Leadership Quote by Barbara Jordan

Barbara Jordan’s line lands like a gavel because it refuses the cozy grammar of politics. “Slogans and handshakes and press releases” is a neatly curated museum of the performative: the chant, the photo-op, the prepackaged statement. She stacks them in a plain list, no ornament, to make them sound small. Then she repeats the judgment - “More is required. More is required.” The doubling isn’t decoration; it’s a pressure tactic, a way of denying the listener an exit ramp into vague agreement. You can’t nod along and move on. You’re being summoned.

The intent is corrective and disciplinary. Jordan isn’t asking for better branding; she’s demanding a higher standard of public stewardship, one that treats office as obligation rather than celebrity. “We must hold ourselves strictly accountable” is the key subtext: the “we” is both inclusive and accusatory. It signals solidarity with democratic ideals while quietly indicting a political culture that too often audits everyone except itself. “Strictly” matters, too - she’s rejecting the soft accountability of apologies, commissions, and carefully worded regret.

Context amplifies the force. Jordan’s public life ran through the crisis years of post-Watergate legitimacy, when Americans were learning how thin the membrane is between democratic theater and democratic rot. Her rhetorical move is to shift politics from spectacle to standards, from personality to duty. The final phrase - “a vision of the future” - isn’t airy inspiration; it’s a demand for governance with direction, proof that leadership is more than surviving the news cycle.