Most hierarchies are nowadays so cumbered with rules and traditions, and so bound in by public laws, that even high employees do not have to lead anyone anywhere, in the sense of pointing out the direction and setting the pace. They simply follow precedents, obey regulations, and move at the head of the crowd. Such employees lead only in the sense that the curved wooden figurehead leads the ship.
She [ Elizabeth II] is, you know, "Do-what-you're-told, Lady". But in the Commonwealth, she is much more than just a figurehead.
I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I'd go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn't want it.
Donald Trump as a figurehead is the opposite of that - he's regression, he's taking a step backward.
Those who imagine that a politician would make a better figurehead than a hereditary monarch might perhaps make the acquaintance of more politicians.
There's a stupid trend in American politics right now with people who have no experience with politics and no grasp of public service as a profession just deciding that they're going to jump into it. The obvious figurehead of this whole "I am an idiot, therefore I can be a politician" is Donald Trump. People think that ignorance of a profession is somehow qualifying for that profession. It's utterly baffling.
The Doors were successful. It was Jim Morrison as the centre and the figure and the spokesman, the figurehead, but we were all into the same thing. That's why we were a band.
