Normally, when you hear a soundbite incorporating the words “California” and “secession,” your mind immediately jumps to the idea of California liberals seceding from the U.S., right?

Well, if that’s the case, a news story about a theoretical California secession (of sorts) that gained traction on Tuesday will defy your expectations. This time, it’s conservatives who are hoping to change the map.

The founders of the state of New California are attempting to set a plan into motion that will divide current California into two parts: “California” as we know it would be made up of the Bay Area (and Sacramento), the LA area, and a strip of coast in between them, while “New California” (which would become the 51st state of the union) would be made up of everything else. Here’s what a picture of that would look like:

The movement has its own declaration of independence, and according to USAToday, the resulting division of land into two distinct states could technically happen; that is, it could come about in the same way West Virginia was formed. That being said, the venture is just beginning… and, unsurprisingly, many people don’t seem to be taking it seriously:

Every proposition to split up California, including "New California," is completely idiotic.

— Thor Benson (@thor_benson) January 17, 2018

God this #NewCalifornia thing is dumb. Earth to MAGA Morons, if your "New California" includes San Jose, Sonoma, Eureka, San Diego, and Tahoe, then it will be a Blue State. pic.twitter.com/CLVvpzOC7o

— Ƿillelm Hroðgars (@WiIIiamJBryan) January 17, 2018

New California, your problem isn't that your state government doesn't represent its people. Your problem is that the majority of the people in your state don't agree with you. So your answer is to run away.

— Steve Hofstetter (Bakersfield & Fresno Jan 23-24) (@SteveHofstetter) January 17, 2018

Me packing the bags of every Trump supporter that wants to move to “New California.” pic.twitter.com/5dVG9pDH84

— Simar (@sahluwal) January 17, 2018

Knock, Knock

Who’s there?

Russian Bots

Russian Bots who?

Russian Bots pushing New California

(Don’t fall for it)

— Ryan Knight #BanAssaultWeapons (@ProudResister) January 17, 2018

New California is the mental side effects of eating Tide Pods.

— Kat Papa Johns (@KatPapaJohns) January 17, 2018

Many sane Californian conservatives who live outside the cities are tired of facing one bad state-level policy after another.

One of the leaders of the New California movement, Robert Paul Preston, says that California has “been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we’re rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California.”

He’s not wrong. Anyone who watches the news can see that state-level government in California is painfully, toxically liberal. They charge you 10 cents a bag at the store if you don’t bring your own. I wish I was kidding. That’s just one insane statewide law. And city-level government in the big urban areas is even worse.

Let me tell you something about what it’s like to live in San Francisco. I am crazy about my city. There are some of the most gorgeous urban sights you’ll ever see here. San Fran has incredible restaurants and businesses and the like. But with San Francisco’s amazingness comes a host of bad things that are the direct result of poor local governmental leadership.

The worst thing by far is the unimaginable homelessness, drug use, and mental illness on the streets. There are heroin needles in the gutters. People do hard drugs out in the open. There’s poop maps because people literally use the street as a toilet. All of this can be chalked up to the fact that the city doesn’t care (or know how) to solve problems involving the homeless, mentally ill, and addicted. California, especially San Francisco, has quite the reputation in that regard:

https://twitter.com/al_practic/status/953538245396021248

Additionally, the attitude among residents is that police response time to 911 calls involving threats of homeless-related violence or drug-related violence (or violence in general) is not good… and that’s assuming the police are able to respond at all. I’ve heard stories where the police weren’t able to respond and the person being attacked just had to deal with it, which sucks considering the prohibitively restrictive gun laws in our state. I’ve seen teens rob a Safeway grocery store en masse and there was nothing the guards could do in terms of apprehending them because there were too many of them. That kind of stuff happens other places too, like on the BART. The city doesn’t seem interested in making a big deal about group crime.

Thanks to taxes and regulations, everything is more expensive in San Francisco. My husband and I spent two weeks over Christmas with my parents in the southeast, and we marveled the whole time at how most things were half as expensive there as in San Francisco.

And another thing that sucks about city government in San Francisco: no Chickfila… by choice. The late mayor Ed Lee essentially said that franchises weren’t welcome in the city because of the Cathy’s traditional view of marriage. I know it sounds like a stupid problem for me to have with the city, but I’m nuts about Chickfila. I had access to Chickfila almost my whole life because I grew up in the deep south. Then I moved to San Francisco two years ago and now my closest Chickfila is forty minutes away by train because my city is too liberal to abide it. It’s horrible. And yes, I’ve made the forty minute trip just to get Chickfila.

I don’t blame the organizers of the New California movement for wanting to get away from liberal state and local laws that create misery for Californians. If they can deliver the rural parts of my beloved state from the ill-advised laws and policies dreamed up by liberals, so be it.

But I think we all know the dream of a New California is far away from being actualized. Granted, it would be much better if conservatives could just find ways to make inroads in California politics, but that seems like such a far-fetched hypothetical that it makes the prospect of a New California look downright likely by comparison.