Interviewed by Ezra Klein, the political consultant Morris Katz notes one major factor making it difficult for genuinely grass-roots political candidates to emerge and succeed: the precipitous decline in local journalism. If a candidate says that people in his or her area care about Issue X, why should a potential donor believe it? But if there’s in-depth local reporting on Issue X then that evidence can be brought to the donors. In the absence of such reporting donors may well default to candidates who look and sound like them — and have little appeal to likely voters.
All this is a good reason to support local journalism when you can: it lays the groundwork for political change. (There are many other reasons to support it.) I’ve let a couple of Substack subscriptions lapse and have redirected my money to the Waco Bridge, a promising new enterprise. Maybe there’s something like it in your town.