Mainstream media is to blame for the rise of CalExit, not Russia
Mainstream media is to blame for the rise of CalExit, not Russia
CalExit opponents say Russia was behind CalExit, but it was the mainstream media that provided us with a platform assuming we would use it to attack President Trump following the 2016 elections
The California independence campaign under YesCalifornia, which became known around the world as CalExit, could basically be characterized as a two-man operation including myself and Marcus Ruiz Evans. At times when the bandwagon was rolling along, there were others involved out of sheer political opportunism, but few were ever involved to such an extent that would justify expanding that characterization. Our two-man effort—I hesitate to call it a campaign—succeeded because we were good at presenting a professional corporate image, had a website with all the bells and whistles of a bona fide political campaign, built a decent social media following and, perhaps most importantly, because we had a willing media before—but even more so after—Donald Trump was elected president.
That's an important point worth reiterating.
Critics say YesCalifornia was a Russian front organization doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin. They even go so far as to say there would be no California independence movement at all if it were not for Russia. In reality, our campaign took off because the mainstream media gave us a platform and they did so without exercising the necessary due diligence. Therefore, we owe the explosion of support behind CalExit in 2016-17 to the journalists who elevated our quirky secessionist campaign into the national news because it fit their narrative about President Trump, not to any foreign actors trying to sow discord in the United States.
After the 2016 presidential election, the mainstream media were willing to elevate just about any group that would jive with their anti-Trump “Not My President” narrative and that is what they expected out of a group based in California wanting to secede from the Union. Although we had a fairly large social media following, we had no donors, no endorsements, no offices, and no pool of grassroots activists upon which a bona fide campaign would have normally been built. It was just the two of us and, regardless of how divisive and harmful it would have been to the country had our secessionist effort taken off for real, we were given a platform with the expectation that we would use it to echo left-wing diatribes against the sitting president.
Had journalists exercised the necessary due diligence before shining the spotlight on us, they would have easily uncovered enough information to think twice.
That YesCalifornia was founded in 2014 while Barack Obama was president would have been a red flag that we were not your typical California liberals.
That the organization’s founders included me, a right-wing national-populist who had recently been a leading opponent of same-sex marriage, and Marcus Ruiz Evans, a conservative talk radio host who had recently been a registered Republican, would have further reinforced that idea.
That our organization’s official treasurer was another right-wing activist from the Central Valley who runs an alternative media show (upon which Marcus and I were frequent guests) and was a vocal opponent of Sacramento politicians would have have removed any lingering assumptions that we were progressives.
That our first public appearance ever was a speech we gave at an annual convention of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County, which we thoroughly documented on our social media, would have beat this dead horse.
That we had made several public statements in support of the Jefferson movement—the conservative, pro-Trump movement in northern California counties that wants to form the 51st state and name it Jefferson—would have just beat that dead horse even further.
The truth is we just happened to be in the right place at the right time and the media assumed we were singing the right tune. And as a result of our newfound media spotlight, everything changed. Suddenly we had more people signing up to volunteer than we could manage to contact, we opened an office from which I conducted interviews with the foreign press while I was living abroad, several left-leaning public figures expressed their support for CalExit, and we had donors, including lawyers, doctors, scientists, teachers, and even a then district director for Congressman Ro Khanna of California’s 17th Congressional District, who sent us $200. I’m not throwing anybody under the bus: I recently filed YesCalifornia’s campaign finance disclosures from 2016-17 with the California Secretary of State. All donations above $100 must, by law, be itemized, so that is a matter of public record.
Critics of YesCalifornia for years bemoaned the lack of transparency behind our sources of funding. Since we had never filed campaign finance reports, they insisted something nefarious was going on, namely, that we were being funded by Russia, the default boogeyman of the left. However, the ambiguity behind our funding was intentional. The first thing you learn studying political science is that politics is about perception. That is why we spent what little money we had creating a professional corporate image that made us appear bigger and better funded than we were in reality. If the public had known we managed to raise only about $60,000 in donations after all the hype and media attention we garnered, it would have hurt this image. Sixty thousand dollars is almost nothing in politics. Candidates running for office raise that much or more from a single e-mail.
Eventually the mainstream media turned on us because we were not following the “Not My President” script and YesCalifornia’s conservative Republican roots had become more widely known (Marcus and I never tried to hide our conservative backgrounds). Instead of attacking President Trump and praising democrats, we were criticizing politicians of both parties in Washington and Sacramento. Instead of echoing neoliberal talking points, we were standing by the principles of classical liberalism espoused by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence. The mainstream media had little use for us at that point and lumped us together with President Trump, who was under investigation for colluding with Russia in the presidential election. Likewise, discredited reporters like Rachel Maddow began spreading unsubstantiated rumors that Russia was supporting CalExit, too.
Nonetheless, we did raise $60,000 dollars in those months following the 2016 presidential election and that is how we funded our campaign. Mass email services like MailChimp are expensive monthly expenditures. Campaign website platforms like NationBuilder are expensive monthly expenditures. Custom-made campaign T-shirts and flags with our organization’s logo on them are expensive to have printed, yet these are some of the more costly things we were suddenly able to afford after the mainstream media gave us a platform. Some of the cheaper things we had made were brochures, flyers, and signs—all of which we had been printing on our own dime since before we started receiving donations. So, given that we had just raised that $60,000 in 2016-17 (likely more, I stepped down as president in April that year and don’t take any responsibility for donations received after that point), it was perplexing when, in their indictment of Alexander Ionov this past summer, the Department of Justice claimed Mr. Ionov directed and controlled YesCalifornia because he allegedly gave us $500 to print signs for a rally at the California State Capitol we held in February of 2018.
Here’s the simple reality: if Russia wanted to support CalExit (through Alexander Ionov or otherwise) they could have done so by helping us hire paid signature gatherers. Imagine the discord they could have sowed in American society had we managed to qualify our CalExit referendum for the ballot. Imagine the contentious, emotional and divisive political campaigns both for and against secession that would have dominated the airwaves and national public discourse for a year leading up to that historic vote. Imagine the example it would have set for the people of other states who suddenly saw it was possible to secede from the Union through referendum. Or, at the very least, imagine the lengthy legal battles that would have ensued as opponents of CalExit challenged whether or not such a vote was constitutional in the first place. It would have cost about $2 million for those signature gatherers, but that’s a drop in the bucket for an adversarial foreign government such as Russia.
Obviously, nobody in Russia provided us $2 million dollars for paid signature gatherers anymore than they provided our organization with $500 to print signs. In fact, when once we did receive a donation from what could potentially have been a Russian source, we returned it.
Here's the takeaway:
Opponents of CalExit want to lay the blame for the rise of our campaign on Russia but it was the mainstream media that gave us a platform in the first place. They did so without looking into who we were or what we believed. They did so willfully ignorant of the fact that ours was less of a genuine grassroots’ political organization and more of an army of two. They did so assuming we would follow their script and use the platform they provided to attack President Trump. When we did not, they portrayed us as Russian assets much in the same way they portrayed President Trump as a product of Russian interference in American politics.
bizarre definition of "success," my son!