Could there have ever been a real life Forrest Gump/Chance the Gardener?

The film (and book) Forrest Gump is about a moron who becomes a powerful political figure by pretty much accidentally influencing many of the key events of the 20th century.

The film (and book) Being There is about a simple man, Chance the Gardener, who becomes a powerful political figure by obliviously making statements that the public thinks are wise.

Could there ever have been a real life equivalent to Forrest Gump or Chance the Gardener?

The question was inspired by the many comparisons of our current U.S. President to Chance (which I quite disagree with).
 
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Honestly, lots of recent Presidents could fit the description of "idiot who rose to massive power through circumstance.", depending on your political affiliation. Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Trump...All have been characterized as pretty dopey.
 
Honestly, lots of recent Presidents could fit the description of "idiot who rose to massive power through circumstance.", depending on your political affiliation. Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Trump...All have been characterized as pretty dopey.

To be fair, Reagan had serious health issues. Including Alzheimer's.
 
Roger Ebert argued that Being There is not actually anti-television, but pro-television, in that it makes the point(albeit with hyperbole) that a person of limited intelligence can learn to function in modern society largely by copying what he sees on TV.

Apart from all that, no, Being There is totally unrealistic about how far someone like Chance could get in life. Ronald Reagan, the classic example of a not-too-bright guy making it to the top, didn't impress people by going around making simple-minded comments about everyday topics that his audiences interpreted as poetic tropes in order to save face. He got to the top by having top-notch speechwriters who were consciously crafting poetic tropes for him.

And it is shown during the funeral scene in Being There(and maybe the novel, can't recall) that the ruling elite of the USA(who are apparently few enough in number to all be carrying the old tycoon's coffin) are willing to put Chance up for president, even though no one knows a single fact about his life prior to a few days earlier. There is no way, then or especially now, that that degree of opacity would be permitted for someone entering public life. A guy with that huge a gap in his biography would be the subject of all kinds of speculation, and a sitting duck for the negative-campaign rumour mill.

And, I agree, Trump is not Chance. He's got an oversimplified view of how the world works, and a highly impulsive approach to expressing himself, but he's still more-of-less attached to reality.
 
A defining point not mentioned much, is in the last scene of the movie of Being There is Chance walking across a small lake on the water. Part way through he thrusts his umbrella into the water which goes in deep, but he does not sink. Pretty much says it is a fable.
 
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