Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson
For anyone looking for a thorough, engaging refresher course in American political history, Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America is the perfect read. Beyond the basic lessons, however, historian and professor Richardson delivers a compelling explanation of how and why the forces shaping the country’s present came into being.
Richardson takes the reader back to the country’s inception and the “no kings” arguments that informed the writing of the Constitution. She deftly outlines how American democracy and its political system—its scaffolding—evolved after centuries of Constitutional amendments, key legislation, major court decisions and other significant events.
On top of this scaffolding are America’s warring ideologies, as embodied in the current Democratic and Republican parties. As described by Richardson, the liberal ideals behind FDR’s New Deal have always been in conflict with the GOP, especially their Movement Conservatism—now the dominant form of American conservative thought—whose racist roots lie in the slave-owning South.
Richardson argues that the philosophy of Movement Conservatism centers on the myth of individualism and the bigotry of White male supremacy. Since Reconstruction, conservatives have fought against policies supporting the notion that “all men are created equal.” Movement Conservatism aims to undermine the liberal ideals of equality, individual rights and private-public collaboration, embracing instead the idea that societies work best when ruled by a cadre of White male Christian elites operating within an authoritarian structure.
In convincing fashion, Richardson demonstrates that this creed is the thread that runs through all American conservative thought and ties Confederate leaders and the KKK to Trump, the January 6th attempted coup and Project 2025. Richardson provides historical evidence that when in power, conservatives enact policies that shift wealth upward while telling disenfranchised white workers to blame minorities and women for their economic losses.
Although written before Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, Richardson forewarns of the country’s slide towards fascism and details the tactics of an authoritarian takeover. Key to the takeover are super-charged language and false history, both of which can be manipulated to make one group feel neglected in favor of another. Trump, through his reality-TV brand of bigoted tropes, Richardson says, “turned previously apathetic people into ferocious partisans,” ready to fight for “rules and patterns, established by God and history.”
With democracy and the United States as we know it in peril, Richardson urges the reader not to be apathetic but to remember how Lincoln defined the high stakes of the Civil War: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
(Penguin Books, 2024, 304 pages, available at LAPL)
Book Review by DAN volunteer contributor Amy G.
Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives
by Sami Sage and Emily Amick
You’ve brushed up on your democracy history and acquainted yourself with the hallmarks of fascism. Every day, you read the news and see the country rushing toward the authoritarian cliff. Now what?
In their smart book Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives, Sami Sage, co-founder of Betches Media, and lawyer-journalist Emily Amick offer everyday citizens who want “to do their part to make our communities and country better” an alternative to the inertia of helplessness. Becoming civically active, they argue, not only strengthens America’s weakened democracy, it can also give life more meaning and help heal the loneliness that comes from the fragmentation of modern society.
A clearly structured self-help guide, the book starts with the premise that anyone can become a powerful advocate for democracy, capable of overcoming the deadening effects of political polarization, calcification and mental exhaustion. It then lays out basic, step-by-step strategies for setting and achieving small advocacy goals.
Among the tools the authors use to help readers focus their energies and realize their goals are personality quizzes, journaling and reflection exercises, and action planners. Personalities are broken into five major types: Pragmatist, Realist, Optimist, Pessimist and Idealist. Each personality type is assessed in terms of broad civic engagement.
All personal tendencies, the authors argue, can be exploited to make positive contributions to organizations and causes. In support of this assertion, readers are given suggestions for civic actions based on their personality type, including starting a democracy book club, phone banking, and getting to know community activists.
Later, the authors dive into “civic personalities,” four categories—Leaders, Givers, Connectors and Creators—that come into play when people form action groups. As with the five major personalities, Sage and Amick ask readers to quiz themselves and reflect on which category best describes them. They then suggest ways that each civic personality can be used, both for the benefit of the group and organization and for the good of the individual.
Although the book sometimes reads like an astrological guide (the civic personalities, for example, are also described as fire, water, air and earth), it maintains its sober, fact-based purpose well. Inserted throughout the book are meaningful fact sheets, brief interviews and quotations that add heft.
Democracy in Retrograde offers committed readers fun, effective, doable ways to take first steps into civic advocacy.
(Gallery Books, 2025, 256 pages, available at LAPL)
Book Review by DAN volunteer contributor Amy G.