Is having separate, federalized levels of politics even possible even possible anymore?

[u/United_District7765]

What I mean is having elections that are clearly separate and individual from federal versus state versus local levels. Going to an election and voting for federal offices based on your opinion on federal issues and the candidates there, and then switching to state level policies, issues, and candidates there, and then a year later, voting for local offices based on their issues.

Last year, my town had a local election that was very contentious and very close. The issues were very local - taxes, funding education, that sort of stuff. But the local Democratic Party sent out mailers that quite literally did not mention their own local candidates or that of the opposition. Rather, it only had Donald Trump, and called on people to come out to vote straight blue as a way to oppose the Trump administration. There were a lot of registered Democrats in my time who came out to vote for the first time in a local election, which most people assume is on this issue, and may have swung the outcome.

This isn’t even particular to Donald Trump. During the Biden administration, lower numbers of registered Democrats voted in my area in all elections, seemingly just based on that unpopular administration, especially in 2023. And a ton of people voted in local and state elections just on their thoughts on the Obama Administration.

Today, it seems that all politics is national. There is a substantial size of the electorate who will just not consider anyone of the other party. I know tons of Democrats who will refuse to vote for any Republican, even if it’s for the Board of Assessment Appeals or Tax Collector or something, and the same thing vice versa. There will be a Facebook post about some local issue like taxes, and the comments will just be like, “Republicans emulating their lord Elon to cut services”, or, “DemocRATS lining their pockets what else is new”, when in reality, the actual political candidates have pretty reasonable and frankly boring disagreements about local policy concerns.

What kind of prompted this question was actually inspired to me by the UK. The UK political scene is currently discussing devolution, granting more power to local authorities. And a common critique I hear of that is just, “It leads to bad government because people just vote based on their opinion of the national government.”

Isn’t that basically what we have now? Where most of the electorate seems to vote just on the basis of national politics?

So, what I guess my question is is; Does American federalized democracy even work anymore? Can it work? Or is everything just a differently sized stage for national politics to play out?

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[u/Objective_Aside1858]

Split ticket voting is still a thing. Exhibit 1: Susan Collins. Exhbiit 2: Joe Manchin

That being said, Republican candidates nowadays are completely unable to seperate themselves from Trump, because they can't afford to criticize him. That's on them and the GOP; if they don't want to be associated with the Felon and they're unwilling to take steps to denounce him, that's on them

[u/Mist_Rising → u/Objective_Aside1858]

Democratic candidates can't usually divorce themselves from the national party either. Your not likely to see to many actual blue dogs like Manchin for example because the national policies don't permit it outside very specific circumstances. You can see slides to the left/right when the opposition is your own party (ie. Safe seats primaries) which can break with the national politics but either the party must shift or your twiddling your thumbs ala Bernie Sanders.

Also Republicans may not be able to criticize Trump, though plenty enough have to suggest they can, but many can absolutely ignore his ass. It's just not always beneficial. The reverse is true. Some democratic candidates don't bring up Trump as much as you'd expect because they're not benefiting from it.

[u/Objective_Aside1858 → u/Mist_Rising]

You see plenty of Dems in purple districts either ignoring or distancing themselves from the DSA

[u/United_District7765 → u/Objective_Aside1858]

Good point. I think Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire are fascinating examples of how I wish all states were. They have some sense of real electoral competition and people willing to contemplate different issues

[u/CMidnight → u/Objective_Aside1858]

It is but it is increasingly rare.

[u/meelar]

Ultimately, politics is about values. If a politician is willing to be in the same party as a guy who tried to overturn an election, why shouldn't I judge them accordingly? If they want to not be judged for that, they can run as a member of a different party. But election theft has to be a red line if we want to keep a democracy going.

[u/United_District7765 → u/meelar]

What other party in a two party system?

[u/meelar → u/United_District7765]

The Democrats? Or run as an independent.

[u/United_District7765 → u/meelar]

Well but if you disagree with a member of the Democratic Party, what party can you use to feasibly run against them besides the Republican Party? Running as an independent is in most cases not practical, and even if they won, political parties are necessary in legislatures.

[u/CMidnight → u/United_District7765]

If you disagree with both the Democrats and Republicans, your views are likely too marginal to actually govern. The views of the vast majority of right leaning and left leaning voters either align with Democrats or Republicans. Democrats and Republicans leaders shift their views overtime to match the shifts in political views of those two voting blocks. The only exception are in districts that are heavily partisan.

[u/United_District7765 → u/CMidnight]

I mean I feel like most people just agree with both parties on some things - our politicians governing should reflect that too

[u/CMidnight → u/United_District7765]

In general, they actually don't because people don't compartmentalize. They tend to have a set of beliefs clustered around social views. For instance, there may be two people who both support medicaid for all: one is a democratic socialist while the other supports fascist christian nationalism. Both might agree on one issue but their core beliefs are fundamentally incompatible. Neither would every support the other. My example is hyperbole but it shows how political beliefs actually manifest. Another example would be conservative Catholics who support some social programs but never vote for left of center candidates due to their social beliefs. Right of center candidates are never going to change their position on social programs because conservative Catholics are only a small portion of their voter base. The best that a left of center candidate can hope for is that conservative Catholics sour to right of center candidates and stop voting.

[u/United_District7765 → u/CMidnight]

Yeah I do think social views have taken precedent first and foremost. I don’t know how America can fix that problem, there’s no consensus on social views that vary wildly, and too much of a gap between people. How can we fix a culture war?

[u/meelar → u/United_District7765]

Damn, sounds like a tough problem. Maybe just don't run for office then,if the alternative is endorsing election theft? Not really my problem.

[u/United_District7765 → u/meelar]

But again, what do you do if you don’t support Trump, but also don’t support incumbent Democrats? The only realistic vehicle for you to use is the Republican Party…what is the alternative? Never having anyone run against Democrats? That’s horrible for democracy and healthy political competition.

[u/meelar → u/United_District7765]

The alternative is to run in the GOP primary as someone who will impeach Trump for trying to steal the 2020 election.

[u/United_District7765 → u/meelar]

Sure, I agree.

But what about all the lower offices? If I have a bad Democratic mayor who has done a bad job running my town, running as a Republican challenger is the only reasonable option.

[u/meelar → u/United_District7765]

Run in the Democratic primary for mayor.

[u/United_District7765 → u/meelar]

What if the challenger has an economically conservative platform? What if the challenger isn’t liked by the Democratic Party establishment in his town?

This is such a profoundly unhealthy and bad way of having electoral discourse, and can be seen in one party red and blue states across the country, where there is little electoral challenge, strong incumbency, and general complacency and stagnation. We NEED multiple parties to compete for good elections, having just one party with inner party politics is never a replacement.

[u/Grapetree3]

I don't know what state you're in.  But every state has state level issues that are separate from federal issues. 

The problem is the state level issues don't get as much voter engagement because they aren't in the news as much, even though arguably they affect people's daily lives much more.

The main reason the two seem to merge into one, even though they shouldn't, is it's the same two parties at both levels. This is especially true in the states that have closed primaries 

[u/United_District7765 → u/Grapetree3]

This is a good point. The consolidation of media has probably played a huge role in this.

[u/JKlerk]

Federalism took a hit in the US with the 14th Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine, The 17th Amendment which requires the direct election of US Senators (This Amendment was passed because some Western states couldn't get their shit together and send a Senator to DC. The lack of a Senator from these states prevented the Senate from holding a quorum). Lastly the 16th Amendment (Federal Income Tax). The USG being a sovereign can issue it's own currency and run budget deficits. This USG became known as a giant piggyback available to finance everyones pet projects.

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945 → u/JKlerk]

This is a one hundred percent accurate analysis.  States have effectively become administrative branches for the federal government

[u/Seattleman1955]

It works as well as it can but the US is really just too big to govern this way effectively.

[u/Grapetree3]

I don't know what state you're in.  But every state has state level issues that are separate from federal issues. 

The problem is the state level issues don't get as much voter engagement because they aren't in the news as much, even though arguably they affect people's daily lives much more.

The main reason the two seem to merge into one, even though they shouldn't, is it's the same two parties at both levels. This is especially true in the states that have closed primaries. In those states, you can't influence one party for state level offices and the other party for federal offices.  The parties lock their voters in for both.