Portland Is Teaching Democracy With Carnival Games
Why No Kings / 50501 Portland’s Make America Fair shows that joy, play, and hands-on learning can bring more people into the movement.
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TL;DR
This Sunday, June 14, 50501 / No Kings Portland is throwing a civic fair called “Make America Fair” which includes games, prizes, food, teach-ins including a Lady Liberty version of the classic game Operation.
Decades of learning research say that people engage more, remember more, and come back more when learning is social, hands-on, and low-pressure and the biggest gains go to the people who knew the least when they walked in.
Those in Portland Oregon:
Laurelhurst Park 1 - 5pm, this Sunday.
A kid leans over a giant board painted to look like the Statue of Liberty. Tweezers in hand, tongue between teeth, trying to lift out a tiny piece before the buzzer screams:
It’s Operation. You played it as a kid.
Except this version is called Code Blue: Lady Liberty and while that kid is laughing, the entire family is learning the difference between what a city council controls and what a governor controls.
And nobody in that tent feels like they’re in a civics class!
Most people don’t skip activism because they don’t care:
We see the wild and crazy headlines. Many of us feel the dread. And then comes the internal questions: Who do I even call? What’s my role? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I show up and don’t know a soul?
Overwhelm is what authoritarianism counts on. They want us frozen in place, convinced the work belongs to someone more expert and knowing, than them.
A game takes a giant, abstract fear and shrinks it down to a small thing you can actually do.
“Understand local power” becomes match the problem to the person who can fix it. “Learn your rights” becomes toss the ring, hear the answer. “Know the warning signs” becomes spot the red flag on the bingo card.
Why play works and it’s not because it’s cute
There’s real science under this:
Motivation researchers have spent decades on a simple finding:
People stay engaged when they feel three things… that they have choices, that they’re getting better, and that they belong.
Autonomy, competence, relatedness.
I can pick my role.
I can learn this.
I’m not alone here.
A boring lecture rarely delivers all three to the audience, but a fair can deliver them in twenty minutes!
The civic-education nonprofit iCivics, founded by the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, built its entire model on this.
Let people do democracy, play the lawyer, the county supervisor, the candidate instead of just reading about it.
You learn courage by rehearsing courage.
You learn how power works by reaching out and touching it, even in a simplified, playful version first.
The most important finding for a movement like ours
Organizers and educators: Tape this finding to your wall:
When researchers tested a civic-engagement game called vMOBilize on college students, a study run through the Harvard Kennedy School and published in the Journal of Political Science Education players became measurably more likely to register to vote, follow the news, and engage politically.
But the effect wasn’t evenly spread…
The biggest gains went to the students who started out knowing the least and caring the least!
We don’t grow by preaching to people already showing up.
We grow by reaching the worried, the curious, the burned-out, the never-done-this-before.
A good game is built precisely for the person standing at the edge wondering if there’s room for them.
Joy can teach what a flyer never could
A flyer tells you what to do.
Games & learning through play let you practice it and practice is what sticks.
Researchers at Harvard’s Project Zero describe genuine learning-through-play as joyful, meaningful, hands-on, social, and iterative.
You try, you miss, you try again, no shame attached.
And no, this is not a kids-only formula… It’s how anyone learns something intimidating for the first time.
The Make America Fair will have incredible ways to practice just this:
A ring toss that’s a know-your-rights drill.
A matching game that’s a lesson in who holds which lever of power.
A scenario card that’s de-escalation training.
A spin-the-wheel that’s really your first practice call to an elected official.
And more!
Because of this, people will leave with a little more knowledge, a little more confidence, and one concrete thing they now know how to do.
Why joy is a strategy
Anger gets people off the couch once. It rarely gets them to come back.
What brings people back is belonging… laughter, music, neighbors, the memory of a good afternoon. Again, authoritarian politics works by making us all feel isolated, exhausted, and small. A park full of people teaching each other how democracy works does the exact opposite, and it does it in public.
A movement people actually enjoy returning to is a movement that’s still here next year.
What this looks like in practice
If you’re in Portland this Sunday: come to the fair. Bring a friend, your family, a skeptical relative. Play some games. Talk to the booth-tables. Leave with an action item!
If you organize anywhere else:
Use this! Don’t only plan rallies, plan entry points. Don’t only announce that democracy is in danger, give people something to do the moment they arrive. Turn a workshop into a game and watch who stays.
If you can’t be there at all: share this post. You don’t have to be an expert to belong here. Spreading awareness is incredibly helpful. You could be the reason this post lands in front of someone trying to find ideas for their next rally:
The most influential thing at Laurelhurst Park on Sunday won’t be a speech.
It’ll be a kid laughing at a buzzer and a grown-up beside them, quietly realizing that defending this country is something you can learn, that it can feel like community instead of homework, and that the first step was never as big as the fear made it look.
Sometimes the way forward starts with a game and sometimes that game teaches someone how to fight for the country they love.
What is one civic or activist concept you would turn into a game, and how would people play it? *Bonus points if you give it a clever name!
Further Reading & Sources
No Kings / 50501 Portland event details, volunteer sign-up, and how to support the fair: linktr.ee/Nokingsportland | PDX Make America Fair
iCivics civic learning through games: icivics.org
Harvard Kennedy School vMOBilize: Gamifying Civic Learning and Political Engagement (Young, Baum & Prettyman): hks.harvard.edu
Harvard Project Zero Pedagogy of Play / learning through play: pz.harvard.edu
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I love love love this!!!💙
Where can we get a sample of this game¿