Where are all the brilliant men and women of the US?

For many years now the United States has chugging along pretty well. Since, oh I'm not sure, I'm going to guess the 80's, after President Reason, things started going a little south. Hmmm... maybe even before then. But wait... hear me out.

I'll just start off with my main thought. Where are all the brilliant men and women of the United States? Where are all the heroes? And when I say heroes, I'm not talking about the kind of heroes that we have serving our armed forces, our local police, our fire departments. I'm talking about our great leaders. The brilliant men above men.

Where are our George Washingtons, our Abraham Lincolns, and our JFK's? Where are the leaders that are brilliant, valiant, cunning and witty? Where are the movers? The guys or gals that move us as a nation? That make us want to give everything we've got. The great motivators.

Why is it that our enemies have leaders that can move millions with just their words, yet our nation despises our leadership?

I know that somewhere in our country there are men and women with great minds. People with thoughts that could change the world. Yet, they hide. Or do they? I don't know. Do they feel like their thoughts don't count? Are they held down by the crappy bureaucracy that seems to plague every aspect of both out public and private sector.

I just want to know, what the fuck is going on and why doesn't anyone just get up and say, "damn it something needs to change", before our country goes the way of the great empires like Egypt and the Romans.