Excerpt from a Simon Sinek talk arguing that politicians have become short-term and "finite-minded," mirroring trends in business. Sinek critiques single-issue politics and calls out a lack of distant, idealized, inspirational vision (citing Reagan and Kennedy as examples of vision-driven rhetoric).
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The trend towards finite mindedness in business over the past 30, 40 years, you can show the exact same correlation in politics.
Where politics and politicians have become more short term focused and more finite minded as well. And just like in businesses, we've become more focused on the product rather than the vision. So too have politicians become more focused on a single issue or a single idea more rather than the context within which that idea exists.
It's not that those ideas are right or wrong or good or bad. My question is, to what end, like what vision does that idea serve? Because the ideas that they propose are strategies. The strategies to get towards something. Get towards what? And what's missing from all of our politicians? And this is not a Republican or Democrat thing, this has been for years. What's missing from all of our politicians is distant, idealized, sort of inspirational vision. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you could have listened to Ronald Reagan's inaugural address, or you could have listened to John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and they both talked about world peace, peace on earth. Like even saying those words now sounds ridiculous. But that's a wonderful thing to talk about. The dream. I have a dream of a distant future, that we should commit ourselves to work towards one slow step at a time.
And I think what's missing from all of them is they're hoping to garner favor by people who like the one idea because it resonates with me. And they're trying to pick the idea that resonates with the most people so they can get elected. And it's not that the ideas are right or wrong, but I want to know to what end, what's the bigger vision?
