Literary Discussions

I thought it was obvious that I meant a politician of the CALIBER of an Einstein or a Galileo , not Einstein or Galileo for president, but I guess I did not make that sufficiently clear. But in your reply are you not in a way CONFIRMING my observation that no single individual, however gifted, can be expected to turn things around in a brief 4 or 8 year term in office. And yet many people speak AS IF it were reasonable to expect that the right person in office would make all the difference and we have our many problems because of the current person in office.  Obviously, each century, a Picasso or a Mozart or a Babe Ruth comes along who is uniquely gifted to excel in some particular field of endeavor.  Certainly shear intelligence in a president is not going to make a difference. First of all, the president must have the support of congress, senate, and they seem to revel in partisan division.  I suspect that whatever the dynamics are that cause the problems for America and the world, it is not something that one individual or one Corporation or league of nations can fathom much less control.  Perhaps one problem is that we assign too much value to MERE WORDS, spin and rhetoric, personality, charisma, outward appearance.  Politics is like a popular sitcom which eventually loses popularity and fades into reruns.  Obviously there must been some set of causes which made Rome crumble but the greatest minds of that era could not see it. Whether a Gibbon or a Zinn can clearly see those causes in retrospect but even that is subjective opinion and subject to debate.  I recently read that the heavy burden of reparations placed upon Germany which made the climate in Germany ripe for someone like Hitler to seize power and such a theory sounds very plausible. BUT if some political Picasso or Mozart had been a prophetic Cassandra and WARNED the world, would they have listened and said "Oh my, that genius is right, someone like Hitler WILL come into power."  No, of course they would not! No one could really envision something like Nazi Germany or WWII or even a world war prior to The Great War (only called WWI after WWII came along.)