Amanda Litman
The activist and author calls on young people to lead
Amanda Litman is on a mission to help young people run for political office. For the brave souls who do, she offers a warning: prepare to be unpopular.
“Being a leader means taking a stance, and people are not going to like you for that,” she told the Women and American Political Leadership class. “And that’s OK.
If the criticism starts to affect you, you will crumble. People will critique you for the things you say, the way you say them, the type of lipstick you wear while you say them. So much of it is not real—it’s criticism that comes because you are challenging the status quo.”
In 2017 Litman, a 2012 Northwestern graduate, founded Run for Something, a political action committee that recruits and supports young progressives. She is author of When We’re In Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership and was one of more than a dozen guest speakers in instructor Nancy Rotering’s course—along with Izzy Dobbel (BS20), deputy chief of staff for the Illinois House speaker, and Kaylyn Ahn (BS25), who helped pass legislation inspired by her own experience with sexual assault. Here are excerpts from Litman’s talk.
“I skipped a day of high school as a junior to hear [Barack] Obama speak. I was hooked. I didn’t know politics could be or feel like that.”
“I started Run for Something because there was a problem I wanted to solve and I thought I had the skills to do it. Being an entrepreneur or startup founder requires a certain amount of craziness. You have to take the leap and be willing to fall. That’s fun for me.”
“Even the most popular person—with a 65 to 70 percent approval rating—has haters. Think of the skills and tools you need to cultivate a thick skin.”
“Leadership, writ large, is not about me—it’s about you. The ones who get stuck are the ones who think, ‘Why do I want to win?’ rather than ‘Why do other people think I should win?’ How will you make schools better, improve soccer fields?”
“Writing is thinking. To do a job well, you need to be able to communicate clearly in writing, make an argument, back it up—and it needs to sound like you. This is one of the foolish things about using AI to write emails and memos. Being charming in these spaces really makes a difference. As things get increasingly automated and robotic, good human writing will be even more important.”
“Anyone 70 or older should not run for reelection. We need to bring our best possible fighters, and, generally speaking, those fighters have come from the folks who have risen to power in the last 10 years—not in the 20 years before that.”
“This is an incredible moment of opportunity. If you’ve ever thought about running, this is the time. It’s going to be good."