A former elected official recounts the true story of a small town that descended into anti-government chaos. This cautionary tale explores how to strengthen democracy by tuning in to local government. With humor and real-world examples, Dr. Pearson walks the audience through her step-by-step civic engagement model. In a time of political polarization and tribalism, this talk is a non-partisan primer on wielding the power of people to be good neighbors and good citizens.
Dr. Nancy Pearson is a local government evangelist. She came by this organically, after becoming deeply connected to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, through community organizing, serving on city council, and pursuing her PhD, where she conducted research on civic engagement with local government. Nancy believes becoming civically engaged can be empowering and sexy. She now splits her time between Portsmouth and Miami Beach. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
This is futile. If the government scraps climate change policies local activity is meaningless. If government bans abortions you can’t supply them locally. If government won’t supply vaccines you can’t make them locally. If government blocks trans care you can’t provide it locally. Local efforts can only worth within the restrictions of national government, they aren’t where democracy must start.
Hilarious. Another leftist talking about democracy and anti-government chaos when the left has inspired the likes of BLM and antifa. Polarization? Again, that’s the left. Climate change- another leftist hoax, all to gain power and control.
I’ll agree that, generally, the smaller the government the better and the more local the better, however there are functions of a restrained, larger government, such as national defense.
More importantly, I’d recommend she read the Constitution. The USA is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. But when you’re talking to your audience like they’re three year olds, you’ll get three year old intellects. That’s what the audience sounds like.
Sorry, but this is another example of TED preaching to their own left. Always a woman, always a propagandist of some sort. They’ve lost all creativity.
I’m not gonna lie. I found this video boring at the beginning because of my shallow mind. But I came back to it this afternoon and all of a sudden I’m in love with the content, the elaborator, the audience for their laughs, and you the viewer who came to the comment section. This is truly an awesome piece and I will send it to all my loved ones. This environment is part of our priorities and we just don’t accept it even though we know it to have an influence on our everyday lives. Not much needed to be said. We who are here and reading this are all smart and we do deserve the credit. It what do we do next? GET INVOLVED!!!!!!!!
Hey there- I’m the speaker and I wanted to clarify something. There were 900 people in the audience that day and I was extremely nervous. So, I misspoke one of my statistics and didn’t know it until I saw the video. It was actually the year 2000 when there was the largest number of democratic countries in the world, not 2020.
Excellent Nancy. So proud of you.