When Street Politics Replace Ideas

In the past decade, Indonesian politics has been showing a worrying trend towards abandoning ideas. This is not due to a lack of issues, but because power falls into the hands of figures who have grown in street politics where emotions and symbols replace discourse and strategy formulation. This street politics shapes a specific leadership style, where instead of explaining cause and effect, short, easy-to-digest statements appealing to feelings are used. Populism becomes not just a strategy but a language, which limits the capacity for argumentation and reliance on ideas, replacing them with emotions. This approach leads to a decline in the quality of democracy and politics, focused on perception rather than real actions. As a result, long-term planning is sacrificed for momentary gain, harming public welfare and hindering the development of politics as an arena for competing ideas.