Josh Kornbluth wants you to think about Democracy. With an election less than a month away, that’s not exactly surprising.

But Kornbluth isn’t trying to get you to cast a ballot for “his guy,” and isn’t here to feed you platitudes about one vote making a difference. And that’s part of what makes Citizen Josh, his one man show wrapping up its short run at Arena Stage, so refreshing. Kornbluth is just chatting easily about his personal experiences with democracy, both the big-concept democracy, and more frequently, the way it translates into ordinary life for a man hoping for better equipment on his local playground, or getting accidentally mixed up with some aggressive PTA leaders. And lest you think Kornbluth is here to lecture, keep this in mind — the whole project, a one-man monologue he’s been touring the country with — is his attempt to finish up his college thesis, which he’s finally gotten around to doing 28 years after graduation.

Kornbluth is disarming and self-deprecating, which makes his points go down rather easily. Unlike many performers who command the stage themselves for 90 minutes, he’s not breaking into a sweat trying to wow us with his versatile range of characters, or charm us with overwhelming charisma. Kornbluth has a very everyman appeal that, while engaging, doesn’t feel showy. He’s a comfortable companion for the evening, even when walking us through pie charts of demographic data about our audience as sort of an instructional epilogue to the piece.