Voters did not elect politicians to wave flags, attend banquets, or smile for cameras. Voters elected them to govern, legislate, and lead. However, in almost every modern democracy, the daily routines of top officials are flooded with ceremonial appearances, empty meetings, and choreographed symbolism that has little or nothing to do with actual decision-making. Instead of designing solutions, analyzing problems, or thinking about how to think, they spend an astonishing amount of time doing things that look like politics—but are, in fact, the opposite of politics.
In fact, this is not a marginal issue. It is not some harmless tradition tucked between real policy debates. No, this is the main routine. It is the system. Parties and media hollowed out politics and replaced it with stagecraft. Behind the slogans and security guards, meanwhile, you will search in vain for thinkers solving global problems. Instead, you will meet officials performing outdated rituals designed to signal importance, but producing nothing of substance.
The time-eaters: Lunches, dinners, banquets
Among the most absurd examples of political non-activity are the endless series of formal lunches, gala dinners, and ceremonial banquets that clutter the calendars of state officials. These events are often dressed in the language of diplomacy—”strengthening ties,” “honoring partnerships,” or “celebrating mutual respect”—but in practice, they are three-hour meals filled with small talk, photo ops, and toothless toasts. Leaders sign no agreements. They exchange no ideas. Consequently, no strategy is born.
But in reality, the time spent at these events could be used to conduct rigorous policy analysis, meet with experts, or confront complex domestic issues. But that does not happen. Because the role of these events is not to solve problems. It is to maintain appearances. Appearances of engagement, appearances of dignity. Appearances of productivity.
Foreign visits with no foreign policy
Closely related is the phenomenon of foreign state visits—hugely expensive, logistically overwhelming, and politically empty. Heads of state fly across continents to meet their counterparts. They land, wave, smile, dine, pose, and declare mutual understanding. Then they leave. In some cases, entire legislative calendars are delayed just to accommodate the scheduling of these symbolic journeys. Despite the scale and spectacle, the overwhelming majority of these visits produce no agreements, no commitments, no new cooperation.
To make matters worse, many of these visits are nothing more than obligatory reciprocations. “You visited us; now we must visit you.” This is not diplomacy. It is aristocratic theater in democratic clothing. If a visit generates no measurable policy impact, it is not statecraft—it is pageantry.
Ceremonial duties: Cutting ribbons, holding flags, giving medals
Within their own borders, politicians remain just as busy doing nothing. They are constantly invited to inaugurations, school openings, factory launches, and cultural events where organizers invite them purely for symbolic purposes. They cut ribbons at buildings they did not fund, open institutions they never visited during planning, and offer pre-written speeches that have been recycled a dozen times before.
These appearances are not driven by public demand. They are demanded by tradition, media choreography, or public relations departments. The speeches delivered at such events are rarely policy-focused. They are emotional, vague, and safely disconnected from real problems. Not surprisingly, no housing crisis, no labor reform, no healthcare system overhaul has ever emerged from a ribbon-cutting.
National day theater: The machinery of false unity
Then come the national holidays—days drenched in symbolism but dry in substance. Military parades, patriotic songs, staged reenactments, solemn speeches. Politicians deliver soaring lines about national greatness, about sacrifice, about destiny. They speak of “never forgetting,” “honoring the past,” and “uniting for the future.” And they promise change but enact nothing. They speak, but never reform. Nothing they do during these ceremonies changes the systems they govern.
It is an annual exercise in myth maintenance. And the more a country is in crisis, the louder the pageantry tends to be. Because when a government cannot fix reality, it often drowns it out with ritual.
Empty global summits and their echoes
Every year, politicians attend international summits that promise to address urgent problems. Climate change, poverty, inequality, war. They arrive with large entourages, stay in luxurious hotels, and read carefully prepared speeches in front of other equally disengaged leaders. The language is always the same: “We reaffirm,” “We recognize,” “We commit.” But almost nothing ever happens after the closing statement.
What they call dialogue is often a scripted performance. The handshakes are rehearsed. The press photos are pre-assigned. The joint declarations are watered down in advance to ensure no one is held accountable. There are no consequences for inaction. And the carbon footprint of such events often contradicts the climate language on the banners outside.
Behind these meetings lie entire bureaucracies whose job is to organize and promote meetings about meetings. Pre-summits, side panels, coordination forums, follow-up sessions. A dense web of performative bureaucracy that manufactures motion—but no progress.
The rotating faces of power without change
A common illusion in modern politics is that reshuffling personnel counts as reform. New ministers are appointed. In theory, cabinets are reshuffled. Portfolios are reassigned. Each change is presented as bold and decisive. But in reality, the faces change while the priorities remain stagnant. It is musical chairs without a new tune.
Frequently, leaders appoint ministers not to solve problems, but to reward loyalty or avoid conflict, or neutralize internal rivals. What should be a functional structure of expertise becomes a symbolic game of balance and compromise. Nobody is fired for failure. Few are promoted for merit. Most stay exactly where they are—or return a few years later, in a different chair.
Most politicians do not think
This is the central and most disturbing truth. Modern politicians rarely think. They do not spend their time reading complex theories, engaging with new scientific research, or reflecting on moral philosophy; they respond to headlines. And they react to polls. They memorize talking points written by advisors. Many do not even write their own speeches. Some do not even read them fully before speaking.
They do not think about how to think, they do not analyze why a model failed. They do not compare competing systems. Most do not understand even the basics of economics, psychology, or law beyond what is fed to them in bullet-point briefings.
They do not lead with thought. They manage perceptions.
What they should be doing instead of useless state ceremonials
A serious politician should be part philosopher, part engineer. They should be constantly studying new ways of understanding the world. And they should be challenging old assumptions, learning about complex systems, and asking how they govern society with fairness, precision, and adaptability.
They should spend their time meeting with experts—not only those who support them, but especially those who do not. They should be building theories. Not shallow ideologies, but real frameworks. They should think about how to construct better models of governance, they should study how law interacts with psychology, how economic incentives shape behavior, how infrastructure decisions affect the environment over decades.
They should be thinking about how to think.
Politicians: Working, not perfoming
Legislation is hard. Reform is painful. True leaders read boring reports, revise clauses, and face hard truths: reading boring reports, revising legal clauses, negotiating fine print, and owning unpopular decisions. It requires admitting error, confronting complexity, and resisting oversimplification.
Instead of doing that work, they stand on stages, unveil plaques, and pretend that presence equals contribution. But it does not. Presence means nothing if it produces nothing.
And while they pose for cameras, the world deteriorates.
Useless state ceremonials: As they pose, real power disappears
Corporations, financial institutions, and tech monopolies seize power while politicians dine and pose. It moves to corporations, which operate without elections, it moves to financial institutions, which set global policy behind closed doors. It moves to intelligence agencies, to unelected bureaucrats, and to private tech monopolies who shape the flow of information.
Because when those who are supposed to lead are too busy pretending to lead, others quietly step in and lead without permission.
The system rewards the hollow
Voters, parties, and media refuse to punish them for wasting time on ceremonial nonsense. In fact, parties often promote those who master this emptiness. The politician who delivers the most emotional speech is rewarded more than the one who reads the most policy briefs. The leader who shakes the most hands is trusted more than the one who thinks the hardest thoughts. The system rewards visibility, not competence.
And that is why the machinery grinds on—costly, flashy, empty, and safe.
Conclusion: We need thinking politicians, or none at all
We must stop pretending this is politics. A ribbon-cutting is not governance. A tweet is not strategy. A banquet is not a plan.
Politics must return to being a place of thought, theory, decision, and responsibility. We must elect people who use their brains, not just their calendar. People who think not only about laws, but about how laws are made. People who build systems, not slogans.
If a politician spends more time at ceremonies than in study, more time shaking hands than writing policy, more time looking busy than being effective—then they are not a leader. They are a distraction.
Let them go. Replace them with thinkers. Or watch the future be shaped by those who never asked for your vote.
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