The Repatriate by Louis Marinelli


About Me

In 2014 I launched the modern-day California secessionist movement known around the world as CalExit. It was a political organization I founded under the Obama Administration during the height of the Tea Party movement which was rooted in the type of classical liberalism championed by our Founding Fathers. Some may reject secession as unpatriotic, or even an act of treason, but who were the Founding Fathers if not America’s first secessionists?

To pursue my campaign, I partnered with others who were at the time advocating for similar, yet somewhat different solutions to the dysfunctional, broken, and overreaching federal government. In this course of this work, I authored several citizen’s ballot initiatives, founded a political organization called Yes California as well as a political party called the California National Party.

In 2016, the political establishment was positioning to make Hillary Clinton president, something they had been carefully orchestrating since her time as First Lady. Given the seemingly inevitable outcome of the presidential election that year, I decided to move abroad to take a break from politics and pursue personal and professional goals instead.

In doing so, I left the reins of my political campaign in the hands of others. In the years following, I fought against the new leadership on a host of issues, as the campaign I founded on the philosophy of classical liberalism had evolved into a leftist campaign of identity politics, a political philosophy I abhor.

In 2021, I returned to my post as the president of the CalExit campaign. I then made two important decisions. First, to end the CalExit campaign as it was known, as it no longer represented my core values as a nationalist and a populist. The second decision I made was to leave the lunacy of California politics and relocate to a red state. That makes the right-wing national populist who founded CalExit and later Calexit-ed himself out of California.

Now what?

My family and I left Russia somewhat abruptly in the immediate lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I say abruptly because we had just purchased a plot of land in the suburbs of Moscow where we broke ground building a home. A few months later, we were on a plane leaving Russia.

For the next year and a half while we waited for my Russian wife’s immigrant visa, we traveled around the world visiting Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and finally Uruguay, where we finally had our immigrant visa interview at the US Embassy in Montevideo. During that time, I experienced many new cultures and had the opportunity to visit some amazing places, including the Pyramids, Petra, Hagia Sofia, Chichen Itza, and Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro.

Now I hope to occasionally be able to share my political, professional, and personal experiences through this platform.

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To be honest, I'm not incredibly active on social media. However, when I have something to say, and it's a quick thought, I usually post it to Twitter. So, consider following me there.

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Written by Louis Marinelli, the conservative political activist and founder of the CalExit campaign who moved to Russia, this Substack provides some insight into the CalExit campaign and my experiences living in Russia.

People

The conservative activist who founded the #CalExit movement. Former American expat in Russia. Ex-Californian. BA, Political Science.