In much of the world, democracy is at a low ebb, with autocrats, authoritarians, and outright fascists on a seemingly inexorable rise, and few politicians seemingly capable of charting a credible way forward in the face of the challenges of our time. At such times, even election “victories” come to feel like little more than delays to the inevitable, cause more for relief than excitement.

Yet just beneath the media radar, there are signs that another story is taking shape: a story of the renewal and reinvention of democracy, from the ground up and the outside in; of democracy as something we do, not something we have; and of the word citizen more as a verb than a noun. Nowhere is this new story more needed than in the United States of America, and no one tells it better than the Emmy-nominated host, producer, writer and storyteller Baratunde Thurston – working in close partnership with Elizabeth Stewart, his partner in life and creativity.

Their work weaves together threads of race, technology, democracy and climate, always coming back to the fundamental truth of our interdependence with one another and with nature. Join us to hear Jon Alexander, author of Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, in conversation with Baratunde and Elizabeth, as they discuss this new story – and how we can all be part of it.

Speakers

Jon Alexander is the author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, and co-founder of the New Citizenship Project, a book and company that work to shift the dominant story of the individual in society from Consumer to Citizen. Among other plaudits, CITIZENS was listed by McKinsey as one of its Top 5 Recommended Books in its Summer Reading Guide 2022, described as “an underground hit” in the Financial Times, and selected by the World Economic Forum for its CEO Book Club. Jon began his career with a decade in the advertising industry, before shifting his attention to understanding how communications skills might be deployed to invite people into their agency as citizens, instead of just selling stuff to them as consumers.