How citizens (not politicians) are building the future | Jon Alexander

0:03You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. When we think about the health of a democracy, we usually look up to politicians, to institutions, to people in charge. Citizen strategist Jon Alexander wants us to look somewhere else entirely, at ourselves. He's spent a decade traveling the world in search of democracy's next chapter, and he keeps finding it in the same unlikely place, among ordinary people faced with crisis, choosing to organize and build something together.

0:41Jon Alexander: It's not politicians who are leading us there. It's the people. It's citizens coming together and building the future, creating the space for the politics to move into. In this talk, John shares what he has learned from communities that turn wildfire, lockdown, and disaster into new ways of caring for each other, from Melbourne to California and beyond. And he makes the case for a fundamental shift in how we think about our own role. Democracy is not something we have. It's something we have to build. John argues that in dark and uncertain times, we tend to fall into one of two roles, keeping our heads down or looking out for ourselves.

1:21But there's a third option, and it starts with something as simple as a walk around your own neighborhood. That's coming up right after a short break.

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4:02And now, our TED Talk of the day.

4:05Jon Alexander: Let's get the obvious out of the way first, shall we? Yes, I'm British. And yes, I'm here talking to Americans about democracy on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence from Britain.

4:25Jon Alexander: I'm very tempted to chuck my talk out of the window and break into King George from Hamilton. You'll be back.

4:35Jon Alexander: But I'm not here to call you back. I'm here to call all of us forward, because I've spent the last 10 years gathering stories from around the world of the future of democracy for my book, Citizens, and for the podcast I co-host, How to Save Democracy. And what I've found are a couple of things. The first is that there is a bold, bright, beautiful future of democracy just wanting to take hold. It's emerging everywhere in institutions that are open and participatory and in politicians who are desperate to put the power of citizens ahead of their own power. But what I want to focus on today is not so much that destination as the journey to get there.

5:16Jon Alexander: Because what I've seen all over the world is that it's actually not institutions that are changing for us. It's not politicians who are leading us there. It's the people. It's citizens coming together and building the future, creating the space for the politics to move into. Because the line I want to leave you with at the end of all of this, democracy is not something we have. It's something we have to build. Now, my favorite story of this new democracy comes from Melbourne in Australia, and it starts at the end of 2020. In the context of COVID lockdowns and black summer bushfires raging across Victoria and clogging the city with smoke, Melbournians were confined to quarters for weeks on end.

6:02Jon Alexander: In that context, a few citizens started to gather online. They were motivated by the understanding that the existing power structures just weren't capable of responding to these challenges, and if they didn't want this to be the pattern of the summers for the rest of their lives, they were going to have to lean in and do something about it. Soon, those few citizens were joined by a few more, and then tens, and eventually hundreds of people were attending these calls. They invited authors and experts from around the world to inform them as they tried to create a vision for the future of the city that they wanted to hold.

6:38Jon Alexander: They got to this point where they were saying, we believe we can create a resilient, regenerative, beautiful city in a way that can be a template for others to follow. They birthed an organization called Regen Melbourne to act as a catalyst for citizen activity. And they aligned their work around three earth-shot goals. The first was to make the river Birrarung swimmable for its entire course. The second, to localize the city's food system so that every one of its neighborhoods would be a nourished neighborhood. And the third was to foster a sense of community on every one of the city's 300 ,000 streets, partly because if these situations were to repeat themselves, then that's what would be needed, but more because joy.

7:25Five years on, there's been amazing progress,

7:29Jon Alexander: and in fascinating ways. Citizens are jumping into the river and ever closer to the sea at river festivals. The river has status as a living entity and rights. But most interestingly of all, on that goal, the city council has come in behind and adopted the goal with the citizens, and now institutional resources are starting to flow. They've created the space for the politics to move into. There's been similar progress on the other goals, and now there are even conversations about even more ambitious projects that they could take on. There's talk of creating a standing citizens' assembly as part of the city's governance structure.

8:09Jon Alexander: Randomly selected citizens, a representative sample of them, to debate and discuss the key issues facing the city as a complement to the existing elected systems. There are sister organizations springing up all over Australia. The momentum is building hugely, and it all started with a few citizens coming together online not staring into crisis, but building out of it. Now, look, there are so many stories I want to tell you. I want another hour. I want to tell you about Taiwan's crowdsourced COVID response that was rooted in a set of digital tools that a citizen movement came together and built.

8:50Jon Alexander: I want to tell you about Ireland, where there's a citizens' assembly as part of the national governance structure that has helped them resolve some of the most polarizing issues of our time in a way that brought the nation together, and that the first iteration of that assembly, citizens built it. I want to tell you about things that are happening all over the world and all over America as well, in Lexington, Kentucky, and Fort Collins, Colorado, and I don't have time. But what I can tell you is that there is something big going on. And I think the best way to understand it is through the lens of what I call stories of self and society.

9:30Jon Alexander: And this is a framework I want to offer you as a way of understanding the moment in time we're living in. Back in the days of the old country, we lived in what I call the subject story, as in subjects of the king. The right thing to do was keep your head down, do as you're told, get what you're given, on the basis that the God-given few knew best, and they would lead us to the best outcomes for society as a whole. You'll be back, remember? Coming out of the two world wars, America gave us the consumer story. The right thing to do now was to pursue self-interest on the basis that self-interest would add up to the collective interest, that that's how the best society would result.

10:08Jon Alexander: With that came a kind of democracy, a democracy where we could express our choice every few years, choose between a fixed set of options as to who to give our power to on the basis of self-interest. And it seemed to work. It was a liberating shift from what came before, but now we can't solve the challenges of our time from within that logic. You can't solve loneliness and mental ill health from within a logic of self-interest. You can't solve pervasive inequality from within a logic of self-interest. And we can't solve ecological crises from within a logic of self-interest. As that story collapses, my way of understanding what is going on right now is that the subject story is back in the uncertainty, with strongman leaders offering false certainties into that chaos.

10:53Jon Alexander: But there is another option to step forward into what I call the citizen story. The logic here isn't keep your head down, do as you're told, nor is it pursue self-interest. It's get involved. Contribute your ideas and energy and resources. Come together with others and build it on the basis that all of us are smarter than any of us. And that's how the best society will result. And then there is Altadena, California. I get one more story. On January 25, the Eaton fire tore through Altadena. Whole neighborhoods were destroyed. This historically significant black and brown community burned to the ground.

11:34Jon Alexander: In that context, what happened was that the citizens of Altadena came together. Even though they had nothing, they came together to decide what to do with what little they had. Neighbors helping neighbors, giving and getting given. They created Dina Heals, a mutual aid marketplace and wellness center that's since helped over 7 ,000 people from 1 ,500 families. And what I know from what I've seen around the world is that this is what happens when crisis hits everywhere. Dina Heals is just a particularly beautiful example of what is a deeply human response to crisis, to let the barriers that have kept us apart burn rather than our relationships.

12:19Jon Alexander: We come together in that moment. And Dina Heels isn't charity. It isn't even kindness. It's actually democracy. People coming together to build what they need. This is what we will do in times of crisis. But it would be so much easier if we start building now. So here's what I want to leave you with. The first three words of the U.S. Constitution really tell the whole story, written just a little way from here. We the people. Because democracy isn't something that is done for us by institutions or by politicians. It's something we do. Something we have to build. In this moment in time, we all have agency.

13:05Jon Alexander: And it starts very simply on a Monday morning when you get back to your places where you live and love. Go for a walk. Think about what you care about. Think about who else cares about it too. Think about how you might gather and what you might build. The future isn't going to be made tidy for us. We're going to live through dark and dangerous times, and it won't be delivered for us as consumers. But it doesn't have to be done to us as subjects either. If we come together and build as citizens. So let's build. Thank you.

13:47That was John Alexander at TED Democracy Philadelphia in 2026. If you're curious about TED's curation, visit ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is a podcast from TED. This episode was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Taubner, and Tansika Sunglarnivong. Additional support from Daniela Ballarezzo, Christopher Faze-Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Banban Chang, Brian Green, and Lainey Lott. Learn more at podcasts.ted.com. I am Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet.

14:29Thanks for listening.

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16:12As she publishes her 20th book, Anne Lamott still finds writing just hard. I mean, the American way is that you should always know what you're doing. You've made a decision and you should stick with it. No writer that I've ever met or read knows what they're doing until they've done it. Best-selling author Anne Lamott. That's next time on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Subscribe or listen to the TED Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts.