Politics & Power Quote by Colin Powell

Powell is doing the rare thing in party politics: insisting on substance without sounding sanctimonious. The opening cadence, "You can't just... you can't just..". is a controlled reprimand, the kind a career military man delivers when he thinks an organization is confusing morale for mission. He frames slogans as a failure of governance, not merely a failure of messaging, and that distinction matters. In the post-Obama, post-financial-crisis moment when the Tea Party was ascendant, the movement excelled at outrage, symbolism, and purity tests. Powell is saying: that energy is politically valuable, but it becomes electorally toxic if it never graduates into a workable program.

The subtext is also an indictment of a certain kind of conservative performance politics: branding as identity, talking points as belonging. By demanding an "agenda" people can "see, touch", he’s arguing that politics has to return to deliverables, policies with friction and trade-offs, not just an emotional posture. The sensory verbs are deliberate; they turn "agenda" from a think-tank abstraction into something tactile, almost consumer-facing, as if voters should be able to inspect it like a product before buying.

Powell’s final repetition, "believe in... believe in", lands as both warning and plea. He’s not just asking for a platform; he’s asking for credibility. And he’s implicitly reminding Republicans that absorbing a movement isn’t the same as appeasing it: incorporation requires translation into governing terms, or else the party becomes a megaphone for grievance rather than a vehicle for power.