Conversation Pushers #6: Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick
A deep dive into a short book that makes the case for civic engagement and helps you start in a way that feels good.
Hi friends,
I started Conversation Pushers as a way to use the time I spend reading and writing this newsletter as a force for change. This column features in-depth coverage of a book that arms us for critical real-life conversations across parties. This month, that’s Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives by Sami Sage and Emily Amick.
Before I dive in, though, a quick announcement: I’m going to shift this column’s schedule from monthly to ad hoc. Two reasons. First, back in November, I had more mental energy to devote to both reading and Substack; the chaos and exhaustion of the past few months’ daycare illnesses have taken more out of me than I ever could have expected, and I need to give myself more flexibility.
Second, and more important, it’s trickier than I expected to know whether a book will be right for this column before I’ve read it. While there’s a never-ending supply of books about political topics out there, most of them aren’t specifically focused on “arming the choir,” as Jess Valenti put it, in quite the way I’m seeking for this particular column. (Today’s book is a good example, but I’ve done my best.) So going forward, I’ll continue to read political books, but only write a Conversation Pusher column about one if it lends itself to the format well. I’ll also continue to donate and match commissions on all the books I cover.
Okay, on to Democracy in Retrograde!
What is Democracy in Retrograde about?
This book is a hybrid of self-help and political activism that reframes civic engagement as a form of self-care and community connection. Emily Amick (former counsel to Chuck Schumer) and Sami Sage (cofounder of Betches Media) give us a very accessible choose-your-own-adventure map for civic involvement, including sections such as an explainer on the various branches of government, exercises and quizzes that help you identify your “civic personality,” and ideas for how use your civic personality to choose a path to involvement that fits into your life and feels good.
I do think it goes a little too far in attempting millennial relatability in a few spots (ie, talking about a “glass half-full” of iced coffee instead of water), but I liked the way Amick and Sage make the case for civic engagement as an antidote to hopelessness and despair — even more timely now, in early 2025, than when they wrote it just after the January 2021 insurrection — and I found their tools genuinely helpful. It’s also very short (less than 5 hours on audio, but I recommend print for all the exercises and quizzes).
What are the key conversation points?
Or, at least, the key conversation points that might help build bridges across the aisle. Or maybe, for this book, these points are more about feeling motivated to actually build those bridges in the first place instead of defaulting to burying our head in the sand and ignoring politics as much as possible (guilty).
As they say, “Increased civic engagement, though it sounds dry as toast, is not only a path to improving the health of our democracy and our own life satisfaction, but also a way to rebuild the uplifting parts of community life. This means intentionally making and maintaining connections with people near us who are invested in a shared future, even when we disagree on the specifics of how to get there.”
It may seem like everyone has extreme political opinions, but the reality is that our political discourse and policies are simply driven by the most extreme people. The vast majority of Americans are actually disengaged — at least a third of people abstained from voting in 2020, and only 37% of people voted in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections.
It serves those extreme people’s purposes when the everyday American is checked out of politics, because they are the minority. The majority of voters are actually aligned on a ton of issues, like gun violence, voting rights, abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate change. As the authors say, “Americans agree over more than we assume, and if we work to build coalitions around our commonalities, there is so much potential for change and, dare we say, even reasons to be optimistic.”
Civic engagement is the antidote to despair for the whole country. The actions that strengthen our democracy are the same ones that will heal the loneliness and hopelessness many of us feel. As the authors say, “More people who care about their neighbors, who want to see positive changes, who get involved and push to improve the country, are what we need.”
What can we do right now?
Get more involved, of course! That’s the purpose of this book, and once again, I do think the tools and exercises the authors present are genuinely useful in this regard. So perhaps the first step toward greater civic engagement in pursuit of greater hope is for you to borrow this book from the library and try them out.
These tools and exercises include:
Your Hope Outlook: There are five “types”: pragmatist, realist, optimist, pessimist, and idealist. The authors explain these types using those cups half-full of iced coffee that I mentioned. Then they explain how to know which type you are, how you operate best in community with other types, and tips for shifting your own sense of hope.
Developing a personal mission statement: The authors walk you through reflection exercises, from identifying your core values all the way through to the final draft.
Your Civic Personality: Here there’s a teen magazine-style personality quiz, which helps you identify which civic personality you have: leader, giver, connector, or creator. (I was surprised to find that I tied for two of them, and the four scores were actually not too different! Which meant I felt like the rest of the chapter was even more of a menu I could pick and choose from.) For each personality type, the authors give an overview, examples of quotes from real people with that type, common characteristics, a few different ways that type might show up in the world, and actions you can take that align with your type, sorted into things that take “a few hours a month,” “a few hours a week,” or “a full-time job.”
An action plan to get you started: Finally, the authors walk you through the steps to creating a personal action plan, including how you will consume news, creating your civic calendar, building your civic network, lobbying local and national elected officials, having challenging conversations, and (if it applies) raising kids with a heart for civic engagement.
Further reading:
From Time Magazine: “Civic Participation Is the Defining Challenge of Our Time”
Vox rarely misses: “In times of defeat, turn toward each other”
Catastrophe Ethics: How to Choose Well in a World of Tough Choices by Travis Reider — this book also gives a helpful matrix of ways to serve causes you care about that fits with your values and your life
The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet by Leah Thomas
I matched and donated commissions from my Bookshop or Libro.fm sales of this book this month to Civic Nation, which is “a nonprofit ecosystem for high-impact organizing and education initiatives” working to boost civic engagement and voter participation in service of a more equitable America. Commissions came to about $15, so I’ve sent $30 off!
If there are any particular books you’d like me to cover here in the future, let me know in the comments.
Until next time,
– Deedi (she/her)
A good article :-)