I think any plan that neglects ratcheting down high-stakes issues to more local levels is fighting against strong headwinds.

In other words, we can avoid winner-take-all dysfunction by allowing more diversity in governance. If we make every issue national, it makes it too important who runs the national government.

Within reason, we should find ways to let California be California and Alabama be Alabama. Alabama and California shouldn't have to struggle against one another as much as they do.

The only way that I could see that working is if we allowed states to impose tariffs embargoes and on each other. There would need to be some way for states to protect themselves from other states' negative externalities or a race to the bottom.

When there is an externality, of course the federal government can get involved. But does the majority of federal regulation really happen in domains where there would be inevitable externalities without it?

I don't think that the majority of federal regulation necessarily does, but I think that the majority of Americas current problems do.

For example climate change, immigration, poverty, healthcare, and gun control.

The fundamental flaw is that a lot of things can only be accomplished at the Federal level. 50 plans for global climate change not only doesn't make sense, it would result in direct violation of the interstate clause.

Climate change is just one thing, though. National defense and military activity may be another.

But do you really think it is not the case that most forms of regulation and resource distribution cannot be administered effectively, with some creativity, at the state level? I don't see any reason that 70% of issues can't become local or state issues. (Ignoring the lack of a political will to make that happen, I mean.)

Do you think you could name some of these topics you're thinking of? 70% seems like a substantial overestimate. As a back-of-the-envelope estimate, using budget as a proxy for "regulation and resource distribution", ~70% of government spending went to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense. You've called out national defense as something that should remain at the Federal level. Social Security spending consists literally of distributing money to individuals. Medicare and Medicaid in a roundabout way are essentially the same, and America's poor and elderly are certainly not uniformly distributed among the states. This leaves only a maximum of 30% of resource allocation that could even potentially be pushed back to the states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...

Abortion. Education. Controlled substances. Publicly funded media. Certain categories of environmental policy (polluted soil crosses state lines less than polluted air). Various subsidies for special interests. Labor issues like parental leave requirements. Housing issues.

Yes. Some of those are somewhat state issues now, but I'm talking about divisiveness in culture and discussion. People in political discussions should be OK with saying, "That's an important issue, but best solved at the state or local level."

Social safety nets is an interesting counterexample, but it seems like a hybrid approach should be doable in many cases, especially when it comes to funding externalities like retirees moving disproportionately to certain states.

Abortion is very tricky to push back to the states, because some states want to criminally prosecute the doctors and sometimes even the patients involved. Accepting a patient from a different state could lead to a doctor having committed a crime in that state and having in future to avoid traveling to that state or to any state that would extradite the doctor to that state. This would be a mess.

Education is already largely controlled below even the state level, by local school boards. The Federal government hands out a lot of money for the purpose, largely to even out the quality of education between wealthy and poor areas of the country, but it’s pretty hands-off.

Controlled substances is another place where criminal law differing state to state creates a legal mess. The more the law differs, the greater the mess. Delivery of drugs from states where they are legal to states where they are not has not yet blown up into a huge issue because the Federal government regulated interstate commerce and still considers the substances illegal. If the Federal government takes a hands-off approach and Amazon starts selling cocaine it’ll get messy fast. This sort of mess already exists due to patchwork laws about firearms, but in that case the problem is substantially mitigated by (a) the Federal department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and a constitutional right to at least have firearms in every state, even if the nuances differ.

Publicly funded media seems like a niche topic? Voice of America is a State Department effort aimed at influencing foreign policy. NPR gets most of its funding from donations. I can’t think of any other examples.

I could see certain classes of environmental issues being pushed back to the states, but it would be tricky and probably a mess. Polluted soil is likely to become an issue for other states if it’s in the drainage basin of the Mississippi, less so if it’s out on a salt flat somewhere in the desert west.

Labor issues, housing issues, and subsidies are already things that states have a lot of involvement in or control over. Housing activities by the Federal government mostly consist of welfare spending like subsidizing housing for the poor and underwriting mortgages for homebuyers. Another issue where the Federal government gets involved mostly for the purpose of shuffling money around between rich states and poor states.

You keep hand waving about messes. The current political climate seems to be heading toward more than just a mess.

If there were consensus about some issues not being national issues, your points about currently local issues would be stronger. But the fact is that it's still a minority, if not niche, view that all these issues should stay local indefinitely. I suspect the gridlock is protecting federalism more than principle or even court rulings are.

What do you think is being administered at the Federal Level that isn't 1) really just a way to distribute money to the states and 2) should be administered strictly by the states themselves that won't violate the interstate clause?

But we're not even trying. Why is the minimum age for consumption of tobacco and alcohol a national issue? Why does the national government need to get involved in housing policy at any level of detail?

Compulsory national service to prevent people from living their entire lives within the bubbles into which they were born. Compulsory service erases geographic distance along with racial and class divides.

1. Separate opinion journalism from reporting journalism.

Opinion journalism can be w/e. Reporting journalism has to be fact checked. Masquerading as reporting journalism should be a big bad. You gotta disclose opinion journalism up front, like you gotta put a Surgeon General's warning on cigarettes.

2. Mandate non-partisan districting boards and do away with "safe" districts.

This would lose majority-minority districts, which are responsible for a big proportion of our Reps of color. But safe districts skyrocket partisanship; politicians in safe districts can wander super far from the mainstream--think Steve King for example. And actually they oftentimes have to become radical in order to survive primaries. There's only so much you can do here with the current system but, a little would help a lot.

3. Empower state and local governments by repealing balanced budget amendments and term limits.

State governments have really hamstrung themselves with these policies, and as a result the federal government has to do a lot. This creates a perception--right or wrong--that a far away government is telling you how to live your life. If the federal government has secured rights for all and managed federal concerns, it should be reasonable for say, Oregon to have one set of gun regulations and Illinois to have another.

4. Make voting compulsory, make Election Day a holiday, expand early voting, establish same day registration everywhere.

The majority of Senators (and in midterms, the majority of Reps) are elected by a minority of people who are much more partisan than the mean. This pushes politicians out of the mainstream.

5. Federally finance elections, shorten the length, and amend the Constitution to obviate Citizens United.

Campaigns and their ads are super polarizing. Special interests run messaging campaigns on wedge issues (abortion, immigration, gun rights) in order to pass bills like SOPA or subsidies for fossil fuel energy companies in the night. Campaign finance reform disarms all this.

6. Limit the terms of Supreme Court Justices to 18 years and enact jurisdiction stripping.

The stakes of Supreme Court nominations are so high that it drives us all crazy. We should limit their terms so that 2-term presidents get to nominate 2 Justices, and we should limit the power of the Supreme Court on the basis that it's a deeply undemocratic and unaccountable institution. Pro-lifers feel this every day, as do progressives. We all agree it's bad; let's change it.

7. Enact affirmative action for mortgage companies, fund housing assistance, and reform public schools.

The US has a huge de facto segregation issue due to generations of discriminatory practices by mortgage companies, and the sky high cost of housing in neighborhoods with good schools. This creates fertile ground for bubbles and othering, not just in adults but also in children.

8. Re-establish affirmative action for colleges, and make it free.

The partisanship gap in the US now largely traces the education and income gap.

9. Establish clear boundaries on religious freedom.

Religious freedom is a fundamental part of the fabric of the United States, but so are personal liberty and individual rights. We need to give people the ability to live out their beliefs, but also establish a pluralistic society free of discrimination towards _and from_ the religious. Fighting a culture via religious freedom debases us all.

> 2. Mandate non-partisan districting boards and do away with "safe" districts.

This is critical, and if it can be done (and then move US presidential electors to be 1 per district) and you make things very, very different and the American people can decide what they want from there.

I don’t think this can be done without altering social media algorithms to revert back from the “engagement-maximizing” firehose of vituperative extremist polarizing political sludge they pump into everyone’s feed these days.

This was happening long before social media became a thing. As i keep saying, the best thing to do would be to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine.

The thing is, any reasonable, evidence based discussion is going to end up concluding that the 90% of GOP talking points are lies, so right leaning people would claim the show is left biased.