Not necessarily. In U.S. politics the most important persons are always figure heads. Their prominence hides democratic and not so democratic mechanisms behind decision making or electing these figure heads.

The more troubling thing about the U.S. is, that the public demands qualities from their leaders which bear no meaningful predictive power on their leadership skills. At best, these politicians are a "costly signal" for the competency and reliability of the party behind that leader, whose members or employees are duing the actual work of governance.