Is It Just Impossible to Diffuse National Conflict?

There's a central argument for institutional decentralization is that nationally conflictual issues should be dealt with at the state and local level. But now you see like state governments and localities have been the main policy makers in terms of COVID responses, mass mandates,. Education is completely state and local. Do you think that a shift towards kind of the economic nexus would in some way allow people to focus more on local issues? Or does it require a crisis of democratic backsliding?