I think we need to encourage the California secession movement. If they decide to go, we can either make it amicable: they get a share of the Federal national debt, half divided on the basis of population half divided on the basis of GDP, give us perpetual leases on some naval bases, and let counties adjacent to other states hold binding plebiscites on whether to join the neighboring state and stay in the union or leave with California, a free trade agreement, fix the California dollar (or peso or whatever they decide to call it) to the US dollar for a period of five years before allowing it to float,... Or, we could treat them like Confederacy: reconquer them, then apply radical reconstruction to the seceded territories. Either way would make an improvement to the American body politic.