The reason our national affairs are so verpfuscht is, we’ve been electing human beings to the Presidency. Time for a different tack: Why not try electing a number? Since we all want change, let’s elect an irrational number, so the decimal digits never repeat. And since we are so fond of Transcendentalist rhetoric, may as well make it a transcendental number**.

Let the π-maries begin!

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** A term of art in math. The transcendental numbers are a subset of the irrational numbers. An irrational number is a number that is not the solution of any linear equation A + Bx = 0, for whole numbers A and B. A transcendental number is not the solution of any algebraic equation A + Bx + Cx2 + Dx3 + Ex4 + … = 0. (The number of terms on that left-hand side is understood to be finite, and all the As, Bs, etc. are understood to be whole numbers.) √2 is irrational, but it is not transcendental, since it is a solution of 2 – x2= 0. π, however, is transcendental. A theorem in standard set theory declares that practically all numbers are transcendental; so if you don’t like π’s positions on the issues, you have lots of other candidates to choose from. Lots.