The very never-Trumper Seth Mandel has a proposal that President Trump may want to implement.
From Commentary Magazine, June 11:
....Sure, the land was taken from the Spanish crown and sold legally to the United States, and therefore its identity as “Mexican land” is a bit of a stretch. We should respect each side’s own narrative and not deny anybody’s lived experience.
Which is why I’ve got an idea.
Does the U.S. really need all of California? Of course not. Think of all the problems that can be solved with that land. What we’ll again call Alto California—though only the part of the original Alto California that is within the current state’s borders—can be retroceded to Mexico. That way Southern California (or “Baja California”), the part of California that America seems to care about, can remain in the U.S. Would that make Mexico suddenly noncontiguous? Sure, but there’s no reason they can’t just build a tunnel connecting them.
It’s not just about appeasing Mexico. Three years ago, the native Tongva—that would be the tribe that Newsom has been directing his apologies to—got their own acre of land in Los Angeles County. But one acre? California can do better than that. The Greater Los Angeles area is an enormous place, and the Tongva surely have claim to a fair share of it.
But then again Malibu is a Chumash word, according to the state. Chumash is another tribe that doesn’t get as much attention as the Tongva, but that shouldn’t work against them. Meanwhile, Los Angeles carries a great deal of sentimental value for Mexicans as well, and it’d be a shame to force them to get a passport just to see it.
Now I know what you’re thinking: It’s getting pretty crowded here in this hypothetical Greater Los Angeles now. But that’s OK—sometimes justice is crowded.
And there’s an easy solution: Just make Los Angeles an international city! We’d put the greater metropolitan area of LA under a special international regime we could refer to as a Corpus Separatum. The area is home to many religions in addition to its national minorities, so all its holy places—Disneyland, the Staples Center, the Hollywood Bowl, that gas station shop on Pico Boulevard that carries kosher beef jerky—would be placed under a United Nations trusteeship.
And yes, of course Oakland will be demilitarized.
I know this all sounds like a lot, and obviously the devil is in the details, but if what California Democrats are saying about their own state is true, then simply having Donald Trump remove the National Guard from the site of conflict isn’t nearly enough. It doesn’t get at the root causes, you see. Peace isn’t the same thing as justice.
You might be thinking: This is all easy for you to say from thousands of miles away. And you’re right: It is easy for me to say this....
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