Editors Note: This video and transcript is not an argument for a solution. It is an argument for examination. After fifty years inside the event and gathering economy, I’ve learned that the most dangerous moments are not the loud ones, but the ones that pass without being named. When behavior is repeated on a trusted stage and absorbed without challenge, the problem is no longer political. It is architectural.
This is a Socratic moment in the simplest sense. Not because it demands answers, but because it demands questions that make powerful rooms uncomfortable. Who owns the stage once it is given? When does neutrality become abdication? What does applause actually authorize? And what happens to truth when repetition replaces scrutiny? I am less interested here in telling organizers what to do than in insisting they recognize what they are already doing. Every convening teaches the room how power works. The only question is whether that lesson is intentional—or quietly surrendered.
Transcript of Video
From an event organizer’s perspective, what happened last week at the World Economic Forum was not primarily political, it was structural. One of the most prestigious stages in the world was borrowed and the event lost control of the room. The speaker was Donald Trump, but that’s not the point. This was not his venue.
It belonged to the organizers, the institution, and the people who entered that space expecting a serious convening. From that moment on the event was hijacked, not by protestors, not by logistics, by behavior and by what the room allowed to repeat. Every experienced organizer knows this moment. Public humiliation, mockery, and provocation don’t just offend, they reprogram the room. Meanness is contagious, and when lies are repeated on a trusted stage without consequence, repetition does the real damage. Familiarity replaces scrutiny, doubt turns inward. The event becomes an amplifier, and then came the moment that locked it in. The audience applauded. In an event, applause is not passive.
Applause is permission. It tells the room this behavior and these claims are rewarded here at that point, lies don’t need to persuade. They only need to be repeated. This is not new. History shows the same pattern over and over long before television or social media. Demagogues understood the power of rooms.
Oratory replaced evidence. Repetition replaced truth. Crowds enforced norms through applause, laughter, and silence. Institutions hesitated to intervene and called it neutrality. The outcome was always the same. Authority without accountability. That is why moderation matters. Moderators are not props. They are guardians of the room.
Their role is not to debate politics, but to protect the conditions of the convening. When repeated falsehoods and humiliation go unchallenged on an organizer run stage, silence becomes endorsement. The room learns that accuracy is optional, and dominance wins. You can feel the consequences immediately.
The room tightens. People stop leaning in, questions disappear. The rest of the program never fully recovers. That’s not ideology. That’s how gatherings work. Here is the distinction. Organizers must own. When a President behaves this way at a rally or from the White House, that’s politics. When it happens on an organizer, run stage responsibility shifts.
The legitimacy is borrowed. The trust is institutional. Neutrality becomes abdication. I say this as someone who has spent decades inside convenings and who serves on the board of the Stubblefield Institute, known for its civility awards, and its research on political dialogue. Civility in that work is not politeness.
It is infrastructure. It keeps systems open by protecting shared reality. Meanness, closes systems, repetition of lies, closes them faster. It trains behavior, it recruits through reward. Young people watching don’t see policy. They see a model of power with no consequences. So here is the lesson for organizers.
Once you convene people, neutrality is over. You are responsible not just for who you put on stage, but for what is allowed to repeat. What is applauded and what goes unchallenged. Every stage teaches the room how power works. The only question is whether your event protects truth and purpose or quietly gives them away.
