Your Blue State Won’t Save You: Why State Politics Is National Politics

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

New York Times Opinion

New York Times, Journalism, News, Society & Culture, Ross Douthat

4.0 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, Kansans voted in overwhelming numbers to protect abortion rights in their State Constitution — the first instance since the overruling of Roe v. Wade in which voters have been able to weigh in on the issue directly. But local battles aren’t just limited to abortion. There’s guns. There’s school curriculums. Most crucially, there’s voting rights. As national politics becomes increasingly polarized and stalemates in Congress continue, how we live is going to be decided by local legislation. It’s time we step into the state houses and see what’s happening there. So on today’s episode, guests Zack Beauchamp and Nicole Hemmer help Jane Coaston understand what these state-level legislative battles mean for national politics. Beauchamp covers the Republican Party for Vox, and Hemmer is a historian of conservative media and an associate professor at Vanderbilt University. Both share the belief that state governments have become powerful machines in influencing the U.S. constitutional system, but to what extent that influence is helpful or harmful to American democracy depends. “This idea of the states as the laboratories of democracy, being able to try out different policies and different programs and see how they work in the state — that’s great,” Hemmer says. “But they’ve become these laboratories of illiberalism in recent years. And that’s something that we have to reckon with.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the argument. I'm Jane Kostin.
0:04.6	If there's anything I love more than one big political fight, it's 50 smaller ones.
0:13.4	Yes, this week we're talking about state legislatures.
0:17.5	Since the DOP's decision, people have been paying way more attention to state level politics.
0:22.4	Yay!
0:24.1	Indiana just approved a near-total abortion ban.
0:27.2	Meanwhile in Kansas, voters soundly rejected a constitutional amendment that would allow their
0:31.7	legislature to ban abortion. And it's not just abortion.
0:35.6	On everything from guns to voting rights, our biggest political disagreements are about to get
0:40.0	real local. For many people, it's been a long time since where they live in America has mattered
0:45.0	this much. Today, I want to understand what the battles playing out at the state level mean for
0:49.8	our national politics going forward. Especially in red states.
0:53.7	To help me think through it, I'm joined by Nikki Hammer, a historian of conservative media.
0:57.9	There has been a decades-long project to preserve Republican power at the state and local level,
1:04.4	and that is going to affect issues around abortion, but around a whole host of other rights and
1:10.6	policies as well. And my friend, Zach Beecham, who covers the right for Vox.
1:14.4	The ability for legislatures to get away with truly wild things, like not just radical legislation,
1:22.4	but also extreme levels of personal corruption. Cumulatively, they have a massive, massive,
1:28.0	massive impact on national politics.
1:35.1	Nikki, Zach, thank you so much for joining me once again.
1:38.2	Oh, thank you, James.
1:39.0	Yeah, thanks so much for having us.
	...

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