How To Citizen with Baratunde
We're Gonna Need Some Builders — Live in London with Jon Alexander
Recorded live at The Conduit in London in September 2024, Baratunde and Elizabeth Stewart sit down with their friend and longtime collaborator Jon Alexander, author of CITIZENS and co-host of the podcast How To Save Democracy, for a conversation about citizen as a verb: the radical, hopeful idea that democracy isn't something we have, it's something we do. They get into the story we inherited about independence, the older and truer story about interdependence, the four pillars of citizening, and why a moment when so much feels like it's collapsing is exactly the moment to start building. The timing is no accident. On Saturday, June 13, 2026 Jon takes the TED Democracy stage in Philadelphia at the birthplace of American independence, during America's 250th, to make the case for interdependence. A British man crossing the Atlantic to tell us the move is getting back together. Keep practicing democracy. The verb, not the noun. CHAPTERS 00:00:00 "We're gonna need some builders" (cold open) 00:02:11 Welcome to How To Save Democracy 00:02:45 How this London night came together 00:03:40 Citizen as a verb, and the shift from head to heart 00:05:40 Latent love: citizen, not consumer 00:07:25 Story as the most powerful technology we have 00:09:45 Consumer democracy and the only restaurant in town 00:10:59 Why the vote still matters 00:12:06 Head, heart, and gut 00:16:24 Co-authors of this world: nature, each other, machines 00:20:29 The four pillars, one at a time 00:21:00 Pillar 1 - Invest in relationships (including with yourself) 00:29:45 Pillar 2 - Understand power (and your attention) 00:33:35 Pillar 3 - Commit to the collective (Bahrain and Broadband Bruce) 00:44:10 Pillar 4 - Show up and participate 00:44:25 Questions from the room 00:46:42 Belonging, authoritarianism, and the case for builders 00:49:38 Burnout, rupture, and repair 00:52:35 Doomsday Preppers: two ways to survive 00:54:10 How might we live together, period 00:56:35 Citizens, not just consumers LINKS How To Save Democracy with Omezzine Khelifa & Jon Alexander: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-save-democracy/id1823945285 American Indigenous Democracy: A Call for Interdependence — the book from Haudenosaunee elders and wisdom keepers: https://americanindigenousdemocracy.com Jon Alexander / CITIZENS: https://jonalexander.net See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
