yeah, this is kind of my thought. this is a group that has probably in the ballpark of 200 active members spread across the whole state. the people in it are at the very least friendly to the idea of socialism - they apparently have some overlap with the PSL or Peace and Freedom Party already, and those people are starting a group in their org that is based on CA independence. From what I heard from party leadership, they are basically berniecrats or to his left who feel deeply upset about how the national dems are handling trump and are aware of the fact that decades of dem rule at the state level hasn't really gotten us any of their goals (universal healthcare, etc) and hasn't protected us from trump.

but yeah they do seem undereducated, for example their manifesto/party charter repeatedly calls california a "nation state" which is an understandable mistake given how those words are used in the US and that even gavin has used such terms to refer to CA but it does show that they haven't really read much political theory at all, much less leftist theory.

they are focusing on organizing at the local level now and i would bet that even a half dozen or fewer comrades could make a local chapter, even for one of CA's big cities, much redder and more politically aware than the statewide org.

i guess the main holdup that i have with it is that i think independence should be for the whole west or west coast and we shouldn't focus just on california. i'd bet that there are a lot of comrades in the PNW that would be receptive to a left-wing independence movement but for obvious reasons someone in seattle or portland might not want to join an org that is just centered on CA.