Stay-behind operations in Zohran's NYC

In the early days of EXIT, when one of the guys would take a W-2 job, he’d act a little sheepish about it, like it was Not Very EXIT Of Him.

But we would always insist that the purpose of the group is to build sovereignty; and if a corporate job offered the best path to sovereignty — through money, or training, or connections — then taking that job really was the EXIT thing to do. We’re not married to any set of tactics.

But in the long run, most of these guys recognized that the corporate world is a burning platform — the job is fake, the economy is fake, all of these institutions are becoming simultaneously more dysfunctional in general, and more hostile to guys like us in particular.

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So if you’re taking one of these jobs, you should be deliberate about it: be realistic about what you can extract, avoid investments that lock you in, and have a clear exit strategy with circuit-breakers that tell you when it’s time to leave.

Likewise: there are good reasons to stay in a blue jurisdiction.

There’s enormous money to be made, and powerful networking opportunities — great mentors and dynamic peers who can spur you to great things. There are still all sorts of high-flying creative and professional endeavors for which you really need to live in Seattle, San Francisco, New York, DC, or Los Angeles.

We have excellent guys in each of these cities — about 20% of our total membership — partly because they are still an immense draw for dynamic, talented people, but also because they provide a radicalizing front-row seat to what is coming for the rest of the country.

I wouldn’t tell these guys that the ambitions that keep them in those cities aren’t worth pursuing, or that the advantages of living there aren’t real — but I would hope that they are deliberate about it, and are planning in detail for what it will mean to live in these places as the national confrontation unfolds.

Zohran Mamdani is going to be Mayor of New York.

Jay Jones will be Virginia’s Attorney General. Voters in California approved Proposition 50, which allows Democrats to gerrymander away five Republican House seats.

Of course, these people are going to screw up their jurisdictions in all the ways that they have promised — taxes will go up, crime will get worse, tumors of NGO graft will sprawl and metastasize — but these election results are more significant as indicators of the metapolitical situation in Blue America.

Two-thirds of foreigners in New York supported Mamdani, while two-thirds of native-born Americans opposed him. He was elected on a platform of explicit hostility to Americans. He did not have to secure the consent of American taxpayers to capture the tax base of America’s wealthiest city.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Jay Jones fantasized about murdering a Virginia House rep’s young children. Democrats dutifully circled the wagons, and the Virginia voters have elected him Attorney General.

There is no appetite for conciliation or “tacking to center” in 2026 or 2028.

Some hoped that Democrats would be humbled by 2024 or “put the woke away” in order to regain power. That clearly isn’t happening.

Instead of attempting to brand themselves as “the adults in the room”, the Democratic Party appears to be replicating Trump’s playbook: dig in, never apologize, throw red meat to the base.

One-party state governments will continue consolidating power through gerrymandering, breaking down anti-majoritarian procedural barriers, and either tightening (in red states) or loosening (in blue states) voter registration/verification requirements. Blue states are going to get bluer, and red states are going to get redder.

The government shutdowns aren’t going to stop. The national fiscal decline will drive interest rates higher, ballooning deficits even further with heavier carrying costs. Expropriative taxation will continue to erode the tax base in blue jurisdictions, driving further expropriative taxation.

The rhetoric required to justify state expropriation and replacement migration is already triggering private violence — which will continue to be tolerated, and prosecutions subject to nullification by leftist judges, juries, and DAs.

How can our guys in blue cities prepare?

• Do your area study. Identify potential allies at your local GOP, school board, city council, police or sheriff’s department. Get to know the threat environment in concrete terms, names and faces: who would show up at your house if you were the victim of (or accused of) a crime? Who decides whether your house is up to code? Who teaches your kids, or your kids’ friends? Which of your neighbors are reliable? EXIT runs a biweekly Community and Civic Engagement call in which we train and take accountability for local intel-gathering, networking, and organizing.

• Assess your condition. A family living in suburban Connecticut will have different problems as things unfold than a single guy in Detroit or Portland. Determine your posture toward the local community: is it worth making social and financial investments? How extractive should you be, and on what time horizon?

• Know your circuit-breakers. For some, this might be restriction of home-schooling, altering parental consent laws for schools and hospitals, hate-speech/disinformation laws, weaponized licensing, or a likely 2028 Presidential loss (removing the backstop for state-level lawfare, replacement migration, etc.) Decide now what circumstances, if any, would trigger a decision to relocate to a friendly jurisdiction.

• Get together locally. Values-aligned friends can look out for each other, share intelligence, pool capital, and just keep each other sane. Everybody needs at least some regular contact in the real world with people who get it. EXIT holds monthly meetups in 10 major cities, including Seattle, DC, Denver, and NYC.

• Connect across jurisdictions. Friends in red jurisdictions (or overseas) can help you set up your backup plans, offshore assets, and build a professional and social network that is robust to whatever happens in your jurisdiction.

• Make your wealth hard to seize. Hold accounts at multiple banks in friendly jurisdictions. Operate and domicile your businesses from friendly jurisdictions. Use values-aligned payment processors and IT services where possible. Use multisig crypto wallets with seed phrases stored in friendly jurisdictions.

• Be prepared. If your plan involves living in a rapidly Brazilifying city, prepare for Brazilian conditions — brownouts, civil disorder, inadequate natural disaster response, etc. Maintain modest food and water storage, power supply, weather gear. Have short-term and long-term evacuation plans. Have “California-compliant” plans for your personal security. Make a communication plan with friendlies at your origin and destination.

Of course, these are all good ideas for red-state guys, too — but if you’re in a blue state, you’re taking a more aggressive short position, which means you have to think more carefully about your timing, and bounding your downside risk.

The people who thrive in the coming volatility will be those who are organized, connected, and prepared. Join us at exitgroup.us.

EXIT News

• Weekly Group Calls, Tuesdays at 9PM ET:

  • Last night (11/4), we discussed Family Traditions and strengthening family identity and culture, in advance of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. A powerful discussion of “clock control” — taking charge of your family’s time, and what it means.

  • Next week (11/11) we will hear from Nate Hochman on his work with Ron DeSantis, America 2100, and Eric Schmitt.

  • On 11/18, we will have a Q&A with Patri Friedman, founder of Pronomos, the world’s leading VC for charter cities and Special Economic Zones.

• Meetups (Members only) — Members can check their regional channel or contact DB for full details.

  • 11/7: Nashville. We will be joined by Isker and some OGC guys.

  • 11/8: Saint George, Utah. Oksoberfest with root beer and brats.

  • 11/8: Twin Cities. Going to a shooting range.

  • 11/8: Austin

  • 11/8: Washington, DC

  • 11/8: Columbus

  • 11/8: Portland meetup. I’ll be speaking at Scyldings’ Oregon Weaving event.

  • 11/14: Seattle

  • 11/15: Toronto. The boys are going hunting in rural Ontario.

  • 11/15: Houston. Going to a shooting range.

  • 11/17: Dallas.

• EXIT cocktail hours for New York City (11/14) and San Diego (11/15) below the paywall for Substack subscribers. EXIT cocktail hours are a great way to get to know your local EXIT guys and find out if full group membership is right for you.