The Clinton-Trump election, and aftermath, has taken all of the oxygen out of the room.  Yet there are some interesting things happening in the country, from the GOP rout of state legislatures to a move for California to secede.  

To be honest, I am not calling for California to leave.  However, there are some really good signs that the Golden State and the other 49 are literally two ships going in different directions.    

Let's look at election night:

1) Mr. Trump won with 290 Electoral votes with Michigan's 16 votes still up in the air. It will probably go to Mr. Trump, closing the books at 306-232.

2) In California, Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Trump by 2.5 million votes.      

Take California out of the picture, and Mr. Trump wins the popular vote, and this big "blue" mark is not on the map.

So beyond election the 2016 results, the Golden State and the other 49 have indeed been traveling in different directions for some time.  In other words, the 2010 and 2014 GOP landslides did not reach California, either.

The people who want California to secede make a good point:

Supporters of a plan for California to secede from the union took their first formal step Monday morning, submitting a proposed ballot measure to the state attorney general’s office in the hopes of a statewide vote as soon as 2018.

Marcus Ruiz Evans, the vice president and co-founder of Yes California, said his group had been planning to wait for a later election, but the presidential election of Donald Trump sped up the timeline.

“We’re doing it now because of all of the overwhelming attention,” Evans said.

The Yes California group has been around for more than two years, Evans said. It is based around California taxpayers paying more money to the federal government than the state receives in spending, that Californians are culturally different from the rest of the country, and that national media and organizations routinely criticize Californians for being out of step with the rest of the U.S. 

California is different, as anyone with a liberal friend in out there will attest.   

It is not the "Pleasant Valley Sunday" that The Monkees sang about years ago.  It is now a state that tolerates illegal immigration, defends sanctuary cities, has cities going bankrupt, faces serious finance issues over public-sector pensions, and leads the nation in people going east – i.e., the middle class who can't afford to live there anymore!     

Will California secede?  Probably not.   

Nevertheless, people in California should reflect on what they are doing that makes them so different.  I don't think we've ever had a state that so looks different from the Union as today's California.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.