Once upon a time, all politics was local. These days, it seems, all local politics is national. And as the states grow further and further apart on policy, and the Republican Party’s opposition to democratic institutions grows more extreme, the downsides of federalism become ever more apparent. On episode 53 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with Jacob Grumbach, the author of Laboratories Against Democracy, and Aaron Kleinman, the director of research at the States Project, about the ways our decentralized system threatens democracy, how the right and the left have responded to the increasing nationalization of politics, and what’s at stake in local elections during this year’s midterms.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices