You say that there are very simple ways to citizen,
like three or four ways to citizen.
Can you give them to me in a nutshell
so that I can then maybe do one of them
but not all three or four?
They're conceptual, and I speak in we a lot
when I talk about this issue.
I say, "We thought about this and we."
My wife is my partner in architecting
how we approach the subject.
Oh wait, so you and your wife agree on things?
(laughing) Let's talk about that.
Let's switch chairs, let's switch chairs.
Can I talk to you for seven hours, please?
We could absolutely do that.
We'll make time, Conan.
So yeah, we wanted to make sure
that we weren't just making stuff up.
It can't be just, turn on the microphone
and just tell people things.
And so it's like, what do we believe that this word
should mean if we interpret citizen as a verb?
Four things, it means we show up and participate.
Show up, yep. As an active thing.
So just show up, do something, get in the game.
Second, it means we recognize
that we are dependent on others, that we need each other
so we invest in relationships with other people.
You can't citizen alone.
I remember when the US
had this motto for the Army, army of one.
That didn't make a lot of sense to me
'cause that not an Army, that's a dude with a gun.
And also no one's afraid of an army of one.
No, that's just, oh, that's Jerry, you know?
All right, you've asked for it, we're sending Jerry in.
Yeah, no one's intimidated by Jerry
so we need other people so let's work on that,
invest in other people and our relationships.
The third is really important is understanding our power.
And I think so many times our power as citizens
gets reduced to voting.
It's like, you have amazing power
as citizens in a democracy.
Your power is to give that power to someone else.
Right. Every two or four years
and hope they do a good job.
Maybe harass them by faxing them
every now and then with your demands.
We can spend our money in certain ways.
We associate with people or not.
We share certain ideas or not.
We gather physically in protest or celebration.
That's all forms of power
so we need to understand that power.
That's the third, and the last is, we do all this
for the benefit of the many, not just the few.
And our first guest in the first season,
a brilliant woman named Valarie Kaur wrote this book
called "See no Stranger."
And the idea was a stranger is a part of me
I do not yet know so let me treat everybody
as a part of myself.
Let me love myself, let me love others,
let me even love my opponents and through that act of love,
not the sentimental kind, but a deeper civic kind of love
we can move this whole thing forward.
So if everybody is connected, if we're all in this together
then when we do things for the many,
socialist-leaning things like public roads
or hospitals or education or healthcare,
then we're doing it for ourselves, too.
I love that, that a stranger
is the part of me I don't know.
I absolutely love that.
Valarie Kaur said it, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it can be misused.
Everything can. If you're sitting too close
to someone on a bus. (laughs) Everything.
That's what I'm gonna use from now on when women are like,
"Hey, back off, pal!"
You're the part of me I don't know.
(laughs) That is fantastic.
Thank you so much for stopping in, seriously.
Thank you for having me. This has been fantastic.
Beautiful, it's chill, yeah man.
Yeah, this is about as, I'm highly medicated. (laughs)
Thank you for being here
and classing up the joint a little bit.
Season two of "How to Citizen" with Baratunde
is now available on all podcast platforms.
And it's a rare thing, it's a podcast doing some good,
something I'm clearly not in favor of. (laughs)
(laughs) And if folks want to learn more
they can go to the website.
We have howtocitizen.com, we're rolling out more features
as a podcast, but we're also, I think we really believe
in helping people through this 'cause I know
from personal experience, I wanted to do more.
[Conan] Yeah.
There's so many people.
I mean, scientists were marching, Conan.
Like, people want to do stuff.
People are popping up refrigerators
to feed people in their communities.
What else can we do?
So we're asking and trying
to answer that question with the people.