Could California really go it alone?

Gavin Newsom isn’t the first governor to describe California as a nation-state but he has been the term’s most vociferous gubernatorial exponent.
What does it mean?
Newsom offered this explanation in a recent interview with The Atlantic magazine:
“Look, we’re the fifth largest economy in the world, 40 million strong, we’re as diverse a state as exists in this country, [with] 20-some percent of the state foreign-born.”
He continued: “This narrative of pun