.”

  • Could also be “a cowboy-themed swingers’ retreat or a monster truck rally.”
• The Foreign Miners Tax (targeted Chinese and Latin American miners, $20 monthly) introduced, sparking resentment even among US-born miners, fearing next-in-line taxation.

Scapegoating in American Politics

• Kal Penn connects 19th-century anti-immigrant scapegoating to modern politics:
  • Quote (Kal Penn, 11:15):

  “It’s easy for people who are insecure… Much harder to fix those problems.”

  • Scapegoating distracts from policy solutions and undermines productive debate.

Alcohol Ban and the Vote to Secede

• The town faces taxes and an early prohibition (70 years before national Prohibition).
• Fed up, the citizens of Rough and Ready vote to secede on April 7, 1850, forming the “Great Republic of Rough and Ready.”
  • They draft their own constitution (modeled after the US) and send “official” paperwork to DC.
  • Quote (Ed Helms, 15:13):

  “I mean, is kind of a cool flex… I wouldn’t mind if the United States was the Great Republic of Rough and Ready.”

• The celebration doesn’t last: on July 4, 1850, neighboring towns refuse to sell alcohol to “foreigners.”
  • Ed (21:15):

  “All everyone in the United States around them is like, sorry, we’re not selling to foreigners.”

• After three months, Rough and Ready votes to rejoin the US—a snafu of sovereignty.

Ongoing Town Pride

• The town (pop. 659 as of 2023) still celebrates “Secession Day” with a chili cookoff and reenactments.
  • Possible movie pitch (Ed & Kal, 23:15):

  “Can we audition for that play next year?”
  “Let’s just make this movie. This is like such a Christopher Guest…”

  • The hosts riff on turning the town’s history into a comedy film.

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3. Lessons and Larger Takeaways

• Kal Penn reflects on the US as a democracy “experiment” that’s always moving forward and backward.
• Teaching hard history is a chance to show progress, not cause shame:
  • Quote (Kal Penn, 25:34):

  “We’ve come a really long way… I think the opposite of shame—we should feel proud that we’re not that way anymore.”

• Ed Helms notes the value of scrutinizing the specific “mechanics” that led to past blunders, to prevent repeating history.

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4. Modern Secession Movements – Interview with Richard Kreitner

Why Does Secession Stay “in Style”?

(Kal, 28:26; Richard, 28:51)

• Modern secession surges post-2000, increasing polarization with each contested election.
  • On left, it’s “I’ll move to Canada!”; on right, it’s calls for states to literally secede.
  • Kreitner:

  “I think it really has been [around] for the last 20, 25 years…whichever side loses, threatens to secede.” (28:51)

Types of Movements & Motivations

• “Calexit” (California independence), “Texit” (Texas), “Greater Idaho” (moving Eastern Oregon counties to Idaho), Downstate Illinois, etc.
  • Some only have a handful of supporters, others (like in New Hampshire) are more serious.
• Core issues:
  • Disproportionate federal representation (e.g., California’s population vs. Senate seats, 31:02)
  • Taxation grievances and cultural identity
• The American “ethos of individualism” fuels secessions both historic and modern.
  • Ed Helms (31:15):

  “It’s also part of that sort of long held American ethos of individualism…”

The (Il)Legality of Secession

(Kal & Richard, 33:02 – 34:07)

• Supreme Court case Texas v. White (1869) deemed secession unconstitutional, but Kreitner argues its weight is more symbolic than practical today.

The Complexity and Unlikelihood of Modern Secession

• Even California or Texas leaving would be fraught:

  • The US is vastly more intertwined than in 1850 or 1861 (economically, logistically).
  • Political chaos (like an unresolved national election) is more likely to prompt a real break than a clean state-by-state vote.
  • Richard Kreitner (50:38):

  “I think the most likely way that this happens is not just on a clear blue day … I see it as happening in the context of some much larger national crisis…”

• Lesser secessionist schemes (e.g., Greater Idaho) only require state and Congressional approval, but remain highly unlikely.

  • Richard (40:00):

  “It would need the assent of both Idaho…and Oregon…and then the United States Congress would also need to sign on. So it’s pretty far fetched. It’s unlikely, but not inconceivable.”

• Both guests agree that distrust in institutions, voter alienation, and polarization have never been higher since the Civil War era.

  • Ed on disconnect and lawmaking:

    “A Princeton study showed that public sentiment… had a statistically nonexistent effect on whether or not that policy would become a law.” (38:25)

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5. Reflections on Secession and the Meaning of the US

• Ed Helms: The US remains special and worth preserving, despite broken institutions.
  • “Don’t give up on the United States. There’s something really incredible and special here…” (46:13)
• Richard Kreitner:
  • Cites the Declaration of Independence’s right to alter or abolish a failing government as a last resort, not a first impulse.
  • Not only Confederates—abolitionists, radicals—have considered secession in American history.
  • (47:22):

  “Keep your powder dry…there are worse things than a potential breakup… which would be all of us falling under some kind of fascist dictatorship.”

• Both note the miracle and beauty of the US’s diversity—geographic, political, cultural.
• Final thoughts: Political boundaries may never perfectly align with cultural realities, and learning from our past SNAFUs can help ensure we survive current ones.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Kal Penn (On scapegoating, 11:15):

  “If you look at what’s happening today, it’s way easier to blame immigrants for something…Way harder to fix those problems.”

• Ed Helms (On Rough and Ready’s secession, 15:13):

  “Kind of a cool flex. I…wouldn’t mind if the United States was the Great Republic of Rough and Ready.”

• Kal Penn and Ed Helms (On possible film, 23:15):

  “Can we audition for that play next year?”…“Let’s just make this movie.”

• Richard Kreitner (On polarization, 28:51):

  “The sore losers kind of falling back on this [secession] as a last resort.”

• Ed Helms (On government dysfunction, 38:25):

  “A Princeton study showed public sentiment…[had] a statistically non-existent effect on whether or not that policy would become a law.”

• Richard Kreitner (On secession as American, 47:23):

  “It’s not just the Confederates, it’s not just racist slave owners…Absolutionists wanted the north to secede…Keep your powder dry…”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:15–06:43: Kal’s White House “MILF” snafu
• 06:52–24:16: History of Rough and Ready, CA & secession
• 24:16–27:22: Reflections on history, scapegoating, pride
• 27:57–51:45: Interview with Richard Kreitner on modern secession
• 46:13–48:25: Final reflections on what keeps the US together and lessons from history

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Tone and Style

• Casual, witty, banter-filled—rich with jokes and asides
• Historical storytelling meets honest, sometimes irreverent political commentary
• Honest about American flaws and SNAFUs, but ultimately hopeful about progress

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

You’ll get a smart, irreverent look at one of America’s weirdest moments of local rebellion—from gold-rush minors refusing taxes and alcohol bans, to modern Californians and Texans half-joking about pulling the plug on the Union. By mixing historic hijinks, personal screwups, and expert analysis, Ed Helms, Kal Penn, and Richard Kreitner deliver big laughs and food for thought: about how America deals with its problems (by running away?), how scapegoating never really goes away, why secession never quite works out as planned, and what keeps this whole messy experiment together.

Transcript

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I always thought it was called a buck strap, but that's not what it is. It's a flank strap. Yeah, and people think that it squeezes their balls. That's why they buck. That's actually not true.

[C]

So you're saying there's an opening there for a new product.

[B]

That might make them buck a little harder? I don't know. Hey there, I'm Ed Helms, and welcome to Snafu.

[C]

And I'm Kal Penn, and welcome to Here We Go Again.

[B]

This week we are here together doing a special joint episode of our shows because, hey, we're both funny guys who love history and storytelling. And you know what that means? It's synergy, people. It means synergy. First, I'm going to take you through a wild snafu about a town that decided to throw caution to the wind and secede from the Union way back in 18, only to realize it would leave them, ahem, a little thirsty or perhaps a little high and dry.

[C]

And then I'm going to walk us through a discussion with journalist and historian Richard Kreitner about the continued and very recent secession movements today. Think about, like, Calexit or Texit or the Greater Idaho Movement, which sounds like a brewery, but really isn't. Let's see why this same shit keeps happening again and again and again.

[B]

This really feels like synergy. This is like our podcast. They just. They merge so beautifully. I'm so excited that your podcast is finally out in the world and I just think it's smart and terrific. I think you are smart and terrific.

[C]

Thanks.

[B]

And full disclosure to our listeners. Cal is working with my podcast company, Snafu Media, and I am an executive producer on his show. I ask all my guests on snafu, do you have any specific snafu from your life that you can tell us about?

[C]

Oh, man.

[B]

Can be huge, can be tiny, doesn't matter.

[C]

So many. There are so many. I'll tell you. For folks who don't know. I took a two year sabbatical from acting with the intent to always come back. Acting and performing is my first love. But I was the President's liaison to young Americans and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in an office called the Office of Public Engagement. Think of it as like an outreach office. And on my third, the National Security Council.

[B]

Are you in the White House?

[C]

In the White House. In the actual White House. They add me to a massive email chain. And these email chains have 100 people on them. Real serious national security people in those days. And everything in government is an acronym, right? So for example, if you get an email from the National Security Council, it'll say National Security Council. Then any other time in the email it'll just say nsc. And so they said, plus, Cal, Cal, because you're the President's new liaison to the Asian American, you should know about this delegation from the Philippines that's meeting at the White House. And the thing that you should know is about this terror group in the Philippines that you might get questions on. They're called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. And then in parentheses, it just said milf. And then the rest of the email, I'm not fucking with you. The rest of the email said, MILF is considered highly dangerous. MILF is known to recruit young men and things like, you know, many young men grow to regret their affiliation with MILF over time.

[B]

The opposite of a snafu. This is delightful. I love that there are these little nuggets of governmental awkwardness.

[C]

Great. So I thought this was so wonderful that in my head I'm at my desk laughing my ass off. I hit reply all. And I wrote, yo, their main terror group are the MILFs. Amazing. And I hit send. And as soon as I hit send, I was like, you idiot, you are not in a writer's room at Universal. You are in the White House on an email chain with the National Security Council. And I couldn't unsend it. And I. And like, it was silent after that. And in the hallway, coworkers, many of whom in the. In the pod world, you all know a lot of the pod Save America guys and Tommy Viator and Ben Rhodes and these guys who I worked with at the time in the hallway were like, yo, that shit was so funny. We were all thinking it, like, will one of you please hit reply all and just say lol? That's all I need. I just need one of you to LOL me. And they all were like, hell no, man. This is going to be a public record one day. I just don't want my name associated with you calling out the MILF thing. So that was my. One of my professional snafus.

[B]

Oh, my God, I love it. You know what? The only thing that would have made that snafu better is if Obama himself had, like, walked up into your office, like, leaned against the door jam and just been like, calm, buddy, what the hell? We're gonna have to fire you. Like, you're gonna. This is not. You can't do this.

[C]

If that were the case, I felt like it would have gone the other way. And he would have just been like, did you see the name of this terror group?

[B]

I feel like the government needs more people like you, Cal. It'd be a lot more fun. A lot more like chuckles in the hallways.

[C]

And I enjoy.

[B]

It's so serious all the time. All right, well, let's dive in because we have a great snafu today. I'm to tell you about it. We begin in California in 1849. And you know what that means. There's gold in them thar hills. The gold rush was in full swing. In fact, it was the largest mass migration in the history of the United states. By the mid-1850s, while roughly 100,000 indigenous people lived in California, the number of non indigenous settlers ballooned from just a few hundred to over three hundred thousand. A massive influx and a crazy impact on the region. Cal, any guess what the current population of California is?

[C]

Oh, boy. 32 million, plus or minus a Kardashian.

[B]

That's a good. That's a Solid Yes. It's 39.43 million. Yes. Give or take a Kardashian or Hemsworth or two. One of the many boomtowns that sprang up during the Gold Rush was founded by a mining company out of Wisconsin and led by a man named, Wait for it. Captain Absalom Austin Townsend.

[C]

Oh, hell yeah.

[B]

I mean, come on, what a great name. I mean, if you met that guy today, he would 100% have a sideburn, grooming kit, maybe a pocket watch, and definitely overuse the phrase good sir. My name is Absalom Good, sir. That's a wonderful, wonderful name.

[C]

Great name.

[B]

Now, this Captain Townsend, he had served under General Zachary Taylor during the War of 1832, and apparently Townsend was quite enamored with his. General Taylor. I'm going to test your grade school memory here, Cal. Do you recall who Zach Taylor was or became?

[C]

If memory serves, he was one of the non MILF presidents.

[B]

I cannot verify whether president. He was a mil president, but that is correct. He was our 12th president and he had a fun little nickname, Old Rough and Ready. I, I, I, I know that, that, that has a great backstory. It feels kind of kinky. I don't know.

[C]

It sure does. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Feels just wrapped up in kink in, In a good way. So Captain Townsend decided what better way to pay homage to my boy Zachary than to name this newly formed town after him? To name the town Rough and Ready, which is a weird name for a town. Like, usually towns don't have adjectives as their name, but I don't know, I guess they just sort of thought it was kind of baller. So if you ever heard someone mention Rough and Ready, would you guess it was the name of a town?

[C]

My first guess would have been like yours. I would have thought it would have been sort of like a kink thing. And the ready really signifies the sex positive nature of that. You're like rooting for the person because they're also ready. Right.

[B]

I feel like it could be like a monster truck rally or. Oh, yeah, Maybe like a cowboy themed swingers retreat.

[C]

Sure. Oh, yeah.

[B]

All right. Well, despite its odd name, Rough and Ready grew fast, thanks to all that gold in them thar hills. But then came the foreign miners tax, a state law that slapped non US citizens with a $20 monthly fee just to dig for gold. Most of those foreigners were Chinese and Latin American miners. And yes, this tax was discriminatory as hell. Now here's the twist. Even though the tax didn't target us Born miners, towns like Rough and Ready still hated it. Why? Well, because it drove away cheap labor, sparked conflict, and messed with the free for all gold rush hustles that they were all trying to cash in on. Plus, it Planted the idea that any miner could, could be next in the government's taxation crosshairs. That will come to play later. Let's just say the good people of rough and ready were not ready to be roughed up by the tax man. So, Cal, this tax eventually was ruled unconstitutional, but it still stirred up a lot of anti immigrant sentiment. And you worked in the White House, you've been in the political trenches. Why is scapegoating immigrants such a go to move in American politics?

[C]

It's easy for people who are insecure and it's. If you look at what's happening today, it's way easier to blame immigrants for something that's happening in our own communities. Like groceries are too expensive or things feel less safe than they should be, or the cost of my doctor's visit is too high. It's very easy to blame immigrants and much harder to fix those problems. So if you look at generally the people who are blaming immigrants don't have a plan on how to fix actual problems. And that's historically true as well.

[B]

Well, their plan is to get rid of immigrants.

[C]

Right. Which is not going to fix the.

[B]

Problem, which doesn't actually address the problem. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Being an immigrant is a very easy way to other ize someone or like or to label someone. And once you have that label, once that otherization is in place, then you just start tacking on all these, all the things, all the problems.

[C]

And the other tragedy of that is, you know, it's perfectly reasonable, reasonable people to talk about levels of immigration and types of immigration. Every country does.

[B]

And the real ways that immigration affects.

[C]

Communities and affects, yeah, all totally fair things to do. But when people scapegoat immigrants and don't solve our own problems at home, it then robs us of the opportunity to actually have the real conversations we should be having about these things.

[B]

Amen. Here's where things really go off the rails. Next, the government tried to slap on a new general mining tax that applied to everyone, no matter where you were from, just like they were afraid of. And they also suddenly tried to ban alcohol, by the way, just to clarify, this was a full 70 years before the federal alcohol ban in the 1920s and 30s. That was, that was Prohibition came much later. So, yeah, a town full of minors with no booze and more taxes, let's just say they were more off than a bull in a flank strap. And I actually looked up what I looked up. I googled what's the thing that they strap around a bull to make him buck in a rodeo, because that's the metaphor I wanted to use here. And it's called a flank strap. I always thought it was called a buck strap, but that's not what it is. It's a flank strap. And you know, people think that it has their balls in the flame. It squeezes their balls. That's why they buck. That's actually not true. No, that's an urban myth or a rural legend.

[C]

So you're saying there's an opening there for a new product.

[B]

That might make them buck a little harder? I don't know. But no, it's just an irritant and it makes them want to get it off and that's why they buck. So, Cal, we've got new taxes, we've got an alcohol ban, We've got a lot of dusty, angry miners. What do you think they're gonn do?

[C]

Every time you say that it's a town full of miners or dusty angry miners who can't drink alcohol, I picture a bunch of 12 year olds who are just fighting with each other over beer that doesn't exist.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[C]

That's basically.

[B]

Yeah, that's what they're reduced to, essentially.

[C]

Yeah. Right. I mean, I would imagine some sort of uprising. Some sort of like. Yes, let's change this immediately.

[B]

They want to secede. They want to take it all the way, get out of the United States. They are pissed.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

All right. So to pull this off, the town called a meeting and voted to secede on April 7, 1850. They even sent official, quote unquote, official paperwork to Washington D.C. and renamed their brand new nation. Drumroll, please. The Great Republic of Rough and ready. Oh, which I mean, is kind of a cool flex. I feel like that's a good name. Like I wouldn't mind if the United States was the Great Republic of Rough and Ready.

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Next they drafted and signed their own constitution, which bore a striking resemblance to the one our founding fathers drafted a century earlier. Which actually kind of makes sense. America's founding document was basically the OG Secession manual. The so the town rejoiced. No more taxes. But spoiler alert, that joy was very short lived. Pretty soon it's July 4th, 1850. Good ol independence Day in the United States. Now despite having just seceded from the United States, the proud citizens of Rough and Ready still felt the need to party. Because nothing says we're our own country now like crashing your ex country's birthday party. But when they rolled into neighboring towns to stock up on libations, shop owners refused to sell alcohol to them. Why? Well, because they were now technically foreigners. Cal, have you ever been in another country and realized you just can't get something you really wanted because you're not a local?

[C]

So first of all, yes, right like there were, there's some stuff that people will just laugh at you. Like I was shooting a film in Bangkok and I ran out of my face lotion and so I asked the like the you know, the makeup woman at work, do you have a recommendation? This is what I use. And she laughed at me and she said, do you know how close you are to South Korea? Go get some really good South Korean skin products. They're so cheap here compared to what you'd have to spend in America. And I just sort of was like, yeah, of course, of course they are. Of course I should do this look at where I am in the world. But so yeah, sorry, I have been in this situation where I've been on the road and can't get the thing you're used to.

[B]

Yeah, well these rough and readiers had suddenly otherized themselves and now all everyone in the United States around them is like, sorry, we're not selling to foreigners. I Don't know, it seems kind of petty, but I'm not sure what the motivation was there. After realizing that commerce with their neighbors was going to be a huge pain in the ass, and only three months into their independence, the citizens of this young nation gathered for another emergency meeting and wait for it, voted to rejoin.

[C]

Oh, there it is. Yeah, it is.

[B]

Do you think we should have taken him back or just be like, sorry, no backsies.

[C]

I guess, you know, depends on the type of chip that we would have had on our shoulders at the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Did we need them back or did.

[B]

They ever actually go?

[C]

That's the better question. You're right.

[B]

I have a feeling that, you know, whoever they sent these letters to, to officially secede was kind of like, okay, whatever.

[A]

Yeah, just like put it aside.

[B]

Like, okay guys, yeah, whatever you need to tell yourselves. But you're still like literally a tiny little dot in the middle of the United States. Yeah.

[C]

You gotta take them back. You gotta set the precedent. It makes people know full circle. They tried. It didn't work. Let's move on.

[B]

Anywho, after a few swift signatures, they were back in the union. Apparently in the wild west, you could form or dissolve entire nations with just a little bit of paperwork. So today the town is still kicking with a whopping population of 659 as of 2023. In fact, we found a flyer online for a secession day celebration that includes a chili cook off and an article touting a reenactment play being performed. Would love to see that. Actually. Seems like the townspeople remain proud of their quirky history.

[C]

Can I propose something?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Can we audition for that play next year?

[B]

Yeah. This feels like a. Like a waiting for Guffman type movie.

[C]

Yeah. Like, what if we just did the play?

[B]

We need to make this movie, Cal.

[C]

I'm super down. That's a great idea.

[B]

Let's leapfrog the play. Like, let's just make. Make this movie. This is like such a Christopher Guest.

[C]

100% amazing.

[B]

So with just people. People being like, like getting caught up in the. In the sort of mundane bureaucracy of like, what it takes to secede and the number of votes that the town council must pass and of course. So you have all these like, these like crusty old gold miners in these meetings, but they have to like, focus and dig in on this, like, mundane stuff. I don't know. I love it.

[C]

And the very. The very real emotional, you know, valid emotional concerns people have that just like normally stop when you have a good therapist, but instead then become this Whole other thing when you're not checking yourself, there it is.

[B]

That is the story of Rough and Ready. Cal Penn. Any major takeaways? Any thoughts? Reflections?

[C]

Couple of big takeaways. One, very interesting, obviously, which is why you wanted to tell us the story, and I appreciate that. Two, I'm a little bit of a nerd for countries that aren't recognized by the rest of the world. There's one called Transnistria, which is sort of between Moldova and Romania, that has a really fascinating history, especially now with the Russian aggression against Ukraine. And obviously, there are tons of countries like this or places that are not fully designated countries, but oftentimes they have their own currency, their own leadership, their own military. So when you were telling me this, I loved that. There are examples. I didn't know this story. There are examples of this in the US that are fascinating. Also, when you were talking about, okay, there are foreigners. I'm the type of person, we look at American history. We are an experiment in democracy. Things are always going to move forward and backwards constantly. That's sort of what it means to be American. So when we look back at history, I'm one of those people that looks at it and says, wow, we've come a really long way. And so I don't necessarily think that teaching accurate history means that we should feel shame. I think the opposite. We've come so far.

[B]

Oh, amen.

[C]

That we look back and say, wow, this was super bad that we did this. It's great that we're not that way anymore. We should feel proud that we're not that way anymore. Exactly. So it weirds me out when people don't feel that way. And it really weirds me out when people are caught up with celebrating the Confederacy because it was a foreign country. So it's not to say that we shouldn't learn our history. And if you personally are proud of relatives who had a role in that, more power to you, even if I may disagree. But the obsession with teaching it as though it's American history is incorrect factually, because it was a foreign country. Right. So when you were talking about all this stuff, it reminded me of how that affects today. Right, exactly. It reminded me how that affects us today.

[A]

Still.

[B]

It's a complex stew. Well, just to your point about looking back at difficult chapters in a nation's history and that being a very positive thing, but it's not just because we can be proud that we have moved on from those things. It's also like, look at these specific mechanics that got our country into this situation. And let's make sure we're keeping an eye out for those mechanics and whether they're starting to sort of like, happen again.

[C]

Totally.

[B]

And how do we avoid those things, these terrible face plants throughout history or great injustices that we as a country perpetrated or took part in? Let's own our history, own the pride, like you said, that we have moved on. And also learn from our mistakes. But study the mistakes, be transparent about the mistakes.

[C]

Yes. And if we're not going to do that, then at the very least, the big takeaway from Rough and Ready is that it would, as you said, make an incredible tea party.

[B]

Exactly. Cowboy themed.

[C]

A cowboy themed tea party. Excuse me. Swingers retreat. Right. Ed, did you know that as recently as 2024, there were reportedly 12 states trying to secede?

[B]

What?

[C]

I know I don't have all 12 in front of me. It would have been a fun drinking game.

[B]

That's absurd. Yeah, like fully secede, just 12. Because that's like the size of the Confederacy. But I assume they're not contiguous, right?

[C]

Yeah, 12 seemed like a lot to me also.

[B]

Right.

[C]

To help us look at what's happening today and what might happen in the future of secession in the U.S. i knew only one journalist and historian would do. Richard Kreitner is author of Break It Secession, Division and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union. He's a contributing writer at the Nation and Hudson Valley magazines and the host of the history podcast, Think Back. Richard, thank you for being here to talk to me. And Ed.

[A]

Thank you, Cal. Thank you, Ed. Thanks for having me on.

[C]

Yeah, we're happy to have you. So, okay, you're the expert here. We've got movements like Calexit or Texit, which are attempts to make those states independently governed. There's also things like the Greater Idaho movement attempting to shift state boundaries. It seems like the idea of secession is almost, dare I say, like, in style again. Why is that, if that's correct?

[A]

Yeah, I think it is. I think it really has been in the last 20, 25 years, maybe since around 2000. With each election really starting with 2004, whichever side loses, threatens to secede. Or in liberals case, sometimes the expression is that they're going to move to Canada instead, which is kind of a different expression of the same impulse of just wanting out from the entire.

[C]

Just because we have passports. Right. And the other side doesn't.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. They've got the guns.

[B]

By the way, speaking of Canada, the Quebecois, that's been a huge Secession movement forever.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[B]

Just throwing that in the mix.

[A]

You mentioned Greater Idaho. You know, there's different kinds of movements. There's Calexit, which wants to actually take all of California and leave the United States. And then there's Greater Idaho, which wants to take some counties from eastern Oregon and add them to Idaho. Or downstate Illinois, wants to secede from Chicago and, you know, separate themselves. There's two different types of movements. You know, you mentioned there's 12 states that have secession movements. I'd be surprised if some of them had 12 people in them, you know, but there's other ones like New Hampshire, where this libertarian type of politics really defines the state and has for a long time. So there's movements of varying degrees of seriousness. But what's unmistakable is this growing trend in the last 20 to 25 years after each election, of the sore losers kind of falling back on this as a last resort.

[C]

And what are those proponents, the serious ones, not the ones that don't have very many people, but the serious ones? What do they hope to get out of seceding? I know it goes beyond the taxation that Rough and Ready was facing in 1850. And I'm also wondering for. Is it about states rights? Some of these states that you mentioned, the state governance is quite different between them, right?

[A]

Yeah, sure. Well, let's take California. That's a state that sends more money to the federal government than they get back in expenditures. And Gavin Newsom, the governor, in his recent clash with Trump in the spring actually threatened to withhold tax revenues from the state to the federal government, which would be the beginning of some kind of secessionist movement. And a lot of people there see that, that California only has two senators for their population of something like 40 million people, whereas Wyoming has the same two senators for a population of like 600,000 people, which is wildly disproportionate. So they see that they don't get enough sway as they should in the legislature.

[C]

I want to ask Ed this too, because I know he does work with a great group called Represent Us, which protects democracy. So do you think the polarization of recent years is influencing the desire to secede?

[B]

I definitely think so. It's also part of that sort of long held American ethos of individualism. And it still, I think, speaks to a kind of like, hunker down, protect mine, get my crew together mentality. Polarization really is rooted in a kind of fear and that all of this stuff is a kind of. Of fear of interdependency and collectivism and not all unjustified. I mean, there are some liabilities that come with a giant country that has a sort of more collective form of governance. But I think the polarization and this sort of need to secede are part of the same mentality.

[A]

Yeah, I completely agree. I think that this idea of seceding or individualism, not wanting to be a part of some kind of larger structure, is really baked into the American thing. From the beginning, at the very beginning of my book, I show how reluctant American colonists were to form a union in the first place. They wanted nothing to do with one another, and that's really all they had in common with each other was this desire for independence. And then we joined together to form a country, the very awkwardly named United States of America, which really spoke to more what they wanted to happen rather than what was actually already existing in 1776, because it was the only way that they could declare independence from Britain. So anytime that our politics gets really heated, as it is in this current moment, as it was, you know, before the Civil War, Americans are going to turn to this idea of independence. You know, the Declaration of Independence is a secessionist manifesto as the kind of remedy for any ills that they see in the country, especially when it's being governed by people who they see as their total political enemies.

[C]

I love manifesto. It makes it sound so charged. It was, it was, yeah, yeah, it was violent, too. Can you give us a two minute primer on something I'm curious about? The legalities surrounding secession from the country, namely the court case, Texas v. White, which was, I think, 1869, that deemed it unconstitutional. So what's the deal with that? And then what's the legality today?

[A]

Yeah, I'm maybe a bit of an outlier on people who study this question because I don't give a lot of weight to that court case, which was basically an attempt to kind of wrap up all the loose ends of the Civil War and be like, oh, by the way, it's not only that we beat you on the battlefield, but it's also unconstitutional. So it was a way to kind of accomplish judicially what they'd already done militarily. You know, it was what's called dicta in the legal profession. It's. It's something that the court wasn't actually being asked to comment on. They were just like, oh, yeah, by the way, also, secession is illegal.

[C]

I'm gonna put a dick to your face.

[B]

Say it again.

[C]

Nothing.

[A]

It's not clear to me that more than a century and a Half later. You know that that's going to carry much weight if Texas or California or both choose to get up and go.

[C]

I know I said I wanted to ask you about California again. So then, given that, I know that case doesn't hold a whole lot of weight for you, but how are these movements, the serious ones? Right. The ones that are getting on the ballot? Like in California, there's a ballot measure aimed for 2028. So what happens after that? Potentially, the ones that are taken a little more seriously. And I guess the second part of that question, too, for California, if I understand correctly, it's still the. The world's fifth largest economy. Right. If you remove that from the US So they could conceivably actually live on their own with their own fully functioning everything.

[A]

Yeah, possibly. It's not clear that they would still be the fifth largest economy if they were detached from everything that being part of the United States gives you, which at least to now has been fairly good things. What happens after that is kind of anybody's guess. A lot would depend on what, what the federal government chose to do. Republicans might have every reason to say, forget you, we'll never lose another presidential election without California's however many electoral college votes that's always in their power. I somehow don't see that. Trump seems to already be pretty interested in sending troops to California, and I think it would probably get a lot messier than the people who back those initiatives tend to suggest.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, the right always is very happy to take all this blue state tax money and pour it into red states, as you mentioned earlier. Right. Red states as a whole don't generate a whole lot for federal tax dollars, for federal programs.

[A]

Yeah. And they're also.

[C]

Is that fair to say?

[A]

That is fair to say, generally, yes. And they're also very happy to talk about secession themselves when Obama was in power or when Biden was in power. But as soon as it flips, secession is treason and Trump should crush him with all prejudice.

[C]

Ed, you live in California, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[C]

Has this actually come up, like, aside from the, oh, we're bummed about the election or the real horrors of what the president's doing with ice, especially in la.

[B]

Yeah. I think there's a lot of sort of seething contempt and resentment for the way that the federal government is kind of jumping into Los Angeles and pushing people around. And obviously these ICE raids, which, which were sold to us as a way to just get rid of criminals and is clearly not that. And it's been insanely Disruptive and created a lot of fear and confusion in so many communities. That has people sort of joking about, like, wouldn't God, shouldn't we just get out of here? I don't take any of it very seriously, but I think it's coming from a visceral place of frustration and a feeling that the federal government may not really have our back right now.

[A]

I mean, that's what Brexit was too, as well, you know, as well before Trump was. Everybody was like, there's no way this is gonna happen. And that itself was a secession referendum, which actually had teeth into it, you know, in it because it was binding, which none of these ones are. That's simply an expression of discontent. If California votes to leave, only then would, you know, would it really come to pass.

[C]

To me, the fact that this is happening on the left and the right at different times is a real symptom of a lack of trust in our institutions, especially our democratic institutions. Ed, I know you do a lot of work this space, but is there in the work that you do, or Richard, the research and the writing that you do, are there any metrics on how bad things have gotten or how volatile maybe is a better word, rather than just putting the good, bad binary in there?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's all kinds of statistics about political violence and distrust in institutions, and especially not just institutions, but in each other as citizens. It's, I think, as bad as it has been since the Civil War. It's striking to me what you say about it being both sides, because that reminds me of earlier periods in American history, like I mentioned in the colonial period when nobody wanted anything to do with one another and that's all they had in common. That's kind of the case now as well. You know, none of us are really quite certain what the purpose of this union is or what function it is serving. And I think a lot of people are frustrated, not only when they're out of power, but when they're in power. And it's so difficult to pass laws, you know, partly because of the filibuster, partly because of, you know, poor representation, we've become a little bit of an ungovernable country and that. And that's growing frustrating for both sides.

[B]

Yeah, and just on that metric question, I mean, there was a famous Princeton study that showed that public sentiment around a given cause or policy had a statistically non existent effect on whether or not that policy would become a law. And when that's the reality of how the government is functioning. Of course, it's incredibly alienating for so many people and there's so much frustration and I think a legitimate distrust in some institutions. Congress right now deserves a lot of scrutiny and a lot of distrust. Unfortunately, that's spilling over into the judiciary and things like the CDC and other things that I don't think deserve the same level of distrust. Scrutiny, sure, but that feels like a very toxic and spreading mindset right now.

[C]

Yeah, the politicization of what should be independent branches or agencies is very jarring. Before we go to the next section, I had a follow up for you, Richard, on the Greater Idaho movement, which you mentioned was more about changing borders rather than technically secession. I assume that's still quite, quite difficult and unlikely. Is that the case? Is it more feasible? And if those folks actually won, what does that winning mean and what's the mechanism in which it could occur?

[A]

Yeah, the Greater Idaho movement is advocating the transfer of some number of counties. I couldn't tell you exactly how many, something like 10 from eastern Oregon, which is the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, that really divide Oregon into a kind of lusher, bluer, more progressive western part and a more dry and much more conservative eastern part that's very rural and in fact a lot more like Idaho, which is right next door. And they would send them into Idaho. So Idaho would become bigger and Oregon would become smaller. And that would not really have much of any kind of effect on national politics. It wouldn't change the composition of the Senate very much. It wouldn't really change the Electoral College. Maybe one vote would switch, but the constitutional mechanism for it happening is a little bit easier than seceding from the United States. United States, which is super dubious and led to a massive civil war last time. In this case, it would need the assent of both Idaho, which has already granted it, I believe, or at least looked at it and I think is supportive, and Oregon, which is dominated by Democrats and is much less willing to lose something like one third of their territory. And then the United States Congress would also need to sign on. So it's pretty far fetched. It's unlikely, but it's not inconceivable that it could be part of some larger package that, that admits D.C. or Puerto Rico or something as a state in exchange for moving borders around in this way. And I think it fundamentally reflects the same kind of discontent with the way the lines have been drawn on the map and the way that things have worked for generations that Calexit and Texit also suggest.

[C]

Okay, so that's what was happening with secession right now. When we're back, let's talk about the future of this imperfect union.

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America. You mentioned this Richard, very eloquently. Much more than I could ever say is a nation born out of secession from Great Britain. So I get in my liberal nation reading blah blah blah, why some people might think that it's possible or even viably revolutionary to consider secession. What would you both tell those people? Ed, I'm curious also, given your democracy.

[B]

Work, read the Declaration of Independence, read the Constitution and remind yourself why this incredible experiment that is the United States is so special and that if we double down on what those documents say then we can be pretty great. I think what's happened is that a lot of our institutions have degraded over time. A lot of what represented us does is fight corruption. I would say don't give up on the United States. There's something really incredible and special here and we just need to fix some of what's broken.

[A]

To me, what the Declaration of Independence says is that when your government, when your system gets corrupted, when it starts getting degraded and your government begins attacking your rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have the right to alter or abolish that government and one way of doing that is secession. I think this should be an option of last resort, not first resort, which is what kind of differentiates me from the people who are for Calexit in 2025. I think we're absolutely not there yet.

[C]

Yet.

[A]

And I would say to those people, like, keep your powder dry. Keep this in mind. This is a truly classic kind of American story, as much as anything else is this idea of secession. It's not just the Confederates, it's not just racist slave owners and stuff who have had this idea. Abolitionists wanted the north to secede from the United States not only to protest slavery, but to actually undermine it because they thought that giving their tax dollars to a pro slavery government was perpetuating institutions. So we shouldn't be scared of the idea. I think it's as American as anything else. But I agree with Ed that I've got a lot of sentimental attachments. I like driving across the country. I don't want to have to show my passport to do that. I think there's a lot that this country has accomplished in the past and still can in the future. But I do think that there are worse things than a potential breakup of the country, which would be kind of all of us falling under some kind of fascist dictatorship. Better to maintain real liberty in at least one part of it or a few parts of it against the day that we can kind of take back control over the whole thing and return to the principles that we all grew up to admire in this country.

[B]

Well said.

[C]

Yeah, very well said. I share your cross country love like my partner's from rural Mississippi. And it still floors me that I need a passport to go to Toronto or London or any of these places that are culturally way more similar to the parts of the US that I've always lived in. And I don't need a passport to go to rural Mississippi, which culturally is completely different from anywhere I've ever lived. And I love that because it just shows you the incredible diversity, warmth, all of that that exists in one country, one large country where people don't necessarily see eye to eye. There's something really beautiful about that that I really enjoy.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I'm such a sentimentalist that I actually think that the more people from New York and Chicago and Boston do travel to Mississippi and vice versa, and we just kind of circulate around the country a little more and get to know not just each other better, which is a little cheesy, but like even each other's, like places like that might, that might do something to kind of bring us to the future.

[B]

Richard, you were describing Oregon as having like the coastal lush, liberal elite side and then the dry eastern portion. And I was wondering if there's, if that's just correlation or if maybe there's some humidity, causality to politically disposition.

[A]

I'm sure some historian of Oregon could tell you about how the economy has been shaped and the people and all of that. I will tell you that having done research on all this stuff in the 19th century, that there were ideas of splitting up Oregon. Even back then in the 1840s when Oregon was first getting settled by white immigrants, there was this idea of these are two completely different places. We should draw a line at the mountain ridge. So this idea of greater Idaho is only really returning to this older idea.

[B]

I don't know. Idaho has such a nice clean vertical line there.

[C]

It's nice there.

[B]

Yeah, it's like a beautiful little chimney.

[C]

What are the factors that could impact whether or not these secession movements continue to gain momentum throughout history? And I guess follow up question, that question is obviously historic, more sort of long term. But in the states that we talked about, are there any serious contenders in the next five, 10, 20 years?

[A]

I would say California and Texas seem like the most likely contenders. They're the biggest states by land, at least in the lower 48. I think they can make the most plausible case about going it alone. Even though, as I said before, I think both cases are kind of dubious. I've always said, honestly, I think the most likely way that this happens is not just on a clear blue day, California holds a vote to secede and then the federal government either lets them or not. I see it as happening in the context of some much larger national crisis where, you know, say the 2020 election never really got resolved and you have two people pretending to be president and then the country just cracks, you know, the Constitution just kind of falls apart. And in that context, states, you know, pick up the pieces and do different things. I think it's more likely than a Brexit style referendum that provokes a crisis. We're knitted together in so much more complicated and thorough ways than we were in 1850 or 18 in 1861 or something like that. Anybody who tells you that they know exactly how this would work out and that it would be great and that seniors would still get their Social Security checks or something, which is something that somebody, a secessionist from Texas told me on the Dr. Phil show last year. And I was just like, no.

[C]

Well, Richard, thank you so much for being here to help us learn about the modern day secession movement. Thanks guys and thanks to our listeners for checking out this joint episode of Here We Go Again and snafu. Ed, this was really fun. I'm glad we did it.

[B]

Likewise, I think we may have hatched something here.

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Let's continue to grow the hat. Are they called hatchlings? Sure.

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I think in in podcast lingo it's called a hatchling.

[C]

Yeah, the hatchlings. Well, great. Bye everyone. See you next week.

[B]

SNAFU is a production of iHeart podcasts and snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post production studio is gilded on. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbow, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, Whitney Donaldson and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by the Collected Works Legal review from Dan Welch, Megan Halson and and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman, Nikki Etor, Nathan Otoski and Alex Corral. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book SNAFU the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu. Thanks for listening and see you next week.

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