On top of that, people don't realize how little the federal government (Presidential Election) affects them, nor how much their local elections affect them. Our local elections here get 4,000 votes per candidate. In a city of 120,000 people that's pretty much shit. Your local and state elections impact your lives substantially more than anything at the federal level.
Whether or not your city closes/opens drug/alcohol treatment centers or homeless shelters will affect your life much more than Trump boasting about how he's going to build a wall.
Indeed, plus it's in our best interests to get involved in local govt. because our voices are much easier to hear at that level. At the federal level, your vote is competing against 300 million other citizens (assuming they all vote, which isn't the case). If you're considering a town of 30k, voicing your opinions and making meaningful change is much more realistic.
Heck, the town supervisor from my hometown lived on the street right behind us. Growing up, it would be possible to hop across the fence in the backyard and be in his yard. Talk about access to your representatives.
Too much emphasis is being placed on the federal govt., which I believe is a terrible trend for all of us Americans. Trump made a huge wave of anger after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, but there is nothing stopping my home state from making their own ad-hoc agreement (of course, states do not have authority to engage in international diplomacy, but I'm speaking about the principle of, say, NYS committing itself to a zero-carbon emission pledge within XX years, and setting goals for all the towns and cities to help contribute).
Federal doesn't matter, until it does. It's decisive, for example, for war and peace. Those tend to have rather large effects on people.
Even without considering the lives lost, both American and foreign: The Afghan & Irak war have cost $5 trillion over the years. That's $60,000 for every US family of four that could have been put to other uses if those wars had been limited to a fast and cheap campaign against the Taliban government.
USA military doesn't do fast and cheap. The whole point of the operation was to funnel trillions of dollars to armaments manufacturers and their sockpuppets in media and politics. If Afghanistan/Iraq hadn't had that potential, they would have agitated for War in some other unfortunate locales.
Whether or not your city closes/opens drug/alcohol treatment centers or homeless shelters will affect your life much more than Trump boasting about how he's going to build a wall.