You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

I was a young person who was very inspired by seeing members of Congress walk across the literal aisle to work together on legislation to protect this country. But times changed. Things fade.

Everything fades. In today's talk, former senior U.S. national security official, Miles Taylor,

shares a personal account that raises a broader civic concern, the growing cost of dissent

in American public life. Drawing on his experiences living the consequences of

speaking openly, he says that the real threat to U.S. democracy isn't politicians or hardliners.

It's the two-thirds of Americans who don't speak up. And a quick heads-up, this talk contains

mature language. It's all coming up right after a short break. And now our TED Talk of the

day. Not long ago, I was giving my dog a walk. His name is Martini. That wasn't even a joke. My wife was out of town and I left my phone

inside so I could get away from the incessant buzzing and took him on a nice long walk. And I came

back inside and I had one of those moments where your stomach sinks because I looked at my phone

and I had a lot of missed calls. And my first

thought was, my wife is pissed about something. It's a lot of calls. But then I looked, and it wasn't

just a lot of calls, it was hundreds of phone calls. And numbers I didn't recognize, some of them unknown numbers,

and I decided to figure out what this was.

And I opened my phone, and I opened the voicemails

to see if these people had left messages.

What you're doing to President Trump is disgusting.

You're disgusting people. You're evil, and you're going to President Trump is disgusting. You're disgusting people.

You're evil and you're going to go down.

You, my friend, are a piece of shit.

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