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Happy Tuesday! Today’s piece is on political division and the roles our governments, our media, and our own biases fan the flames of division. Because of this, I’m excited to again be partnering with 1440 Media, a great publication that can help you sift through the daily rage bait and engage with news that matters.

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We are exhausted, afraid, and divided

We’re a divided country. This is no secret. When we think about politics, we are almost always exhausted and angry, and almost never hopeful or excited:

There are a lot of theories about why this is, many involving a different word ending in -ism. Capitalism is using division to prevent class war! Socialism is driving discontent to cause the masses to revolt!

These are some of the dumber theories, but even the somewhat well thought out ones still fall flat. I want to talk about one of those theories today.

Conservatives don’t understand why we’re divided

To be clear, I don’t think progressives understand either. But while progressives often chalk the state of our country up to some useless abstraction like corporate greed or a failure of capitalism, I think the conservative view is much more specific and therefore much more persuasive.

But I think the conservative view is incorrect. Dan McLaughlin, Senior Writer at the conservative National Review, pretty clearly lays out the main argument I hear from other conservatives:

The argument, in essence, is that our government is more powerful and centralized in a few rooms in Washington D.C., making every single national election feel existentially important and therefore making it divisive.

And I get why it’s compelling. Americans like their State and local governments more than they like their federal government, so it stands to reason that shifting power from the former to the latter is generally unpopular.

But here’s the thing: everything Dan says above about the federal government can also be said about most State governments, and some can also be said about local governments. And still, they remain generally popular. They also tend to have far less contentious elections than those at the national level.

Let’s go through Dan’s arguments point by point to understand why this view doesn’t hold up.

Government power doesn’t explain the division

Your State and local government are far more involved in your daily life than the federal government reasonably ever could be. They set most of your tax rates, determine the cost of your housing, decide what areas around you are zoned for which use, control the vast majority of the roads on which you travel, determine where your water and power come from, and so much more.

The federal government may have the final say in a lot of areas of conflict, but the hands of State and local government are felt much more heavily than the federal government in your life.

So if the more “powerful” government between State/local and federal is more popular and has less contentious elections, I don’t think this can explain the increased divisiveness in our culture.

And neither does government centralization

State governments are also far more centralized than the federal government is. The federal government has hundreds and hundreds of field offices spread throughout the country, while the governments of many States are almost entirely located inside of their capital.

Additionally, the Tenth Amendment protects States from some federal overreach, while most State constitutions offer no similar protection for local governments. For example, my home State of Idaho regularly passes legislation that restricts the types of laws its constituent cities can pass. But the federal government, by and large, is unable to do the same to Idaho.

So that means the more “centralized” government is the more popular one. I still don’t think we have an explanatory difference here.

Bureaucracy sure doesn’t, either

State and local governments are often just as bureaucratic as the federal government is. They rely heavily on specialized staff to guide policymaking and administration. They often have their own departments of transportation, water, power, environmental quality, etc. that are staffed by numerous subject matter experts who wield significant decision making power.

If you don’t believe that the above is true, try building a house from scratch on your own. The various approvals, reviews, plan submissions, revisions, etc. will quickly convince you that if a government exists, it is bureaucratic.

Despite the similar levels of bureaucracy, State and local governments are still more popular and less divisive than the federal government.

So what is it?

It’s us.

We constantly talk about how exhausted we are by national politics, and how much more important State and local politics are:

But almost none of us spend the time to learn about our State or local governments. A few years ago, a study by Johns Hopkins found that:

• Nearly a third of respondents didn't know which state officials they voted for beyond governor, lieutenant governor, and members of the legislature.

• More than half didn't know if their state had a constitution

• About half couldn't say if their state had a one- or two-house legislature

• More than half didn't know who came up with the boundaries of legislative districts

• A quarter didn't know who ran elections

• More than half didn't know if their state allowed ballot initiatives

• About a third didn't know if absentee voting was an option

• More than half didn't know if their state ever held special elections

• About a quarter of respondents weren't sure if it was federal or state government that was mostly in charge of law enforcement

• Thirty percent didn't know who made zoning laws

We want to care about local politics, but national politics is fun

National politics is abstract and partisan enough that it’s easy for us to get a dopamine hit and think we’ve gotten involved. We can talk about how one candidate is an idiot or the other is evil based on some soundbites, and call it a day.

But at the local level, we have to do our research about detailed issues like our city’s planning & zoning approach, where our utilities come from, and various complex tactical issues that don’t give the same dopamine hit as dunking on someone halfway across the country who says something you disagree with.

And because of this, our media is incredibly polarized. This is not the result of some “corporate greed” or “media manipulation”—our media is a reflection of us. They publish what gets clicks from us.

It doesn’t generate much money to talk about the State government’s budget for the next fiscal year—it make much more to stoke fear about how one candidate for president is going to end the world as we know it.

We are not in traffic, we are traffic

It’s easy for us to feel like political division is something that is happening around us.

But it’s something we contribute to every day. Every time I dunk on someone with a bad opinion on Twitter, I unintentionally fan the flames just a little bit more. Every time your uncle says something unhinged about Democrats at Thanksgiving, he fans the flame just a little bit more.

We are dealing with division because we are a divided people. I don’t have an answer for how we become less divided, but I think that acknowledging this reality is the first step toward a solution.

Real politics—actual tangible stuff that makes our world better—is boring. It’s meetings at city hall about whether the development across the street should have four homes or six. It’s figuring out noise abatement for homes alongside major roads. It’s learning about strategies to store water or energy or build new transportation networks.

So ask yourself—am I enjoying politics too much? Because if you are, you may not be doing politics at all—just division.