Long before most people took Donald Trump’s first presidential run seriously, Simon Sinek offered one of the sharpest explanations of why it was working. In this 2016 clip from London Real, recorded during the Republican primaries, the author of Start With Why breaks the “Trump phenomenon” into three parts, and then turns the question back on the audience.
It’s a five-minute clip, but the ideas still apply to almost any election, and to plenty of workplaces too.
▶ Watch the full episode: Simon Sinek – Start With Why
1. A decade of marketing “anti”
Sinek’s first point is that the ground was prepared long before Trump arrived. For years, he says, opposition politics in the US was built around being against President Obama rather than for anything. “Insider” became a dirty word and “outsider” became a selling point, and fear was used as a tool for short-term gains.
The result, in his view, was predictable: “Congratulations, all the marketing worked.” Voters had been taught to want a consummate outsider, and one showed up.
2. We watch politics, we don’t listen to it
The second part is about the screen. Sinek points to the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debates, the first to be televised. People who heard them on the radio thought Nixon won; people who watched on television picked Kennedy, who looked calm while Nixon visibly sweated.
Today, Sinek argues, politics plays out on morning shows, press conferences, sound bites and YouTube. “We largely watch politics, we don’t really listen to it.” That rewards candidates who are good on camera. He contrasts this with Governor John Kasich, a moderate with a strong record and a reputation for working across party lines, who struggled on television and fell behind.
3. Popular for who he isn’t
Brian Rose quotes a line from an article Sinek had written: people don’t love who Trump is, they love who he’s not. Sinek agrees. After years of gridlock and low approval ratings, he says, Americans were sick of politicians of every party. Trump wasn’t one, and “it’s a vote against everyone else.”
The uncomfortable part: they’re a reflection of us
This is where the clip earns its title. Rather than blaming one candidate, Sinek asks whether politicians are simply a mirror held up to the people who elect them. Maybe we are the ones who are divisive, narcissistic and putting our own interests first, he suggests, and we see it in how we raise our kids and run our companies.
Brian connects this to a theme from other London Real conversations, including Dr Carl Hart on drug policy: bad policy often reflects the society that produces it. Sinek sums it up in one line: “A narcissistic population gets narcissistic politicians.”
He ends on business. The way many companies motivate people (hit the goal, get the bonus, underperform and you’re out) is, he says, a fear-based system. If we run our own organisations on fear, we shouldn’t be surprised when fear works in politics too.
What to take from it
You don’t have to share Sinek’s politics to find this useful. His three questions work for any leader: what have we been teaching people to want, what does the medium reward, and are we modelling the behaviour we complain about? That last one is pure Sinek: start with yourself.
Who is Simon Sinek?
Simon Sinek is a British-American author and speaker, best known for Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last. His TED talk on “the golden circle” is one of the most-watched talks of all time. A trained ethnographer, he has worked with companies, the US military and government agencies on how great leaders inspire action.
In his full London Real episode, recorded in 2016, he talks with Brian Rose about finding your why, leadership, and how great leaders inspire everyone to take action. You can also watch his London Real Success Secrets: Simon Sinek – Success Secrets.
See everything Simon Sinek has done with London Real on his guest page: Simon Sinek on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Simon Sinek – Why Donald Trump Is A Reflection Of Us
0:00 Brian Rose: I have to ask you about Donald Trump before we go, because you wrote an article about him and said some fascinating things about television. One of them was that “people watch TV, they don’t listen to it”. And you said people don’t love who Donald Trump is, they love who he’s not.
0:15 Simon Sinek: Correct. And Hillary Clinton should be worried.
0:18 Brian Rose: Would you briefly tell me your thoughts on the Trump phenomenon?
0:21 Simon Sinek: I’ll break down both of those things. The Republicans did a remarkable job for the past decade or so marketing anti-Obama. Mitch McConnell himself stood at a press conference and said the single purpose of the Republican party is to deny President Obama a win. So he basically said we’ve aligned an entire political party against someone, versus for the people. That’s really screwed up, right?
0:49 Simon Sinek: They made the whole concept of being an “insider” a dirty word, and being an “outsider” the most brilliant thing in the world, as if all outsiders are saviours. And they used fear as a tool for short-term gains. Well, congratulations, all the marketing worked. You now have a consummate outsider, the consummate anti-Obama, who is using fear to advance his personal, selfish gains. You let the genie out of the bag. Ten years of marketing laid the foundation for this. That’s number one.
1:15 Simon Sinek: Number two, we can’t neglect the power of the screen. Political historians often talk about the Nixon-Kennedy debates, the first televised presidential debates. Anyone who listened on the radio thought Nixon won, but everyone who watched on television gave the win to Kennedy. There was the famous bead of sweat rolling down Nixon’s face, versus Kennedy, who was dry and confident.
1:52 Simon Sinek: We don’t listen to presidential debates now. Politics isn’t played out on the radio, it’s played out on television: morning political shows, press conferences, sound bites, YouTube. We largely watch politics, we don’t really listen to it, and we don’t read it as much as we watch it. Nobody reads the transcript of a debate. You missed it or you watched it. And the people who are advancing are the most tele-friendly. They’re good-looking, they’re tall.
2:26 Simon Sinek: Governor Kasich is a moderate. He’s a fantastic governor with remarkable success, and an incredible reputation as a consensus builder across party lines. And yet he’s absolutely abysmal on television, and guess what? He’s way behind.
2:44 Simon Sinek: At the end of the day, Americans are completely sick of all politicians. We’ve had ineptitude for more than a decade. Approval ratings have been in the toilet for 15 years. We’ve seen nothing getting done. We see selfishness over selflessness, their own political priorities over doing good things for the country and for us.
3:06 Simon Sinek: So Donald Trump, as you said, isn’t popular for who he is. He’s popular for who he isn’t. He’s not a politician, and that’s it. It’s not a vote for Donald Trump, it’s a vote against everyone else. And they should all be ashamed of themselves, all of them, Republicans and Democrats.
3:22 Simon Sinek: Now there’s the other side of it, the question that must be raised: are our politicians a reflection of us? Are they a mirror held up to us? Should we be the first to throw stones, or should we accept that maybe we get the politicians we deserve? If we want them to change, maybe we should change ourselves.
3:47 Simon Sinek: Maybe we’re the ones who are divisive. Maybe we’re the ones who are narcissistic. Maybe we’re the ones putting our interests ahead of everybody else’s. If you look at the way we’re raising our kids and running our companies, I don’t know if we can say we’re better. So maybe instead of demanding that they change, we should demand that we change and take some accountability for our own actions. Maybe then we’ll get the politicians we deserve.
4:12 Brian Rose: That’s very well said, and it comes up a lot on the show. We’ve talked about drug policy. I’ve had Dr Carl Hart on here, who has a great TED Talk called “Let’s quit abusing drug users”. It always comes back to policy: you can say it’s wrong, but it’s a reflection of us, of our own desires and wants. It’s very complicated how that happens.
4:29 Simon Sinek: A narcissistic population gets narcissistic politicians.
4:41 Brian Rose: And why do we respond to that fear in Trump? It says so much about us.
4:45 Simon Sinek: Because we use it ourselves to get work out of people. It’s the predominant business philosophy of the day: hit the goal, get the bonus. Hit the goal, get the bonus. Underperform, you’re out. That is a fear-based, dopamine-based system.
