List of fictional United States presidencies of historical figures (E–G)

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Lists of fictional Presidents of the United States
A – B C – D E – F
G – H I – J K – M
N – R S – T U – Z
Unnamed fictional presidents
Fictional presidencies of
historical figures
A - B C - D E - G
H - J K - L M - O
P - R S - U V - Z
Candidates
Vice Presidents

The following is a list of real or historical people who have been portrayed as President of the United States in fiction, although they did not hold the office in real life. This is done either as an alternate history scenario, or occasionally for humorous purposes. Also included are actual US Presidents with a fictional presidency at a different time and/or under different circumstances than the one in actual history.

Contents

E

Thomas Edison

David Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Joycelyn Elders

  • In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season One episode "Luck of the Draw", Joycelyn Elders was President in 1995. In this universe as in real life, the 18th-century English economist Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus published his highly influential An Essay on the Principle of Population which warned that humanity would be condemned to misery and poverty because the rate of population growth would increase faster than the rate of food supply. Taking Malthus' theory seriously, the inhabitants of this version of Earth managed to keep the world population down to 500,000,000. San Francisco had a population of less than 100,000 people, giving it the feel of a small city rather than a major metropolis. The population was maintained at this low level through heavy emphasis on birth control (provided in the form of soft drinks) and the Lottery system. The Lottery itself worked like an ATM except that people asked for money from it. The more money a person asked for, the higher the chance that he/she would be chosen to participate in a euthanasia program which rewarded the beneficiaries of those who chose to "make way". Pro-life movements swept across the United States to fight the Lottery. While the manner of death was humane, protesters believed that population could be controlled through other means. President Elders did not agree with this assessment and the Lottery system continued unabated as of 1996.

F

Geraldine Ferraro

  • In the short story "Bloody Bunnies" by Bradley Denton contained in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Denton of an alternate timeline finds himself trapped in our universe. It is implied that he became a kind of walk-in spirit, his consciousness entering the body of his counterpart after his original body died in a car accident. Denton refers to former President Geraldine Ferraro several times. One of her many accomplishments was "the Universal Health Care and Child-Proof Trigger Lock Initiative."

Millard Fillmore

  • In the short story "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, General Zachary Taylor was elected as the 12th President in 1848 with Millard Fillmore as his running mate, as happened in real life. Shortly after taking office, however, both he and President Taylor were killed in a carriage accident. Taylor was succeeded by David Rice Atchison, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate and a prominent pro-slavery activist, who became the 13th President. Several months after President Atchison's accession, the American Civil War broke out on April 17, 1849 with the secession of Massachusetts from the Union and the Second Battle of Lexington and Concord, from which the rebelling abolitionists, who styled themselves as the New Minutemen, emerged victorious. New Hampshire and Vermont seceded shortly thereafter and were soon followed by the rest of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The seceding states banded together to form the New England Confederacy with Daniel Webster as its first and only President and the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown as the commander of its army. The war came to an end in 1855, two years after President Atchison had issued a proclamation promising that any slave who fought in the United States Army would be granted his freedom following the end of the war and that any factory slave who worked satisfactorily would be granted his or her freedom after the war and would be paid for that work from then onwards.
  • In the short story "Now Falls the Cold, Cold Night" by Jack L. Chalker contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Millard Fillmore was elected the Know Nothing Party candidate in 1856, defeating the Democratic candidate James Buchanan and the Republican candidate John C. Frémont. He therefore became the 15th President, having previously served as the 13th President from 1850 to 1853 as a member of the Whig Party. This resulted in ethnic tensions in New England over the fugitive slave laws. His vice president was Andrew Jackson Donelson, the namesake nephew of former President Andrew Jackson.

Gerald Ford

  • In one of the timelines featured in the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood, Gerald Ford was defeated by Ronald Reagan, the former Governor of California, in the Republican Party's presidential primaries in 1976. Reagan went on to defeat his Democratic opponent Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, taking office as the 39th President on January 20, 1977. In November 1979, President Reagan went to war with Iran over the hostage crisis.
  • In the alternate history short story "Demarche to Iran" by Alexis A. Gilliland contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Gerald Ford defeated his Democratic opponent Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election after he gave former president Richard Nixon a specific, rather than general, pardon, thus keeping his popularity high enough that he reelected president. Illinois shifted from Democrat to Republican after the second recount is also a result of Ford's victory. His vice president was Bob Dole. As he had served more than two years of his predecessor Richard Nixon's second term, he was not eligible to run for re-election in the 1980 presidential election. On November 4, 1979, militant Iranian students who supported the Iranian Revolution took 63 American citizens hostage after seizing control of the US Embassy in Tehran. Although his Chief of Staff Dick Cheney suggested seizing Iranian bank accounts, Ford was convinced by his masseur to present the Iranian ambassador, Doctor Mehdi Haeri Yazdi, with a démarche threatening to sever diplomatic relations with Iran if the hostages were not returned within three days. He did so over the initial objections of two key members of his cabinet. Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, was concerned that war with Iran would result if the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ignored the démarche and the negative impact that this would have on Soviet Union–United States relations. He also reminded the President that, in spite of the Ayatollah, Iran was a friendly nation as well as the United States’ only bulwark against the USSR in the Persian Gulf. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, believed that a war would cost the Republicans the 1980 election. As Kissinger predicted, the Ayatollah initially ignored the démarche. As he explained to President Abolhassan Banisadr and General Mohammed Suliman, he was willing to accept the possibility of war with the United States as he believed that the Americans would eventually lose heart or a new president would be elected. During a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, the President failed to remember that Iran was not a naval power and instead referred to nuclear weapons. This remark was interpreted by the American media, the Iranian authorities and the rest of the world as Ford voicing his intention to use such weapons on Iran if the hostages were not returned by the expiration of the démarche. Within hours, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China issued strong diplomatic protests over the comment. It also resulted in one million people protesting at a demonstration in London, one and a half people protesting at a similar demonstration in Tokyo and the US embassies in Pakistan, Syria and Iran being burned. The Ayatollah did not take this threat seriously and instructed the newly appointed Minister of the Interior Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to appear on live television in front of the US Embassy and tell the Iranian people that they would stand resolute in the face of American provocation. However, Rafsanjani was attacked by protestors fearful of a nuclear strike and was strangled with his own turban. His death was televised and shown all over the world. This incident convinced the Ayatollah Khomeini to back down and order the students to release the hostages. Although all 63 hostages were released unharmed only four days after they were captured, Ford was severely criticised for threatening to use nuclear weapon on a non-nuclear, friendly nation, a costly mistake which permanently alienated Iran from the United States’ cause. It was regarded as being as serious a failure for American diplomacy as the Vietnam War had been for American arms. The incident came to be seen as "the most serious of many blunders committed by President Ford during his term of office."

Harrison Ford

  • Portrayed as the president in an episode in VIP
  • Referred to as a former president in the film Scary Movie 3 when current president Baxter Harris "[wonders] what President Harrison Ford would have done". The audience is led to believe he's referring to actual president Gerald Ford, but the portrait shows Harrison Ford's image, possibly a reference to the 1997 film Air Force One.

Michael J. Fox

  • Michael J. Fox is mentioned as being a former president in the 1989 video game Mean Streets. In real life, Michael J. Fox is ineligible for the presidency, as he was born in Canada.

Al Franken

  • President in Why Not Me?, a satirical novel by Al Franken himself. He was elected as the 43rd President in 2000, running as a dark horse candidate on a platform of eliminating ATM fees. He is eventually given the Democratic nomination over the incumbent vice president and early favourite Al Gore due in a rise in support when the Y2K bug solely effects ATMs. He was the first Jewish President and won in a landslide. Franken's running mate was Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, making the Franken-Lieberman ticket the first all-Jewish presidential ticket since Reconstruction. President Franken suffered from severe depression and mood swings. For instance, he attacked Nelson Mandela and appointed Sandy Koufax as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. President Franken resigned after 144 days in office on June 10, 2001. In his resignation speech, he said: "It is my fondest wish that, in the fullness of time, the American people will look back on the Franken presidency as something of a mixed bag and not as a complete disaster." Lieberman succeeded him as the 44th President, going on to serve a total of eighteen years in office. In stark contrast to Franken, President Lieberman was widely considered to be one of the greatest Presidents in US history. In real life, Franken is the current junior United States Senator from Minnesota, having defeated the Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman in 2008. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. Furthermore, the novel, which was written in 1999, correctly predicted that Lieberman would be the Democratic vice presidential nominee in the 2000 election, though with Gore rather than Franken as the presidential candidate.

Benjamin Franklin

  • Listed as a former President in the Doctor Who audio play Seasons of Fear. It is unclear whether this refers to him being President in the original Doctor Who timeline or one of the fictional ones implied by the time corruption depicted in this story.
  • In the short story "The Father of His Country" by Jody Lynn Nye contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Benjamin Franklin was elected as the first President of the United States by the 1st United States Congress on April 6, 1789, defeating his sole opponent George Washington and achieving a clear mandate to govern in the process. In spite of the fact that Franklin was 83 years old and was rumoured to have fathered numerous illegitimate children while serving as ambassador to France from 1778 to 1785, he ultimately won the election in part due to reservations voiced by prominent members of Congress such as John Hancock and Charles Thomson regarding Washington. They were concerned that it would set a bad precedent for the first President to be a general. Furthermore, Franklin's supporters stressed that he was well liked and respected by foreign heads of state friendly to the United States, had been prominent in matters of diplomacy and government at home and abroad and had already proven that he had the best interests of the nation at heart. When he was offered the presidency after his election, Franklin emulated the fictionalised Julius Caesar's stance in the Shakespearean tragedy of the same name who denied the crown of Rome three times in Act 1, Scene 2 of the play. Consequently, he only accepted the position on being offered it for the fourth time. He was inaugurated in Federal Hall in New York City on April 30, 1789. His vice president was John Adams who had supported Washington in Congress, as had his second cousin Samuel Adams. During his tenure in office, President Franklin attempted to create a more democratic society and managed to live longer than he did in real life. Shortly after taking office, he began to insist on organizing the government as if it were a business. In a letter to his wife Abigail Adams, Vice President Adams was scornful of the idea that a government "could run with the same despatch and efficiency as a printshop." However, the notion proved to be extremely popular with the citizenry as President Franklin was often surrounded by his supporters, friends and former subscribers while walking through the streets of Philadelphia. Adams believed that his role as President of the Senate would mean that the vice presidency would soon eclipse the presidency in importance and prestige. In September 1789, President Franklin made a speech decrying ambition and avarice as the two principal sins besetting the United States. The speech, which was published in the Philadelphia Gazette, was popular with Quakers, small merchants and farmers but less so with the landowners and aristocrats who made up the Congress. Congress also moved to insist that Franklin limit his writings to only the most serious of topics so as not to adversely affect the dignity of his office. Although he outwardly complied, Adams was aware that he continued to write his satires and hoaxes, which he published under various pseudonyms. One of these was a playful satire regarding Great Britain's position on trade with the United States which was attributed to a "Mr. Newly." On being confronted by Adams about the piece, Franklin did not admit or deny writing it but "his eyes twinkled with mischief." Losing patience with the elderly president, Adams told him that he must accede to Congress' request to cease from publishing such ephemera as the United States had gained the upper hand in its trade negotiations with Britain and did not want it to be ruined by a trivial matter. To Adams' annoyance, the Newly piece had become very popular with the general public and encouraged them to support the trade negotiations. While this proved advantageous to the government in the short-term, Adams confided in his wife that could also serve to set a precedent which he and his colleagues sought to avoid, namely allowing the public control of their government. In defiance of Congress' numerous requests, Franklin continued to publish articles using pseudonyms. In one commentary published in March 1791, the President stated that a trade agreement with Britain should be reached with great alacrity. Furthermore, Franklin attempted to manipulate the public through these articles by voicing the opinion that proposed bills should be presented to the public before being presented to Congress. This led to Adams being accosted by a tavern owner who objected to the new duty on rum. Adams was concerned that, if this trend continued, he and his fellow politicians would be forced to the indignity of consulting their constituents before voting in Congress, which he regarded as an absurd notion which would delay the workings of government. In a letter dated April 29, 1792, Adams confided in his wife Abigail that he regarded Franklin as "a meddlesome old man" and was privately relieved that his advanced age meant that he was coming to the end of his life. When that day came, Adams stated that he and his colleagues would be able to get on with the business of government unhindered.

G

Albert Gallatin

James A. Garfield

  • In the alternate history novel series Southern Victory book How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, James Garfield was a Republican senator who represented Ohio in 1882. He had been an officer in the Union Army during the War of Secession (1861–1862) and had served on a number of courts-martial. He rose to prominence by purging the Army of defeatists after the war. In 1882, Garfield was one of several prominent Republican leaders to attend a convention called by former President Abraham Lincoln in Chicago. He resisted Lincoln's proposal to replace hostility toward the Confederate States of America with workers' rights as the central plank of the party's platform, going so far as to suggest that following Lincoln's plan would cause the Republican party to split into three factions. The meeting ended with Garfield and every other delegate walking out, leaving Lincoln alone.
  • In the short story I Shall Have a Fight to Glory by Michael P. Kube-McDowell contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, James Garfield loses the 1880 election to Samuel J. Tilden after Tilden uses underhanded tactics to win the election. However, Garfield gets help from Charles J. Guiteau (his assassin in real history) and they assassinate Tilden before he can be inaugurated as the 20th president.

John Nance Garner

  • In the alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, John Nance Garner was elected as vice president in 1932 as the running mate of Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, Garner himself was inaugurated as the 32nd President on March 4, 1933 as a result of President-elect Roosevelt's assassination by Giuseppe Zangara on February 15, 1933. He was re-elected in 1936, but failed to combat the Great Depression and the United States remained strongly isolationist. He was succeeded in the 1940 election by the Republican John W. Bricker, who also failed to confront the economic and foreign policy issues. As a result of their combined presidencies, the Axis powers won World War II and invaded and conquered the United States in 1948.
  • A similar role is assigned to Garner in the history of another Nazi-victorious timeline, the unpleasant GURPS timeline known as Reich-5. In this timeline, too, Zangara succeeded in assassinating Roosevelt, John Nance Garner became President and was unable to handle the Great Depression - followed on this timeline by the equally unsuccessful Charles Lindbergh and Henry Wallace and finally leading to the far-right William Dudley Pelley become President following Lindbergh's assassination and getting elected to a full in 1944, assuming dictatorial powers, and inviting the Nazis to conquer the US to help him against the pro-democracy resistance - ending with a Nazi-dominated world even worse than the one envisioned by Philip K. Dick.
  • In the Elseworlds one-shot comic book Superman: War of the Worlds, Vice President Garner became the 33rd President in the aftermath of the Martian invasion of 1938, in which Franklin D. Roosevelt was killed. Lex Luthor was his vice president.
  • In the alternate history short story "Joe Steele" by Harry Turtledove, John Nance Garner was elected vice president in 1932 as the running mate of Congressman Joe Steele of Fresno, who defeated the extremely unpopular Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover to become the 32nd President. In the years that followed, President Steele slowly but surely built up the powers of his office until he was effectively the dictator of the United States. Steele was ultimately elected to six terms from 1932 to 1952. Observing the ruthless manner in which Steele dispatched his enemies, both real and imagined, Garner kept his head down and consequently remained his vice president for 20 years. After Steele died six weeks into his sixth term on March 5, 1953, the 84-year-old Garner briefly succeeded him as the 33rd President. However, he was almost immediately overthrown and executed by J. Edgar Hoover, who proved to be even more tyrannical than Steele.

Edmond-Charles Genêt

John Glenn

  • In the 1999 short story "Hillary Orbits Venus" by Pamela Sargent, John Glenn was elected President in 1976 and 1980. His two immediate successors were Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. By 1998, he and Dole were the only living former Presidents.

Barry Goldwater

  • In the short story "Fellow Americans" by Eileen Gunn in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Barry Goldwater defeated the early favourite and incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 election to become the 37th President. He was subsequently re-elected in 1968. His vice president was William E. Miller. During his term in office, President Goldwater ordered that nuclear weapons be deployed against North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. By 1990, tactical nuclear weapons were frequently used in the troubled parts of the world, including the Middle East. This led to a high level of genetic mutation among children in the relevant areas as well as mutations in certain species of animals such as rats. There was also speculation that the ongoing AIDS epidemic could be attributed to the significant nuclear fallout over the previous two decades. Having been re-elected in 1968, Goldwater left office after serving two full terms on January 20, 1973. He retired to the Arizona desert where he resided with his wife Peggy until her death in 1985. In the interest of raising contributions for the Barry Goldwater Presidential Museum, Goldwater put his distaste for television aside and agreed to be interviewed by the highly respected PBS political commentator Geraldo Riviera, who questioned him on his use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, on Geraldo's Manifest Destinies. As Goldwater had never liked nor trusted his fellow Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, he was pleased that Dwight D. Eisenhower's former vice president had retired from politics in the early 1960s and had therefore never acceded to the nation's highest office. Nixon subsequently parlayed his electoral defeat into television success and was given a late-night talk show entitled Tricky Dick (referring to his famous political nickname) on NBC in 1970. Much to Goldwater's annoyance, the series garnered high ratings from its inception and, by 1990, was still as popular as ever despite being on its twentieth season. He believed that it was time for the 77-year-old Nixon to retire from television as well as politics. Upon reading in The Washington Post that Robert F. Kennedy, the Governor of New York, was considering seeking the Democratic presidential nomination for the 1992 election, Goldwater considered it highly unlikely as he had never actively sought the nomination previously. However, after a failed assassination attempt at the 1990 New York World's Fair, Governor Kennedy informed his wife Ethel Kennedy that he was going to announce in January 1991 that he was indeed planning to run.
  • In Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's alternate history novel Back in the USSA, Barry Goldwater is president of the United Socialist States of America (USSA), succeeding Al Capone. Goldwater serves as a parallel to Nikita Khrushchev, and is succeeded by Richard Nixon (Leonid Brezhnev).

Al Gore

Ulysses S. Grant

  • In the alternate history short story "We are Not Amused" by Laura Resnick contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Ulysses Grant was precluded from running for re-election in 1872 due to a new constitutional amendment which stated that no president may be elected more than once. He was succeeded by Victoria Woodhull, who became the 19th President as well as the first woman to hold the office.
  • In the alternate history novel The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, General Grant's great achievement in 1862–63 was to seize control of the Mississippi River by defeating a series of uncoordinated Confederate armies and by capturing Vicksburg in July 1863. After a victory at Chattanooga in late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made him general-in-chief of the Union Army. He faced Confederate General Robert E. Lee during the Battle of the Wilderness through which he attempted to advance on Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. Grant's superiority in numbers came to naught due to the AK-47s supplied by the Rivington Men, who were in actuality members of the South African white supremacist organisation Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging who had travelled back in time from 2014, to Lee. A second defeat at Bealeton, Virginia allowed Lee to advance on and capture Washington, D.C.. Grant later served as an Election Commissioner during the Kentucky and Missouri statewide referendum on whether they would remain with the Union or join the Confederacy. Although he had a reputation as a heavy drinker, Grant remained abstinent during the election campaign, preferring coffee at dinner with fellow commissioner General Lee. However, the night of the vote, after it became clear Kentucky voted to join the Confederate States while Missouri voted to remain with the Union, he drank himself into a stupor. In 1868, Lee had the opportunity to review Grant's Overland Campaign as it had taken place in the world the Rivington Men had come from.
  • In the Southern Victory alternate history novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, Ulysses Grant achieved a string of victories in 1862. However, these eventually came to naught as General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia forced the Army of the Potomac under the command of General George B. McClellan onto the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and destroyed the opposing army in the Battle of Camp Hill on October 1, 1862. Following this decisive victory, Lee moved eastward and occupied Philadelphia. As a direct result, the Confederate States of America earned diplomatic recognition from the United Kingdom and the France, which forced the United States to mediate. The Confederacy therefore gains full recognition in the War of Secession came to an end on November 4, 1862. Grant became deeply depressed and reverted to his pre-war alcoholism. At the outset of the Second Mexican War in 1881, General Grant was one of the few sympathetic members of a crowd in St. Louis addressed by Frederick Douglass. He later died of his alcoholism. As McClellan was considered to be one of the worst generals in US history, the most common criticism of Lincoln in subsequent years was that he did relieve McClellan of his duties and replace him with a more competent general such as Grant.
  • In the Elseworlds one-shot comic book Superman: A Nation Divided in which Kal-El's spaceship landed in Kansas during the 1840s and he was raised by a farming couple named Josephus and Sarah Kent, General Grant was at the Battle of Vicksburg on May 23, 1863 when he was notified of the capture of the city and his opponent, Confederate States Army General John C. Pemberton by the superhuman individual Private Atticus Kent. He and German William Tecumseh Sherman realised the potential that Atticus had in the Union Army. When he sent a letter to President Abraham Lincoln informing him of Atticus' tremendous contributions to the war effort, the President wondered if Grant was once again drinking heavily. However, Lincoln was convinced when Atticus came to the Oval Office and demonstrated his powers. He came to agree with Grant's assessment that Atticus would prove to be the Union's secret weapon against the Confederate States of America. Grant later participated in the Battle of Gettysburg, during which Atticus, who was by then a captain, captured Confederate Generals J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee and the instructed the latter to order to his troops to surrender. Atticus spent the next two days burying the dead. General Grant consoled him by telling him that many more men would have been killed if it had not been for Atticus.

Sequoyah Guess

References

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