Do you ever have the opportunity to have conversations on these subjects with the students you are tutoring? That is the beginning of being effective. Best to start with getting across the scope of the problem. Once they have grasped that, prospects such as the disintegration of the USA become frightening, or perhaps hopeful, possibilities instead of crazy ideas. But before you want to see California as a successor state consider that it is currently one of the top five basket cases.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."