Want to protect our democracy? Start here! (rerun)
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2024
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hey Smarties! We’re on a break for the holidays and revisiting some of our top episodes from 2024. We can’t do this show without you and we still need your support. If you can, donate today to keep independent journalism going strong into 2025 and beyond. Give now to support “Make Me Smart.” Thank you so much for your generosity, happy holidays and we’ll see you in the new year.
If you’ve been feeling hopeless about the news, the election, the economy, the climate crisis and everything else that’s going on, today’s episode is for you. Emily Amick, lawyer and co-author of “Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives,” argues we can all become better participants in our democracy. And we don’t need to have a gazillion dollars to do it. On the show today, Amick explains why we should treat civic engagement as self-care, how to find your civic personality and ways to cultivate a news diet that doesn’t put you in a doom loop. Plus, the moment she realized our democracy was headed in the wrong direction.
Then, we’ll get into how voters in Utah fought to protect the power of citizen-led ballot initiatives and why shoppers hide purchases from their romantic partners. Plus, an anime cosplayer was wrong about what it would take to create her own costume.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “Despite Recent Setbacks, There Is Still Hope For Democracy” from Forbes
- “In ‘Democracy in Retrograde,’ Emily Amick Talks About Political Engagement and Her Cancer Diagnosis” from Teen Vogue
- “What does Utah’s redistricting ruling do to voters’ ability to change laws?” from The Salt Lake Tribune
- “Utah Supreme Court: Lawmakers must heed voter-passed gerrymandering reforms “ from Axios Salt Lake City
- “Amazon’s Prime Day a ‘major’ cause of worker injuries, Senate probe finds” from CNBC
- “US Retail Sales Excluding Autos Rise by Most in Three Months” from Bloomberg
- “Gym Bags, Trunks, Back Doors: How Stealth Shoppers Hide Purchases” from The Wall Street Journal
- “Financial Infidelity Report 2023: Why People Hide Purchases From Partners” from Circuit
- “Inside a UPS warehouse that prioritizes super-fast shipping” from Marketplace
How are you getting involved in civic life? What helps you fend off feelings of hopelessness? Let us know at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Smarties. It's Kimberly. Thanks for listening to Make Me Smart and Marketplace this year. |
| 0:04.9 | We're taking a little break for the holidays. So over the next couple of weeks, we'll be sharing some of our favorite episodes of 2024. |
| 0:11.5 | This year, we talked a lot about what makes a healthy democracy and how that affects our economy. |
| 0:17.4 | So today, we're bringing you an episode that's all about how civic engagement makes our democracy stronger and how you can get involved. |
| 0:26.0 | And if you want to get involved in our mission here at Marketplace, which is raising the economic intelligence of the country, please consider making a donation. |
| 0:34.0 | You can head over to Marketplace.org slash GiveS smart. And as always, thank you for your support. |
| 0:40.1 | All right, here's the show. |
| 0:48.2 | Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, or none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:54.7 | And I'm Amy Scott in today for Kai Rizdal. |
| 0:57.9 | It's Tuesday, July 16th. |
| 1:00.3 | And we're going to pick up where we left off yesterday by talking more about our democracy |
| 1:05.1 | and what we can do to not feel so demoralized by everything that's going on |
| 1:10.2 | from the nonstop news, the election, |
| 1:13.0 | the economy, the climate crisis. We could go on. And on and on. We've been talking a lot |
| 1:20.8 | about taking action in our own communities and doing civic engagement work. But if you feel |
| 1:27.3 | like you don't know where to start or you're just a bit overwhelmed, which is perfectly reasonable, our guest is here to help. |
| 1:33.3 | Emily Amick is known on social media as Emily in Your Phone and is co-author of Democracy in Retrograde, How to Make Changes Big and small in our country and in our lives. |
| 1:46.4 | She's also a lawyer and a former council to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. |
| 1:50.7 | Welcome to the show, Emily. |
| 1:52.2 | Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:55.0 | I know I was just saying this, but talk about timeliness for a book. |
| 1:58.8 | I imagine you've been hearing a lot from your followers in the last couple days. |
... |
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