Democracy Lives in Darkness is a study of the pseudonymous Community Women’s Group (CWG), a small secretive group of progressive middle-class women in a rural Texas county. It formed in the wake of the 2016 election, mostly as a therapeutic space for progressives who were troubled by Trump’s victory. But it evolved into something much more important and interesting.
Through a mix of interviews with 40 of its members and participant observation of its meetings, Emily Van Duyn traces the development of CWG over a four-year period between 2016 and 2020. From the beginning, its members decided to keep their identities and activities a secret to protect themselves from social, economic, and even physical retaliation. The physical attacks surprised Van Duyn: “One had her animal shot in her own yard and another received death threats over the phone for supporting an environmental policy” (p. 204). The group worked out a confidentiality agreement, specifying an elaborate series of rules to protect their closeted identities.
Gently, Van Duyn uses this evidence to criticize those who suggest that the victims of marginalization are invariably political radicals or members of historically disadvantaged social groups. But as Van Duyn observes, the women she studied were both privileged and mainstream. Although they were mostly college-educated, middle-class whites and were politically mainstream—more inclined toward Hillary Clinton than Bernie Sanders—they felt marginalized in their small community. This leads Van Duyn to rightly conclude that marginalization “depends on context,” not some fixed group characteristic (p. 16).
Even so, Van Duyn also sees something more systemic at work. In an age of polarization, we would expect more citizens on the center-right and center-left to hide their politics from their neighbors. That’s a change from, say, the 1950s when radicals were the ones seeking refuge in secretive groups. Van Duyn theorizes that, as “the social context” of local communities “becomes more and more homogeneous … the more that mainstream beliefs can become politically marginalized” (p. 205).
As marginalization has hit mainstream Americans, it has become more common. Thus, Van Duyn’s study shines a needed light on something that is far bigger than the small group she followed. As she observes, a survey found that nearly 1 in 10 Americans met in secret recently to discuss politics, with Democrats and Republicans equally likely to do so. CWG, she concludes, is “not a wild card,” alas (p. 64).
The most interesting parts of the book detail the evolution of the CWG and its effects on its members. Over time it evolved from a support group for Clinton voters after the 2016 election into a real political organization, pushing some of its closeted members out into the political world. It did so partly because it provided these women, most of whom were political novices, with skills that, in turn, furnished them with a new confidence. Before joining, most CWG members were reluctant to even express their thoughts, but their meetings encouraged them to flex “atrophied political muscles,” improving their “external political efficacy.” “In this way,” Van Duyn concludes, “CWG served as a communicative backstage, a known place where rehearsing one’s identity and communication was possible without the scrutiny or pressure of frontstage performance” (p. 150).
Gradually, about half its members gained enough confidence and taste for politics to move frontstage by coming out as Democratic activists. They described it as an empowering liberation similar to that experienced by other oppressed groups. One even later ran for city council. In this respect the CWG served as an underground Democratic Party, funneling new activists from its private underground into the official, public-facing party. This new democratic life, Van Duyn believes, had real effects beyond the activists themselves. Although the evidence is only suggestive, she notes that the Texas county enjoyed “steady growth” in turnout and registered voters (p. 165). These metrics both increased after CWG formed and did so at a faster rate than in an adjacent rural county.
Thus, the local Democratic Party, which had been previously moribund, seems to have been revitalized by CWG. One party regular even “said that CWG was the party’s ‘secret weapon’” (p. 140). For this reason, Van Duyn argues that our political parties should consider developing a secret wing. As she concludes, “Reaching members who are a political minority in their community will require a hybridity for political parties” (pp. 208–9).
That would be an interesting reminder of how polarization has turned the political tables upside down. In midcentury America, during the height of our national consensus, the Communist Party USA had a secret wing. Now, it seems, the mainstream parties need to follow the communists’ example to protect the moderates who once constituted a vital center.
Like any good book, Democracy Lives in Darkness left me wanting more at times. For example, Van Duyn observes local meetings but not CWG activists out in the community, practicing their new civil skills. Relatedly, one never gets a very textured feel for the county itself, except insofar as it is filtered through reports from CWG members. In these ways Van Duyn never seems to leave the shadowy world of her subjects, even when they themselves ultimately venture out.
Theoretically, the book also might have said more about the larger relationship between secrecy or “darkness” and democratic ideals, especially given the American populist and Progressive legacy that too easily celebrates transparency and openness. After all, the decline of secret “smoke-filled rooms” delivered us presidents like Donald Trump, and some contend that sunshine laws increased extremism in Congress. To her credit, however, Van Duyn is also a careful writer, reluctant to theorize too far beyond her evidence.
But even if these are shortcomings, they point to one of the book’s strengths. In opening up an interesting world, it is natural that it leaves readers wanting to learn even more about it. More generally, Van Duyn’s book highlights the need for more ethnographic research in American political science. How are we going to understand the evolution of secret organizations like the CWG if political scientists do not spend time immersing themselves within them and observing them? Duyn shows the power of participant observation to reveal what other methods cannot.
More importantly, Van Duyn’s book compels readers to rethink the relationship between “darkness” and democracy—and it invites everyone to think in new, concrete ways about how we might mitigate the effects of coarsening polarization. As the book rightly insists, “People keep democracy going not just despite darkness, but because of it” (p. 4). This is particularly so when there is light at the end of the tunnel, as there was in CWG’s case.
