Your response assumes that without the federal government doing something, nobody will do it, but that misses the fact that we have 50 state governments and DC perfectly capable of regulating themselves.
Past that, local elections already matter more in one's day to day life than federal elections, and those votes will have even more value as the role of the states grow.
It doesn't assume that - it assumes that if it's bad when the federal government gets involved with something, it's equally bad when the state government gets involved.
For instance, this thread is about a state pursuing large tech companies on what can be described as free speech violations.
But I've never seen anyone argue that it's okay for a state government to ban free speech, but it's not okay for the federal government.
> it assumes that if it's bad when the federal government gets involved with something, it's equally bad when the state government gets involved
Which in my opinion is a broadly false assumption, and ignores the very point of a federal republic, which is federalism. People in different states have different cultures, different norms, different geographies, different natural resources, different pastimes, different porn habits, different cuisines, etc.
State legislatures are closer to their voting populace than federal legislatures, and thus, people's interests can be more directly reflected by voting more locally.
I agree that a state trampling on your rights is functionally no better than if a federal government does so, but you have more recourse against a state government doing so, more opportunities for remedy, and more ways in which to steer the ship right where those violations are regular.
But then you're need a person who believes in women's rights to believe they stop at some arbitrary line on a map -- because American states are more like American counties than European states -- and also that anyone who believes in pro life to believe that fetal rights stop at some arbitrary line on a map. To the extent that there is competition and variety in laws there are also pressures and powers to make them homogeneous again.
As for having better oversight of state governments compared to federal governments, I think the US, Canada and Australia (i.e. all the major English-speaking federations and therefore the extent of my knowledge) have had significant problems with corruption at a state level but not so significant problems with corruption at a federal level.
Federal systems have important roles especially when -- unlike in the US -- the state borders reproduce cultural or settlement boundaries. But empirically this role is not a protection of rights. If the federal government needs more members of congress to function right, you can't say "oh we've got state governments" -- you've just gotta increase the size of congress. (FWIW, some states like California also need to take this lesson.) And if you need to protect rights, the only place to do that is in the public sphere and the community mind. Every other option might be easier but they're also much more short sighted.
> But then you're need a person who believes in women's rights to believe they stop at some arbitrary line on a map
Not so. I'm not advocating the elimination of the federal government, nor am I advocating for a reduction in the role of the courts. The 14th amendment exists, incorporates the inalienable rights in the constitution against the states, and I believe that is just and true.
That said, yes, there are logical, rational disputes on what rights allow one to do or not do, and yes, those rights are treated differently within arbitrary geographical boundaries. This is true today. There are people in jail right now for marijuana possession because they got caught with it in the wrong state, but that pales in comparison to the number of people who were jailed for marijuana because its illegality was imposed upon them by federal decree. Similarly so with immigration, gun rights, and a variety of other topics.
The law isn't settled on every subject, and there are often reasonable interpretations by well-meaning people in either direction. Having the federal government set policy clearly doesn't solve for every edge case, and I maintain that if you are caught up in a "bad place" by an interpretation of rights that disfavors you, it's a lot easier to relocate from say, California to Arizona (or vice versa) than to have to abandon America because it disfavors your rights.
If, for example, states were allowed to implement current TSA procedures as they preferred, you would likely have states competing on rubrics of security, while others competed on efficiency, or perhaps traveler friendliness. Now, instead of alienating travelers from abroad from visiting America, perhaps they are only alienated from flying into certain states.
As for the corruption angle, again, I'm not proposing we abolish the federal government, merely reduce its workload so that it can function better as a watchdog over the states to prevent and squash corruption. Having better representation locally and federally is of course a good thing, and especially so as it better empowers the adversarial system to hone in on those things that we all do agree upon, and protect those rights from being infringed upon.
Lastly, I'm not suggesting that it's a silver bullet, and that any of my ideas "solve" America, but I do think they improve upon the checks and balances that we're used to having, and allow for more freedom within American borders than we currently have, and more insulation from the legal interpretations of presidents as they are elected, and I think that's a net good.
You have better representation. Federally, my Senator represents ~3 million constituents, while my House representative represents ~800k. At the state level, those numbers shrink from 3 million to 120,000, and from 800k to 40k.
If you live in a state that really believes in state representation, like New Hampshire or Vermont, then your representative likely only has 3 or 4 thousand constituents.
This means I can pop into their office and lodge complaints or show support in person, am more likely to talk to them in town halls, and I'm competing with fewer letters or phone calls for access. I've spoken in person to my state representatives many times on a variety of issues, but I've never gotten better than a (very much delayed) form letter from my federal representatives.
Past that, in many municipalities, your judges and DAs are often elected, meaning you have influence over the course and nature of their platforms. If you want to see criminal justice reform, less qualified immunity for police officers, etc., you have far more capacity for influence over state and local legislatures than you do at a federal level.
I suppose my counterpoint would come from the outsized effect "national level" money can have when it randomly falls on local elections (e.g. $50M on the GA-6 [1] for a special term that only ran until this year).
It seems like there's a certain "supported by people outside of our community" distaste to mega-funding, but I'm not going to kid myself and imagine it's irrelevant either.
I think I'd agree with you more if there were greater voter turnout.
But then, my ideal democracy is a minimal, voter-defense-esque test to register to vote + voting days as holidays + tax rebate for voting. Essentially, everything you could do to increase turnout of informed voters.
To be fair, the "national level" money would likely have to be split 50 ways anyway, as any national level events worth lobbying for would likely affect all the states, to varying degrees of reception.
Past that, voter engagement is a tricky thing. It's easy to know what things we want to vote for, but it's hard to know whether or not those things are economically feasible unless we're economists. Trump's tax cuts, for example, had experts saying that through economic growth would pay for itself, while other experts have said there's no way that's possible. Similarly so with Bernie Sanders' health care proposals. See the recent pension crisis affecting Detroit, and may still cause strife in municipalities all over. Employee pensions are exactly the sort of thing I might vote for, only to find out 30 years down the road that it literally destroyed my town's government.
It's harder and harder to be informed without being a multi-doctorate + JD, and we keep voting ourselves favors from the public largesse without knowing if they'll work or not. Tax too little, and infrastructure and services fall off. Tax too much, you experience capital flight, and infrastructure and services fall off.
The wisdom of the masses isn't always, or even usually wise.
Watching recent history, I have a sneaking suspicion these same issues are why democratic nation-building has been such a failure.
Expecting a country to transition from 0 to democracy in one generation is probably impossible. Especially when it becomes apparent that even elder democracies are mostly held together by the strength of their institutions in times of strain.
Democracy works if everyone is educated, but as you pointed out, encounters substantial issues when (a) the problems at hand are too complex to be understood or (b) the knowledgeable vote (on both+ sides) is drowned out by an easily-swayed vote (e.g. for passion-arousing issues like free trade or immigration).
If I were attempting to build a democracy, I'd instead attempt to compress ~1000 years of European history into ~100 years of gradual government transformation. But probably start with a monarchy...
There's a reason that governments created by the imperial English tend to last well after it's been divested as a colony. They put in a government that really, only the government needs to know the mechanics of.
Past that, local elections already matter more in one's day to day life than federal elections, and those votes will have even more value as the role of the states grow.