Tim Egan has a piece in the New York Times today about how the Republicans have killed the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal fund that helps "conserve irreplaceable lands and improve outdoor recreation opportunities throughout the nation." This will have immediate, noticeable effects at the local level on places in communities that people in those communities care about. In other words, both the consequences and the cause are not abstract - they are concrete and well-defined: "the Republicans shut down this park." "The Republicans are letting this historical site fall apart." As Egan says:
Each of these places is extraordinary in its own way. And the efforts to protect them are models of community-driven initiatives. Typically, people raise private money on their own to buy land, or save an old home or battleground of some significance, and then use matching funds from the Land and Water Conservation revenue to complete the purchase.
Every day, the fund generates about $2.5 million, from leases on offshore oil and gas drilling. So nothing comes directly from taxpayers
This is a local issue that Dems can and should run on, particularly at local and state levels, blaming Republicans for destroying valued community resources.