Want to protect our democracy? Start here!
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart or |
| 0:10.1 | none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:12.3 | And I'm Amy Scott in or none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:13.2 | And I'm Amy Scott in today for Ky Rizdahl. |
| 0:16.2 | It's Tuesday, July 16th. |
| 0:19.0 | And we're going to pick up where we left off yesterday |
| 0:21.3 | by talking more about our democracy and what we can do to not feel |
| 0:25.9 | so demoralized by everything that's going on from the non-stop news, the election, the economy, |
| 0:32.1 | the climate crisis, we could go on and on. |
| 0:37.0 | We've been talking a lot about taking action in our own communities and doing civic engagement work. But if you feel 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. Emily Amick is known on social media as Emily in your phone |
| 0:56.4 | and is co-author of Democracy in Retrograde, How to Make Changes Big and Small in our country and in our lives. |
| 1:04.5 | She's also a lawyer and a former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. |
| 1:09.0 | Welcome to the show, Emily. |
| 1:10.0 | Thank you so much for having me. I know I was just saying this but talk about timeliness for a book. I imagine |
| 1:18.0 | you've been hearing a lot from your followers in the last couple days. |
| 1:22.0 | Yeah, the hopelessness and frustration is at an all-time high. |
| 1:28.0 | Absolutely. |
| 1:30.0 | You talk about that so much in your book, hopelessness and frustration and the title is a play on obviously |
| 1:36.8 | Mercury and retrograde which is a time period when as all the astrology folks know a planet appears to spin backwards and I'm |
| 1:46.0 | wondering if there was a specific point in time when you first noticed that you felt the democracy wasn't moving in the right direction. |
| 1:56.0 | I think the time that I personally really started feeling it was the rise of dark money and when after Citizens United was |
| 2:05.4 | decided by the Supreme Court there started becoming this overwhelming cadence |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.