This is what democracy looks like | Anthony D. Romero

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2017

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a quest to make sense of the political environment in the United States in 2017, lawyer and ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero turned to a surprising place -- a 14th-century fresco by Italian Renaissance master Ambrogio Lorenzetti. What could a 700-year-old painting possibly teach us about life today? Turns out, a lot. Romero explains all in a talk that's as striking as the painting itself.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features attorney and public interest advocate, Anthony D. Romero, recorded live at TED-2017.
0:18.9	Silicon Valley is obsessed with disruption.
0:22.8	But these days, the biggest disruptor didn't come out of Silicon Valley.
0:27.4	It came out of steel towns in Ohio, rural communities in Pennsylvania,
0:33.9	the Panhandle in Florida.
0:37.3	And this last U.S. presidential election was the mother of all disruptions.
0:43.2	Once again, politics is personal.
0:47.6	Millions of Americans became activists overnight, pouring into the streets in record
0:53.0	numbers, in record time.
0:56.5	The election has done to family holiday dinners,
0:59.4	what Uber's done through New York City taxi system.
1:03.4	Couples have broken up and marriages disrupted.
1:08.5	And the election is doing to my private life
1:10.4	what Amazon's doing to shopping malls.
1:12.6	These days, the ACLU is on the front lines 24-7.
1:17.6	And even if I manage to sneak away for a couple of miles on the treadmill,
1:22.6	any cardio benefit I get is instantly obliterated
1:26.6	when I read another presidential tweet on the headline scroll.
1:32.3	Even my secret pleasure of studying the Italian painters has been infected by politics.
1:41.0	Now, I study even stalk the old masters.
1:44.6	This is my desk with a postcard exhibition of some famous and obscure paintings,
1:50.1	mostly from the Italian Renaissance.
	...

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