CALABASAS, Calif. — Xavier Mitchell’s hilltop mansion is, in almost every respect, a portrait of luxury.
The palatial three-story home sits atop a long driveway in a gated community 22 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Glass doors in the kitchen and living room open to a high balcony with views of the San Fernando Valley. Downstairs, an enormous home theater covered in red-velvet carpeting is adorned with movie posters bearing Mitchell’s name. His neighbor, he says, is David Hasselhoff. Just around the corner, he says, live the Kardashians.
It is from this opulent estate that Mitchell, a 53-year-old Southern California native who calls himself “Sir Dr. Xavier X. Mitchell, PhD.” — more on that later — says he intends to run a campaign that could lead to his home state’s secession from the United States.
Mitchell is the new CEO of Calexit, a California-based secessionist group that — as much as you can say of any fringe organization — is facing a genuine window of opportunity. This largely Democratic state has never been more at odds with the federal government in Washington. In June, Trump sent the country’s military into the state’s largest city to quell a local protest. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has promised her agency will “liberate” Los Angeles “from the socialists and the burdensome leadership.” Gov. Gavin Newsom and his attorney general Rob Bonta have filed a series of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s actions in an effort to punch back. Meanwhile, the state’s voters, well aware that they live in the largest economy in the country, and one of the largest in the world, are unhappily trapped in opposition to the electoral majority of the United States…