"We can't have politics be a biannual freakout."
Happy 4th with Emily In Your Phone!
If you pretend that America is a fairy tale, the 4th of July can be an easy holiday to celebrate. Hot dogs. Beaches. Maybe fireworks. S’mores!
BUT! If you’re reading this in July 2024 and you’re a person who isn’t living under a rock, maybe you’re feeling a little LESS THAN ENTHUSED about a jingoistic narrative of America The Free. And if that’s you (it’s me!) you will love
’s new book, which she co-wrote with Sami Sage, Democracy In Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives.
Emily (in addition to being one of my favorite Instagram follows for political coverage that is concise, balanced, and NOT outrage-driven) is a lawyer, journalist, and political analyst who served as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. She created @EmilyinYourPhone to provide political insider intel for people who are burnt out on talking heads screaming at them and wanting practical tips for how to remain politically engaged without wanting to relocate to underneath that rock I mentioned above.
I loved Democracy In Retrograde and am so excited to share our talk!
Sara
I first discovered you through your journalism on Moms for Liberty, a group VERY relevant for readers of this newsletter. Moms for Liberty also strike me as a great opener to talking about your book since it's a group that consolidated power through (in many cases) grassroots civic engagement, the very thing you and Sami Sage argue in favor of in Democracy In Retrograde. Could you talk a bit about M4L and how they're sort of the inverse example of what progressive (versus conservative) civic engagement might look like?
Emily
Moms for Liberty certainly didn’t invent the paradigm of activating moms for political organizing, we have it in the progressive world in things like Moms Demand Action. I remember the commercials from Mothers Against Drunk Driving that used to come on TV during my youth. What M4L did that was so powerful is gave a communications operation the veneer of a grassroots organization. They grabbed upon a cultural moment (masks, “I don’t co-parent with the government.”) and took what was a politically-non-viable idea, banning books in school, and gave it a comms makeover. (Children are being shown porn!). At their height they were getting 7-10 google news hits PER DAY, all whilst I had more Instagram followers and their message was profoundly unpopular. We now know the vast majority of book bans are done by 11 people! But it gave the people online, people who aren’t actually members of M4L, a cultural identity, a reason to hate public schools, and a way to feel part of a righteous cause as a joyful warrior and mama bear. It gave ignition to a fight conservatives have been pushing since Brown v. Board of Education … destroying America’s public schools.
Sara
You write that "civic engagement is a form of self-care." For so many of us trained to view self-care as bubble baths and Yes Days, can you clarify what you mean by that?
Emily
I love a bubble bath, but I think we can all agree that ‘self care’ has become a bit commercialized. In Democracy in Retrograde we are talking about getting to the bottom of who we are as people, really taking the things that we value in life and figuring out how to work towards a community that better reflects that vision. It’s about stepping into the power of your values and your voice and the incredible sense of agency that comes along with that. Also, I’ll note that you need clean water to take that bubble bath!
Sara
Your book is a real blend of good and bad news lol. You point out that we're currently being ruled by a small handful of very wealthy people, and that minority rule has been made possible (at least in part) by nonsensical legislation on campaign spending. BUT you also point out that the majority of Americans support common sense gun reform, LGBTQ rights, abortion, and efforts to combat climate change. I doubt I'm alone in feeling surprised to read such hopeful stats, but our current political landscape makes it so easy to believe that every other person is invested in a Handmaid's Tale future. As you write, there are many reasons for this, but maybe we could talk about how social media intensifies our alienation from civic life and also paints a skewed portrait of political polarity?
Emily
The vast majority of social media content about politics that gets any traction is negative and outrage based. This is a result of the infrastructure of an algorithm that cares about engagement of any sort. As a content creator, I can tell you that outrage content gets significantly more engagement than normal stuff. I do think it’s warping people's minds, it’s making people think that everyone in the government is awful, that politics is irredeemably broken, and that there’s no point in participating. This is exactly what those moneyed interests you mention want - they want all of us to tap out so they can fully step into their power.
Sara
This book is a practical guide to finding a personalized program of civic engagement. Which will look very different for everyone! I water the plants in my kids' elementary school library once a month. This is a tiny example of civic engagement but it IS civic engagement. I think one reason for civic apathy is the misunderstanding that political engagement only looks like running for city council person or spending every weekend canvassing, but actually, it's so comforting and hopeful to understand that civic engagement isn't one-size-fits-all. Can you expand? Or share any of your own aha moments about this?
Emily
Oh I love to hear it!! Civic life is more than just the horror of cold-calling people about the presidential election, it’s about anything that builds the fabric of our communities. It’s book clubs, it’s volunteering at a soup kitchen, it’s going to a town fair, it’s merely showing up to a school board meeting. I ran for town meeting when I was 20, I’ve always been a parks and rec level political nerd … however as I’ve grown older I’ve searched and searched for the public square that I see and love on TV shows and haven’t been able to find it. Civic life, third places, have crumbled in America. In order to build communities we need a real public square not a news feed of 22 year olds screaming at their phone.
Sara
I was listening to a recent episode of You're Wrong About, which covered immigration rights, and the host, Sarah Marshall, after learning about how a combination of political interests and capitalistic interests led to a city being deprived of jobs and ultimately a safe living environment for its residents, made a comment akin to this, which isn't a direct quote! "Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of expecting individuals to carry the responsibility of environmental damage or systemic inequity, we expected big corporations and powerful politicians to be responsible? To expect such powerful entities to be thinking of what is best for the PEOPLE rather than their pocketbooks." And it's just a great example of how normalized widespread power consolidation and corruption has become in the US. Would love any and all thoughts!
Emily
This is what government is supposed to do. No individual has the capacity to hold corporations accountable and reign in capitalism. We need government to tell them they can’t pollute our waters…or else they absolutely will because their only job is $$$. For generations we the people have come together and propped up a whole system to do this, the problem is that the corporations have figured out the game and are trying to do the same thing (with more resources and a willingness to play hardball - see eg the bots that flood my feed). Government regulations are a good thing, they protect people. It’s not always perfect, by any means, but I think that means we should improve it. Not throw the whole idea out the window and hand over power to people who dgaf about us.
Sara
Talk to me about the "exhausted majority."
Emily
67% of Americans are part of a group political scientists call the exhausted majority. It’s pretty much people who are not on the flanks - who are neither progressive nor conservative activists. The thing that unites us all is not policy issues but a general exhaustion with the entire system and the lens through which we see the system. People on the wings view everything as a moral cause, and therefore a righteous war. People in the middle just want to get their kids a good education and be free to live their life.
Sara
I frequently write about tradwives, many of whom explicitly or implicitly label themselves as apolitical. I think it's telling that we're (generally speaking) apt to allow for "apoliticalness" from pretty white ladies while at the same time very prone to blaming marginalized people for their marginalization, as though their supposed lack of civic engagement is to blame. You write about divesting from politics as being a valid form of protest and self-care, but that's not the same as deliberate apathy, right?
The trad mom promise of a "perfectly balanced world"
Emily
The tradwives are not apolitical, we all know it. Their work is deeply connected to the culture war movement being waged by the right. Turning Point’s Young Women's Leadership Summit tagline was “If we want to win the culture war, we have to start at home.” Conservatives don’t need everyone to approve of banning birth control, they just need a few women to legitimize it as “just doing it for women’s health” etc etc.
What a privileged position to think that politics doesn’t affect you, you know? What a pleasure to live in absolute ignorance about the problems of the world around us and to think it’s not worth my time to care just a little bit about others. As they say on the internet, you might not do politics but politics does you baby.
Those firefighters that come to save your house? The roads we drive on? The educated workforce driving our economy? It’s all politics.
Sara
I think it's becoming more and more common knowledge that while social media might be a great entry point to finding like-minded people or finding activist causes to support, it's only a gateway to more immediate interpersonal connection and meaningful community involvement. What are some helpful ways to utilize social media in someone's journey towards more regular civic engagement? What are some possible pitfalls?
Emily
Look, I love Instagram. I’m not here to yuk people’s yum because it’s probably my main hobby. The thing that I think is critical is to curate your feed, find people who educate and inspire you and mute the people who raise your blood pressure. In the book we have a whole exercise on developing a news diet because it’s critical that everyone find a sustainable way to consume information - we can’t have politics be a biannual freakout, it has to be a daily habit!
Sara
Books like yours give me so much hope for a more democratic future. Talk to me about your own "hope outlook" and the most recent bit of news that made you feel less despondent about the future.
Emily
In the book we have a hope outlook quiz which lets you learn more about how to translate your specific outlook into hopefulness and action. I’m a classic pragmatic - for me it’s just about optimizing the current situation. I am hopeful every day when I get DMs from people who are getting engaged in politics for the first time. I’m a library lover (though, please buy my book!! ), and I get particularly jazzed by people joining their local library boards. Run For Something is working with people in down-ballot races across the country and they increase turnout from .4-2.3%, often enough to make up the margin of victory! I love the wonderful people I meet (if you get civically engaged you will meet the most wonderful people), the friendships I’ve made, and the possibility for the future. Politics isn’t this intractable thing - it’s something made up by all of us, and because of that we have the power to change things!
Thank you Emily!
In the spirit of civic engagement, I want to plug the In Pursuit Giving Circle, which supports state government initiatives (like abortion rights, gun control legislation, childcare accessibility, and more). If you’d like to read more about why I partnered with The States Project, you can do so right here 👇
To understand how state government support can effect dramatic change, here’s just ONE example:
Congress passed fewer than 30 bills last year.
The new Michigan Trifecta that Giving Circles helped build in 2022? They passed 321 bills.
Public school kids eat breakfast and lunch for free in Michigan. Abortion access is codified there. Michigan has one of the most impactful climate policies in the country – Michigan will generate 100% of their electricity from carbon-free sources by 2040.