List of fictional United States presidencies of historical figures (S–Z)
| List of fictional United States Presidents |
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| A–F |
| G–M |
| N–T |
| U–Z |
| Unnamed fictional presidents |
| fictional presidencies of historical figures |
| A - G |
| H - L |
| M - R |
| S - 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.
S
- Barry Sadler is elected president in 1984 in Mitchell J. Freedman's novel A Disturbance of Fate. A Republican, Sadler's pursuit of conservative policies triggers a second civil war that, after much destruction, results in his arrest and the drafting of a new Constitution in which the office of the presidency is abolished.
James T. Sawyer
- James Sawyer is president during an attack on The White House organized by his Head of Security and the Speaker of the House of Representatives depicted in the 2013 movie White House Down. During the movie, the Vice President invokes the 25th Amendment of the Constitution and he is relieved of his command before regaining it at the end of the movie. He is played by Jamie Foxx.
- He is mentioned as a prior commander in chief in Demolition Man with his own presidential library in San Angeles, California
- "President Schwarzenegger" was also mentioned in the Doctor Who episode "Bad Wolf"
- He was as president in 2007 in The Simpsons Movie. In the movie, he is a near replica of Rainier Wolfcastle, who is himself a parody of Schwarzenegger. He is manipulated by EPA Administrator Russ Cargill into authorizing the destruction of Springfield. When Cargill warns of the possibility of a public backlash after learning of Springfield becoming a no man's land, Schwarzenegger laments returning to making family comedies, such as "Diaper Genie" in reference to the real Schwarzenegger's failed attempts to leave the action genre. He was voiced by Harry Shearer.
- In the short story "The Lincoln Train" by Maureen F. McHugh contained in the anthology Alternate Tyrants, Secretary of State William Seward became the 17th President in 1865. His predecessor Abraham Lincoln was the victim of an assassination attempt in Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. He survived but John Wilkes Booth's bullet remained lodged in his brain and he was rendered a vegetable. President Seward organised population transfers of Southern civilians to the Western territories where they were left to die of starvation and disease.
- In the alternate history novel The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, Horatio Seymour secured the Democratic presidential nomination in the immediate aftermath of the Second American Revolution (1861–1864), running on a ticket with Clement Vallandigham as his running mate. He narrowly defeated President Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 election. The election was a close one and it was over a week before Seymour's victory was determined. He was inaugurated as the 17th President on March 4, 1865. Under President Seymour, the United States shifted its focus from its southern border to its northern one. In 1866, the British Empire increased the size of its garrison in the Dominion of Canada, prompting the President to pull troops out of the New Mexico Territory and the Arizona Territory. The United States, still heavily militarised from fighting the Second American Revolution, was able to successfully invade and hold Canada in short order, leading to a war with the United Kingdom. General George B. McClellan had been one of the most prominent advocates of the annexation of Canada.
- In The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been by Roger L. Ransom, Horatio Seymour won the presidential election of 1864 and became the 17th President. He recognised the Confederacy as an independent nation after the South's victory in the American Civil War.
- In the alternate history novel By Force of Arms by Billy Bennett, William Tecumseh Sherman became President. In this timeline, Stonewall Jackson survived the Battle of Chancellorsville and the Confederate States of America won the Battle of Gettysburg and the American Civil War, but six years later Sherman was elected President and the war broke out again.
- In the alternate history novels American Empire: Blood and Iron and American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold as part of the Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove, Upton Sinclair served as the 29th President of the United States from March 4, 1921 to March 4, 1929 and was the first member of the Socialist Party to hold that office. Furthermore, he held the distinction of being the first North American president born after the War of Secession (1861–1862). At the age of 42, he was the youngest man elected to the presidency. This record was later tied by Democrat Thomas E. Dewey, who was elected as the 34th President in 1944. In the years immediately following the Great War (1914–1917), the political tides of the United States were shifting. With the country finally triumphant over its rival the Confederate States of America, the American people began to pull away from the Remembrance spirit and bellicosity of the Democrats and turn to the Socialists. In 1918, the Socialists became the majority party in the House of Representatives for the first time in its history. In 1920, when incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt sought an unprecedented third term, the Socialist Party realised that its time had come. At the 1920 Socialist Convention in Toledo, Ohio, conflict over the presidential nomination arose. Five ballots failed to yield a candidate. The issue was resolved amicably, as Indiana turned its vote away from Senator Eugene V. Debs (a native of Indiana who had previously lost the presidential elections of 1908, 1912 and 1916) and to the much younger Sinclair, who gladly accepted the nomination. Within minutes, Sinclair chose Congressman Hosea Blackford of Dakota as his running mate. Sinclair's acceptance speech at the convention set the tone for the 1920 election. He advocated for equality and justice at the social and economic level, at home and abroad. It was a message that appealed to the voters in those post-war years, and although many Democrats, including Roosevelt and his supporters, warned of dangers the US still faced, Sinclair defeated Roosevelt, ending 36 consecutive years of Democratic control of the White House. He was the first non-Democrat to be elected president since James G. Blaine, the only Republican other than Abraham Lincoln to hold the office, in 1880. President Sinclair was true to his campaign promises. He built up social welfare programs while slashing the military budget, including curtailing the Barrel Works in Kansas. He attempted in his first term to pass an old-age insurance policy to guarantee income for retired persons, but the measure was defeated by a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. This measure was never passed. Sinclair took a lighter stance toward the CS than Roosevelt had. He eased the reparations the US had imposed on their neighbour, and ceased them altogether when Confederate States President Wade Hampton V was assassinated in June 1922. President Sinclair was also lenient about the weapons checks in the Confederacy. However, Sinclair was pragmatic. Although he forced the 83-year-old General George Armstrong Custer, one of the few heroes of the Second Mexican War (1881–1882), to retire as the military governor of Canada in 1922, he kept the US military presence strong enough to stop the uprising in 1924. He also kept the rebellious state of Utah well in-hand, although he laid what he believed to be the foundation work to bring it back into the union. During Sinclair's presidency, the United States prospered, although the military leaders grumbled at his naivety. Just prior to Sinclair's re-election in 1924, Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage. President Sinclair honoured Roosevelt's request that the latter be buried at Robert E. Lee's former estate of Arlington County, West Virginia. In 1924, Sinclair easily defeated his opponents. Through his second term, he continued laws friendly to labour unions and other such modest changes but many of his more extreme proposals, such as pensions, were still stalled. Nonetheless, his second term was successful enough to pave the way for Vice President Hosea Blackford to succeed him. Blackford defeated the Democratic candidate Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Coolidge went on to defeat Blackford in his bid for re-election in 1932 but died on January 5, 1933 of a heart attack, about a month before he was to take office. Vice President-elect Herbert Hoover therefore became the 31st President. Sinclair and Hoover were among the pallbearers at Blackford's state funeral in 1937. President Sinclair's legacy proved difficult to determine. On the one hand, Sinclair was able to ride a strong economic wave, as the United States saw unprecedented growth during his eight years. His administration also loosened some of the more authoritarian tendencies of the Remembrance philosophy and created an atmosphere where the citizens of the US could enjoy greater freedom and equality. On the other hand, his rather blind adherence to Socialist ideology left the country unprepared for the stock market crash in 1929 and the resulting depression. It also laid the foundation for the rise of Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party in the Confederate States and left the United States vulnerable in the conflict that became the Second Great War (1941–1944).
- In Ward Moore's 1953 alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee, Al Smith was the Populist Party candidate in 1924 but was defeated by the incumbent Whig President William Hale Thompson. He was later elected in 1928.
- In Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel American Empire: The Victorious Opposition as part of the Southern Victory Series, Al Smith was elected as the 32nd President in 1936 after defeating Democratic incumbent Herbert Hoover. After Upton Sinclair and Hosea Blackford, he was the third member of the Socialist Party to hold that office. President Smith's first act was to normalise the situation in Utah, putting an end to military rule and returning control to civilians. He then removed the military garrison in Houston and disbanded the Kentucky State Police. However, he did nothing overt to deal with the country's economy, although he did permit the country's continued rebuilding of its military, albeit at a relatively slow pace. Throughout Smith's first term, his counterpart in the Confederate States of America, President Jake Featherston, had demanded the return of territories the CS had lost to the US during the Great War, implying that the C.S. was prepared to retake those territories by force. Smith, wanting to avoid another war, while realising that the American people were tired of the troublesome former Confederate states, finally agreed to meet with Featherston in Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. The result was the Richmond Agreement. Featherston obtained a promise from Smith for plebiscites the three former states in Houston, Kentucky and Sequoyah, provided Smith won the 1940 election. In turn, Smith extracted from Featherston a promise that the plebiscites would be held in a fair atmosphere, that blacks would be allowed to vote for self-determination, that Featherston would not to ask for any more territory, and that any state that changed hands would be demilitarised for 25 years. While Featherston paid the Richmond Agreement lip service, in truth he had intended to break its terms immediately. Based on his success in concluding the Richmond Agreement, Smith was re-elected in 1940. The terms of the agreement, including plebiscites, were carried out early in January 1941. Instead of allowing 25 years to pass before sending Confederate troops and barrels into Kentucky and Houston (now once again western Texas), Featherston broke his promise in 25 days. Freedom Party Stalwarts blew up a police station and blamed it on pro-USA terrorists, inventing an incident for Featherston to use as an excuse to place the Confederate States Army on the banks of the Ohio River. He also demanded the remaining territory that the United States possessed. With the Richmond Agreement shredded, Smith refused to negotiate with his Confederate counterpart and mobilised the United States Army. Featherston continued to issue ultimatums until June 1941. When Smith refused to cave in to Featherston, the Confederate States President initiated Operation Blackbeard, the CSA's war plan for a quick overwhelming victory. By throwing all the offensive units into one army, the Confederacy pushed through Ohio cutting the USA in half. Confederate forces reached Sandusky, a town on the shore Lake Erie, in the first week of August 1941. After the USA was cut in two, Featherston demanded the USA surrender, offering terms such as a CS occupation of the US frontier and a reduced US military. President Smith angrily refused, much to Featherston's surprise, and ordered US counterattacks against the Confederate salient while preparing for an offensive in Virginia that autumn. While the Virginia attack was not wholly successful, the continued fighting in the salient robbed Featherston of the short war he needed in the face of superior US resources. While Smith had appeared naive in dealing with Featherston, he nonetheless ordered his War Department to begin building a uranium bomb early in 1941. The project was managed by Assistant Secretary of War Franklin D. Roosevelt. The war took its toll on Smith. While he was able to keep the country unified and fighting, many questioned his policy in dealing with the Confederacy prior to the war. Smith was killed in the Powel House, the presidential residence, in 1942, during a Confederate bombing raid which damaged the building. In response, United States bombers targeted the Gray House, the Confederate States presidential residence. Smith was succeeded by his vice president, Charles W. La Follette, who eventually led the United States to victory over the Confederate States and its allies on July 14, 1944. In spite of this, La Follette lost the 1944 election to the Democratic candidate Thomas E. Dewey, who became the 34th President. Smith's legacy is viewed in mixed terms. Some have argued that his decision to deal with Featherston diplomatically rather than militarily from the outset very nearly proved to be the country's undoing. Others have argued that in the situation Smith inherited (a weak economy, a weak military, restive populations who didn't want to be citizens), Smith probably made the best choices available to him.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach as part of the North American Confederacy Series by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthrowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason in 1794, Lysander Spooner served as the 14th President of the North American Confederacy from 1860 to 1880. After Albert Gallatin, he and Benjamin Tucker were the joint second longest serving President in NAC history. In addition to this, by 1986, a half-metric ounce .999 fine silver coin was minted in his likeness.
- Bruce Springsteen appears in Jim Mortimore's Doctor Who novel Eternity Weeps. President Springsteen orders a nuclear attack on Turkey and the Moon in an attempt to stop the spread of an alien terraforming virus known as "Agent Yellow".
- In the alternate history short story "Joe Steele" by Harry Turtledove, the Georgian peasants Besarion Jughashvili and Ketevan Geladze, the parents of Joseph Stalin, immigrated to the United States in June 1878 where their son was born Iosef Dzhugashvili, "a name even God couldn't pronounce," six months later. He later changed his name to the more American sounding Joe Steele. He was elected to an unprecedented six terms. He led his country through two wars but his quest for personal power all but eradicated democracy in the United States. He grew up in California, and became a Democratic Congressman from Fresno. He and the Governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt became the front runners for the party's presidenial nomination in 1932. Two days into the Democratic National Convention, neither had the necessary two-thirds majority to secure the nomination. Steele, using his loyal supporters Stas Mikoian, Kagan and the Hammer, saw to it that Roosevelt died in a fire at the Governor's Mansion in Albany, New York. With his primary opponent gone, Steele became the party's presidential nominee. His vice-presidential nominee was John Nance Garner. Steele handily defeated his opponent, the Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover with the promise of a Four-Year plan for revitalising the country's depressed economy. Steele immediately put his plan into action, passing legislation for highways, dams, and other public works projects. The United States Supreme Court began overturning this legislation as unconstitutional in 1933. Steele publicly denounced the Court's actions. At the same time, he ordered J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Bureau of Investigation, to investigate the justices. Hoover discovered "evidence" that four of the justices – namely, Pierce Butler, James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland and Willis Van Devanter – were in the employ of Nazi Germany. This Gang of Four was arrested and interrogated. Also arrested were Father Charles Coughlin and the Governor of Louisiana Huey Long. Father Coughlin and the justices were executed. Long was killed while trying to "escape" in 1935. For the remainder of his first term, Steele's legislation went unopposed. Steele was re-elected in 1936, defeating his Republican opponent Alf Landon in a landslide. Shortly after taking the oath of office, he was nearly assassinated by a German named Otto Spitzer. Steele was unharmed, but Spitzer was killed in the attack. Steele publically denounced Adolf Hitler as the mastermind behind the attack. In his second term, Steele began his Second Four-Year Plan. This included more public works and communal farms. Dissenters were sent to Alaska, North Dakota and other isolated places. Steele also ordered Hoover and the Hammer to purge the military. When World War II began in Europe in September 1939, Steele was content to remain neutral. He hated both Hitler and Soviet premier Leon Trotsky equally. However, when Hitler was able gain the upper-hand on the continent, Steele began to support Britain with loans and weapons. He was re-elected to an unprecedented third term in 1940, defeating Wendell Willkie, on the promise that the United States would not enter the war. This proved to be the last free and democratic election in the United States. When Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Steele tarried for six weeks before providing the Soviet Union with aid. In December 1941, however, the United States entered the war when the Empire of Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Several weeks later, the Philippines had also fallen to the Japanese. Steele ordered the trial and execution of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter Short, the military leaders in charge of Pearl Harbor, and General Douglas MacArthur, who had fled the Philippines. Despite the fact that Japan had attacked the United States, Steele concentrated on Europe. When the Soviet Army defeated the German army at the Battle of Trotskygrad in 1943, Steele began to more earnestly prepare to open a western front. The invasion of Normandy took place in June 1944, five months before Steele was re-elected to a fourth term, unopposed. Germany surrendered in May 1945. Steele turned to Japan, invading the islands in late 1945. After a period of brutal fighting, the Soviet Union invaded the northern islands, taking Hokkaido and the northern part of Honshu. The rest of Japan was occupied by the United States. Emperor Hirohito was killed by an incendiary bomb and the fighting simply stopped. The following year, Steele learned that Germany had been working on an atomic bomb project. He interrogated Albert Einstein about his possible knowledge of the bomb. Einstein admitted that he had almost written to Steele about building a bomb, but had feared that Steele would use it. Steele responded by rounding up and executing several Jewish scientists. However, one, Edward Teller, offered to build the bomb in exchange for his life. Steele agreed. In 1948, North Japan, the puppet state established by the Soviet Union, invaded South Japan, the state created by the United States. South Japan's troops retreated in the face of the North's onslaught until they met United States Marines at Utsunomiya, Tochigi. The Marines held, defeating the North Japanese. With the war on, Steele won a fifth term in 1948. The Japanese War proved to be an ugly war. It ended in August 1949, with an exchange of atomic weapons. The United States destroyed Sapporo, the capital of North Japan, with Teller's completed atomic bomb on August 6. On August 9, the Soviet Union destroyed the major city of Nagona, South Japan. Steele turned his attention back to the US, finding more traitors. He was elected to a sixth term in 1952 but died on March 5, 1953, only six weeks after being inaugurated. Vice President Garner, who was by then 84 years old, ascended to the presidency, briefly serving as the 33rd President, and ordered the executions of the Hammer and J. Edgar Hoover. The Hammer ordered the deaths of Garner and Hoover. Hoover ordered the deaths of Hammer and Garner, and succeeded in his task. Hoover became the 34th President and proved to be even more tyrannical than Steele.
- In the Colonization series by Harry Turtledove, Harold Stassen was twice elected to the vice presidency in 1960 and 1964, serving under President Earl Warren from 1961 to 1965. He succeeded to the presidency after Warren committed suicide in the wake of the destruction of Indianapolis by the Race in 1965. The then Vice President Stassen was not privy to Warren's decision to attack the Race's Colonization Fleet in 1962. In the aftermath of President Warren's death, Stassen set about removing those members of the Warren administration who had known about his actions. President Stassen was already certain that he would be elected to a term of his own in 1968, a belief which he shared in private with the Soviet premier Vyacheslav Molotov. Stassen soon learned of the new American use of rocket propelled asteroids as a weapon. During a meeting with Sam Yeager, the man who had revealed President Warren's actions to the world, Yeager attempted to broach the subject with President Stassen, who pointedly shared nothing with Yeager.
- D. C. Stephenson is the 33rd President in the novel K is for Killing by Daniel Easterman. He is elected as Vice President to Charles Lindbergh in the 1932 election, and becomes President in 1940 after planning an assassination of Lindbergh and his wife to prevent him from discovering a secret nuclear weapon collaboration plan with Nazi Germany. Shortly after becoming President, Stephenson is murdered by his own wife, and is succeeded by Speaker of the House Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Kennedy blames Stephenson's murder on German agents and uses it as a pretext to sever all ties with Germany.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders episode "The Young and the Relentless", Howard Stern defeated Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election and became the 40th President at the age of 27.
- In one of the alternate timelines featured in Michael P. Kube-McDowell's novel Alternities, Adlai Stevenson is mentioned as having been elected president in 1956, defeating the incumbent Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, and serving for two terms, though he is quoted as describing his second term as a curse. His vice president was Estes Kefauver.
- In the alternate history short story "The Impeachment of Adlai Stevenson" by David Gerrold included in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Adlai Stevenson was elected in 1952 after Dwight D. Eisenhower made the mistake of accepting Joseph McCarthy as his running mate instead of Richard Nixon. He successfully ran for re-election in 1956, once again defeating General Eisenhower. However, he proved to be an extremely unpopular president. As the title of the story implies, Stevenson, the 34th President, was impeached during his second term in August 1958 and resigned, leaving his untested 41-year-old Vice-President, John F. Kennedy (who as considered something of a laughing stock having recently married the Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe, leading satirists to dub the marriage "the new Monroe Doctrine"), as his successor. The most notable events of Stevenson's almost six-year presidency included his commutation of the death sentences of the convicted atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in February 1953, his public opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Soviet Union's growing atomic stockpile, "the Berlin Wall embarrassment," the assassination attempt on Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at Disneyland, the Soviet demonstration of a 100-megaton nuclear weapon, the breakdown of France-United States relations due to the President's refusal to back French intervention in Indochina, the public break with J. Edgar Hoover which resulted in the director of the FBI being fired, the extremely unpopular decision to intervene in the Cuban Civil War by sending in troops to support the government of Fulgencio Batista, simultaneous inflation and recession and the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union in October 1957. Although the story ends immediately after President Stevenson has decided to resign, it is heavily implied that Nixon, already the front runner for the next Republican nomination, will defeat Kennedy in the 1960 election. This is due to the public's antipathy towards the Democrats and the fact that Kennedy is a much derided figure due to his marriage to Monroe.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season Five episode "The Return of Maggie Beckett", the German forces broke through the Allied lines at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, which caused World War II to drag on until 1947. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was relieved as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and returned to the United States in disgrace. Consequently, Adlai Stevenson became President. The Stevenson administration made the Roswell UFO incident in July 1947 public knowledge and signed the Reticulan-American Free Trade Agreement (RAFTA), giving the US access to advanced Reticulan technology. This led to a manned mission to Mars in the 1990s.
- In the alternate history novel Dominion by C. J. Sansom, World War II ended in June 1940 when the British government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister Lord Halifax, signed the Treaty of Berlin with Nazi Germany. Franklin D. Roosevelt was steadfast in his opposition to the Nazis and the Treaty, which resulted in him losing the 1940 election to his Republican opponent Robert A. Taft, who became the 33rd President. Taft pursued a policy of non-intervention, signing a peace treaty with Japan in 1941. He was re-elected in 1944 and 1948 but Stevenson defeated him in 1952, becoming the 34th President. Shortly after his election in November 1952, The Times, which was owned by the pro-Nazi British Prime Minister Lord Beaverbrook, speculated that Stevenson would follow in Roosevelt's footsteps and pursue an interventionist foreign policy when it came to European affairs. Several weeks later, President-elect Stevenson gave a speech indicating that he intended to begin trading with the Soviet Union upon taking office on January 20, 1953.
- In the alternate history short story "Truth, Justice and the American Way" by Lawrence Watt-Evans contained in Alternate Presidents, Herbert Hoover defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and Henry Stimson continued to serve as Secretary of State. On Stimson's advice, Hoover went to war with the Empire of Japan in 1934. After defeating Roosevelt in 1936, Stimson became the 32nd President and, under his leadership, the United States emerged victorious from the war. However, President Stimson was criticised for not crushing Japan entirely by invading the Home Islands. Stimson was re-elected in 1940, once again defeating Roosevelt. In 1948, Adolf Hitler was overthrown and killed by a cabal of generals and Hermann Göring succeeded him as the second Führer, continuing to serve in that position until at least 1953. Due to the survival of Nazi Germany, totalitarianism and antisemitism grew stronger across the world well into the 1950s.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach as part of the North American Confederacy Series by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state after a suceesful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason in 1794, Harriet Beecher Stowe served as the 13th President of the North American Confederacy from 1859 after Arthur Downing died in office and until 1860. She was the first woman to hold the office.
T
- In Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, he succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as the 33rd President Timeline 1 (codename: John Carter)
- In one of the alternate timelines featured in Michael P. Kube-McDowell novel Alternities, Robert Taft was elected as the 34th President in 1952, defeating Adlai Stevenson, after Dwight D. Eisenhower was killed in a plane crash the year before. President Taft pursued a policy of isolationism which subsequently allowed the Soviet Union to emerge as the dominant superpower. He later died in office.
- In the short story "We Could Do Worse" by Gregory Benford, Robert Taft was chosen as the Republican candidate in 1952, winning over General Dwight D. Eisenhower with the support of Richard Nixon, and took Joseph McCarthy as his running mate. He was elected as the 34th President and died in 1953 as he did in real life. McCarthy succeeded him as the 35th President and went on to make himself a brutal dictator. Two federal agents, the principal characters of the story, were grateful that Nixon delivered the California delegation to Taft at the 1952 Convention as it prevented Eisenhower, a "pinko general" with a "Kraut name," from securing the nomination. Furthermore, they regarded Taft's death as a godsend as it allowed McCarthy to accede to the presidency. Taft was the son of William Howard Taft, who had served as the 27th President from 1909 to 1913. After John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the Tafts were the second father-son pair to both serve as President.
- In the alternate history novel Dominion by C. J. Sansom, World War II ended in June 1940 when the British government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister Lord Halifax, signed the Treaty of Berlin with Nazi Germany. Roosevelt was steadfast in his opposition to the Nazis and the Treaty, which resulted in him losing the 1940 to Robert Taft, who became the 33rd President. President Taft pursued a policy of non-intervention, signing a peace treaty with the Empire of Japan in 1941. He was re-elected in 1944 and 1948 but he was defeated by his Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson in 1952, who became the 34th President. Shortly after his election in November 1952, The Times, which was owned by the pro-Nazi British Prime Minister Lord Beaverbrook, speculated that Stevenson would follow in Roosevelt's footsteps and pursue an interventionist foreign policy when it came to European affairs.
- In the short story "We Could Do Worse" by Gregory Benford, William Howard Taft served as the 27th President from March 4, 1909 to March 4, 1913, as he did in real life. Twenty-two years after his death, his eldest son Senator Robert A. Taft secured the Republican presidential nomination at the 1952 Republican National Convention, narrowly beating General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a result of the support of the California delegation which was delivered by Senator Richard Nixon. In the election the following November, Taft defeated his Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson and was inaugurated as the 34th President on January 20, 1953. However, after only six months in office, the younger Taft died of a heart attack on July 31, 1953, as occurred in reality. He was succeeded by his vice president Joseph McCarthy, who went on to create a brutal dictatorship in the United States.
- In the short story "The Bull Moose at Bay" by Mike Resnick contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Roosevelt was the subject of an assassination attempt carried out by John Flammang Schrank in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912 as he was in reality. Whereas he was shot in the chest on that occasion in real life, Schrank's bullet missed him in the story. Running as the Progressive Party candidate, Roosevelt went on to defeat both William Howard Taft, the extremely unpopular incumbent Republican President, and their Democratic opponent Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election. Shortly after the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania by the German U-boat U-20 on May 7, 1915, Roosevelt brought the United States into the Great War, resulting in the defeat of the German Empire by the US and its allies within less than a year. This made the United States a world power. In spite of this and the fact that the economy was experiencing a boom, Roosevelt was widely expected to lose the 1916 election to Wilson. At his 58th birthday party on October 27, 1916, Roosevelt attributed his consistently poor performance in the polls to the fact that his erstwhile colleagues in the Republican Party were bitter that he had run as a Progressive Party candidate in 1912 and defeated Taft. He claimed that the Republicans owned three-quarters of the newspapers in the United States whereas the Democrats owned the remaining quarter, meaning that the vast majority of the press coverage was hostile.
- In Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels The Great War: Breakthroughs and American Empire: Blood and Iron as part of the Southern Victory Series, William Howard Taft was a Conservative Democratic congressman representing the state of Ohio in the United States House of Representatives. In the 1910s, he was the Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, the first assignment of freshman Socialist Party Congresswoman and future First Lady Flora Hamburger. Congressman Taft found Hamburger to be quite exasperating, particularly for her opposition to the Great War (1914–1917), and the two quarreled from time to time. He continued to do so after the Socialists won control of Congress and he was stripped of his chairmanship. In 1919, he opposed a resolution which she called for condemning the Freedom Party's persecution of blacks in the Confederate States of America.
- In the short story "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts in the anthology Alternate Presidents, both Zachary Taylor and his vice president Millard Fillmore were killed in a carriage accident in 1849. President 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 Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove, Zachary Taylor served as the twelfth president of the United States as he did in real life. Despite him being born in Virginia, Taylor was still appreciated in the United States due to his military success, even after the War of Succession. During his youth, Theodore Roosevelt was a great admirer of Taylor's military works, viewing him as a great conqueror and leader ranking with George Washington and Napoleon.
- Norman Thomas is referred to as a former two-term President for the Populist Party in Ward Moore's 1953 novel Bring the Jubilee.
- William Hale Thompson, as the Whig party candidate, defeated populist President Thomas R. Marshall in 1920, and won a second term against Al Smith in 1924 in Ward Moore's novel Bring the Jubilee.
- In the short story "Patriot's Dream" by Tappan King in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Samuel Tilden defeated Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, becoming the 19th President, after a series of nightmares help convert him from a low-key corporate lawyer to a crusading reformer. He was re-elected in 1880. His vice president was Winfield Scott Hancock, who succeeded him as President with Grover Cleveland being his vice president.
- In "I Shall Have a Flight to Glory" by Michael P. Kube-McDowell in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Samuel Tilden, still bruised by his loss to Hayes in 1876, adopted similar tactics against his Republican opponent James A. Garfield to defeat him in the 1880 election. However, Garfield, with the help of Charles J. Guiteau, assassinates him before he could be inaugurated as the 20th President.
- In the first Southern Victory Series novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, Samuel Tilden is referred to as having served one term from 1877 to 1881, having seemingly defeated Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. He became an unpopular president after he removed the twelve stars on the U.S flag that represented the Confederate States. Tiden was defeated in his bid for re-election in 1880 by his Republican challenger James G. Blaine. Confederate States President James Longstreet expressed disappointment at the more hardline Blaine's election as Tilden had given the Confederate States of America a free hand throughout his presidency, as had all of his Democratic predecessors since the War of Secession (1861–1862).
- The alternate history short story "The More Things Change..." by Glen E. Cox, contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, tells the story of the 1948 election in reverse, with the underdog Thomas E. Dewey eventually defeating Harry Truman, the incumbent and the early overwhelming favourite, by playing to anti-communist fears. Dewey therefore succeeds him as the 34th President. The story contains a reference to the famously inaccurate banner headline "Dewey Defeats Truman". Given that it was regarded as a foregone conclusion that Dewey would lose the election, the front page headline of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948 erroneously reads "Truman Defeats Dewey". The front cover of the anthology depicts a grinning Dewey proudly holding up the relevant edition of the Chicago Tribune in the same manner as Truman did in real life.
- In the final Southern Victory Series alternate history novel Settling Accounts: In at the Death by Harry Turtledove, Harry Truman was elected vice president in 1944 on the Democratic ticket with Thomas E. Dewey, defeating the Socialist incumbent Charles W. La Follette and his running mate Jim Curley and Republican candidate Harold Stassen. Truman had served as an artillery officer during the Great War (1914–1917). A thorough hawk on foreign policy, Vice President-elect Truman travelled to the restive state of Florida to encourage US troops to their occupation, supporting President-elect Dewey's goal of reintegrating the former Confederate States into the Union. Given that it was widely believed that Dewey would lose the election given that President La Follette had recently presided over the end of the Second Great War (1941–1944), the front page headline of the November 8, 1944 edition of the Chicago Tribune inaccurately read "La Follette Defeats Dewey". Truman was photographed holding up a copy of the paper by the media.
- In the alternate history novel The Man with the Iron Heart by Harry Turtledove, Harry Truman became the 33rd President upon the death of his predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, as he did in reality. Upon his accession to the presidency, Truman faced several difficult decisions. When the European theatre of World War II was winding down, the Empire of Japan had signaled its intention to fight until the bitter end. The war in Europe officially ended on May 8, 1945 with the surrender of Nazi Germany. In actuality, it erupted again almost immediately as the German Freedom Front, under the command of Reinhard Heydrich, launched a resistance against the Allied Forces occupying the country. The casualties inflicted against American troops began to wear away at public support for the occupation. As in real life, Truman chose to deploy the atomic bomb against Japan rather than invading the country and, consequently, the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed on August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945 respectively. Japan surrendered immediately. However, the situation in Germany was rapidly deteriorating. Nearly 1,000 American soldiers had been killed since the war in Europe had officially ended, including General George S. Patton. Diana McGraw, the mother of one of these soldiers, gathered together other people who had lost loved ones and began to protest the Truman administration's handling of the situation. December 1945 proved to be the most difficult period for Truman. The GFF destroyed the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg immediately before various captured Nazi officials were about to go on trial for war crimes and then issued a film featuring kidnapped Private Matthew Cunningham pleading for the withdrawal of all US troops from Germany in exchange for his life. McGraw's Mothers Against the Madness in Germany protested outside the White House. Her group was joined by various legislators, both Democrat and Republican. The chaos in Germany continued for almost another two years, during which time the numerous black marks on the record of the Truman administration resulted in the Republicans winning control of both the House and the Senate in November 1946. The Truman administration saw no choice but to begin the withdrawal of American soldiers towards the end of 1947. Shortly thereafter, Heydrich was finally located and killed by American troops. Although the administration's critics saw this as even greater reason to pull out troops, Truman worried that Heydrich's death did not mean the death of the GFF. This fear proved to be correct as his second-in-command Joachim Peiper soon picked up where Heydrich left off, launching a series of commercial airline hijackings. While Truman planned on running for election in 1948, it was widely expected that he would lose the election to his Republican opponent. By early 1948, one of the front runners for the Republican nomination was the Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey, in spite of the fact that he had previously lost the 1944 election to Roosevelt.
- Donald Trump was mentioned as being president before Lisa Simpson in the year 2030 in The Simpsons episode "Bart to the Future". Trump was a very bad president and caused the American economy to collapse, causing a crisis for Lisa when she became president.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach as part of the North American Confederacy Series by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason in 1794, Tucker served as the 17th President of the North American Confederacy from 1892 to 1912. After Albert Gallatin, he and Lysander Spooner were the joint second longest serving President in NAC history.
- Rexford Tugwell is President in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorne Abendsen, an alternate history novel-within-a-novel which forms a major part of the plot of The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. This is an example of recursive science fiction. In The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was not assassinated by Giuseppe Zangara on February 15, 1933, as he was in the world of The Man in the High Castle, and went on to serve two terms in office. In 1940, his fellow Democrat Tugwell was elected as the 33rd President. President Tugwell removed the U.S. Pacific fleet from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, saving it from Japanese attack and ensuring that the United States entered World War II as a well-equipped naval power. The United Kingdom retained most of its military-industrial strength, contributing more to the Allied war effort, leading to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's defeat in North Africa, a British advance through the Caucasus to guide the Soviets to victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, Italy reneging on its membership of and its betrayal of the Axis powers and British Army and the Red Army jointly conquering Berlin. At the end of the war, the Nazi leaders — including Adolf Hitler — were tried for their war crimes. The Führer's last words are Deutsche, hier steh' ich ("Germans, here I stand"), in imitation of the priest Martin Luther. Post-war, Winston Churchill remained Prime Minister and, because of its military-industrial might, the British Empire did not collapse. President Tugwell established strong business relations with Chiang Kai-shek's right-wing regime in China, after vanquishing the Communist Mao Zedong. The British Empire became racist and more expansionist following the end of the war while the United States outlawed Jim Crow, resolving its racism by the 1950s. Both changes provoke racialist-cultural tensions between the US and the UK, leading them to a Cold War for global hegemony between the two vaguely liberal, democratic, capitalist societies. Although the end of the novel was never depicted in the text, one character claimed the book ended with the British Empire eventually defeating the US, becoming the world's only superpower.
- In the counterfactual history essay "His Accidency" by Tom Wicker contained in the anthology What Ifs? of American History, John Tyler was the running mate of General William Henry Harrison in 1840 in which Harrison defeated the Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren, as occurred in real life. At his inauguration on March 4, 1841, the 68-year-old Harrison decided to wear a coat and hat and cut his inauguration speech in half given that he was a cold and rain day. Consequently, he did not contract the pneumonia which claimed his life a month later in reality and served out his full term. Tyler never acceded to the presidency. During his term in office, President Harrison was non-committal about offering the Republic of Texas the opportunity to join the Union as a slave state. Due to Harrison's hesitation, Texian President Sam Houston accepted Mexico's offer to recognise the independence of Texas, provided that it did not join the United States. The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) never broke out and California, Arizona and New Mexico all remained part of Mexico. Harrison's care for his personal health turned out to have seriously derailed Manifest Destiny.
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- In the Netflix-produced television drama House of Cards, the protagonist Francis Underwood becomes president upon the impeachment of president Walker (which Underwood engineered).
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- In the alternate history novel For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga by the business historian Robert Sobel, Martin Van Buren was the leader of the Northern Confederation's Conservative Party in the 1820s and the 1830s and was the Governor of the Northern Confederation from 1825 to 1831. Unlike the Northern Confederation's Liberal Party, the Conservatives were poorly organized and had no basic political philosophy. Instead, they simply opposed Liberal policies. The Conservatives did have more popular support than the Liberals and they were able to gain a majority of seats on the Northern Confederation Council in the 1825 elections and Van Buren became Governor. The Conservatives' manipulation of the banking system led to the Depression of 1829, which cost them their majority in the 1831 elections.
- Arthur Vandenberg was president from 1941 to 1945 in the 1939 Robert A. Heinlein novel For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs.
- Jesse Ventura is shown fighting for re-election against Henry Kissinger in Killroy and Tina.
- He is seen in the Futurama episodes "A Head in the Polls" and "All the Presidents' Heads" in the Hall of Presidents in the New New York Head Museum, implying that he served as President of the United States or Earth before the year 3000.
- Kurt Vonnegut is president of the United Socialist States of America in Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's Back in the USSA, serving as a parallel to Mikhail Gorbachev.
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- President in Mona Clee's Branch Point (1996)
- Runs for president (with Curtis LeMay as his vice president) in 1968 after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy
- In another alternate timeline in the novel, George Wallace is elected as the 43rd President in 1996, succeeding Bill Clinton. The novel was published in January 1996, indicating that the author may have believed that Clinton would lose the 1996 election.
- He served one term (1977–1981) in the 1975 movie Tunnelvision, and was succeeded by an African-American woman named Washington.
- In the alternate history novel 11/22/63 by Stephen King, George Wallace was elected President in 1968. His predecessor was John F. Kennedy. Wallace escalated the Vietnam War into a nuclear war that precipitated numerous other atomic conflicts around the globe. The state of Maine seceded from the United States and was a Canadian province by 2011. On May 15, 1972, Wallace was assassinated by Arthur Bremer. He was succeeded by Vice President Curtis LeMay, who was defeated by his Democratic opponent Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota in the 1972 election.
- In the alternate history short story "News from the Front" by Harry Turtledove, Henry Wallace was serving as vice president under President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time of the United States' entry into World War II on December 11, 1941, as he was in real life. From then onwards, Roosevelt faced harsh criticism from and strict scrutiny by the American press. The press attacked the Roosevelt administration for not being prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 as well as bringing on the attack by ignorantly imposing an oil embargo on the Empire of Japan. As the war progressed, the press began to constantly second-guess the Roosevelt administration and to ponder the value of the war. Furthermore, the press revealed important American military secrets, questioning the morality of spying on the Axis powers, decrying the poor state of American technology and giving away planned attacks days before there were to take place, leading to their failures. More importantly, the Battle of Midway (June 4–7, 1942) proved to be a complete disaster. During the first half of 1942, protests against the war began to appear throughout the country and a group of celebrities took it upon themselves to sale to Japan and Nazi Germany to offer peace. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill faced similar problems in his own country. Matters came to a head when Vice President Wallace broke with the administration and publicly attacked Roosevelt's honesty and competence. Calls for impeachment grew louder throughout the United States and, finally, Congress began the impeachment process in June 1942. Although the story ends while Roosevelt is still president, it is heavily implied that he will be impeached and removed from office and that Wallace will succeed him as the 33rd President.
- In the Colonization series by Harry Turtledove, Earl Warren served as President of the United States from 1961 to 1965. He was elected President in 1960 and would be re-elected in a landslide over his Democratic opponent Hubert Humphrey in 1964. He was in office when the Race's Colonization Fleet arrived at Earth in 1962 and ordered a secret attack using nuclear missiles fired from a satellite that destroyed a dozen of the Fleet's starships. President Warren concealed his role in the affair for several years but the information was ultimately leaked to the Race in 1965 by Sam Yeager through Shiplord Straha, despite Warren's best efforts to silence Yeager through draconian extralegal measures. Fleetlord Atvar threatened war with the United States. having seen how quickly and easily the Race had defeated Germany in the short-lived Race-German of 1965, President Warren knew he must avoid a war at all costs. Atvar offered two other options: abandon all space exploration for the indefinite future or allow the Race to destroy an American city. Warren knew he that must choose one of the two lest his country be destroyed and he would not give up the space program, a sign of his country's might and technological prowess. Consequently, he surprised and disappointed Atvar by allowing him to destroy Indianapolis, Indiana. Warren then committed suicide in the Gray House, the presidential residence in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was succeeded by his vice president, Harold Stassen.
- In a parallel universe featured in the short story "He Walked Around the Horses" by H. Beam Piper, General George Washington was killed in the Battle of Doylestown during the short-lived rebellion of the colonies in British North America in the 1770s. He died in the arms of Baron von Steuben. A seemingly insane individual who claimed to be a British diplomat named Benjamin Bathurst maintained that the American rebels were successful in their attempts to achieve independence and that Washington survived.
- In the short story "The Father of His Country" by Jody Lynn Nye contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, George Washington ran against Benjamin Franklin in the first United States presidential election in 1789. 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 was elected by the 1st United States Congress on April 6, 1789 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. Franklin was inaugurated as the first President of the United States in Federal Hall in New York City on April 30, 1789. Franklin's 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, serving until at least 1792.
- In the alternate history novel The Two Georges by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss, Colonel George Washington was part of a group of American colonists who met with King George III of the United Kingdom in the 1760s and were able to put in place an eleventh hour agreement with avoided revolution. Washington and the King were immortalised in a painting entitled The Two Georges by Thomas Gainsborough, which came to symbolise the friendship between the United Kingdom and the North American Union. In his later career as an administrator in the colonies, Washington implemented a policy which halted the westward expansion of European settlement for some decades and gave a chance to certain Native American tribes such as the Iroquois and the Cherokee to modernise and keep much of their lands. For that reasons, he greatly revered by Native Americans into the late 20th century. The Iroquois believed that he was the only white person to be admitted to their religion's version of Paradise.
- In the short story "Arnoldstown" by Mitchell Cummings, General George Washington died of pneumonia during the winter of 1777–1778, which led to the near disintegration of the Continental Army. Benedict Arnold eventually succeeded him as its commanding general, rebuilt the army and snatched victory from the jaws of near-certain defeat. After independence had been secured through the American Revolution (1775–1783), Arnold went on to be elected as the first President of the United States in 1789. He was the most revered of all the Founding Fathers in later generations. The story's name is derived from the US capital in this timeline being Arnoldstown, D.C. with his name also being commemorated in the state of Arnoldia on the Pacific Northwest and numerous other placenames.
- In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory alternate history series, George Washington served as the first President from April 30, 1789 to March 4, 1797, as he was in real life. After the Confederate States of America achieved its independence in the War of Secession (1861–1862), U.S. historians continued to so regard Washington, alongside Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt as the most memorable of presidents, though only Roosevelt was viewed in an entirely positive light. As a young man, Roosevelt admired Washington as a great leader. However, the general public did not always remembered kindly. Washington came from Virginia, and after the War of Secession his popularity in the US suffered because of it – as did that of Thomas Jefferson. Northern people in general preferred to remember Northern Founding Fathers such as John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin (whose picture appeared on stamps issued by the US occupation authorities in Canada). Nonetheless, the US rebuilt the Washington Monument after it was destroyed during the Great War (1914–1917). Before 1920, the Confederate States esteemed Washington as a Founding Father as well but generally preferred their own founding fathers such as John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. The Freedom Party in its earliest phase, while still under Anthony Dresser, used Washington's picture as an emblem, with the slogan, "We need a New Revolution". Jake Featherston, who considered Washington to have "sold out the South to the damnyankees" stopped that custom when he took over the party. Many Confederates did view Washington with some suspicion in the years after the Great War, but still thought of him as a Virginian first and President of the United States second. Washington University in Lexington, Virginia, home of the Confederacy's effort to build a superbomb, retained its name and the statue of Washington that stood in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia survived both Great Wars.
- In the North American Confederacy Series novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith, the Whiskey Rebellion succeeds after Albert Gallatin intercedes to help the farmers, resulting in the rebellion becoming a Second American Revolution. This eventually leads to the overthrowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason in 1794 and the United States Government being reformed with Constitution being declared null and void with the Articles of Confederation being revised with a much emphasis on individual freedom. After the war, Gallatin would serve as the 2nd and 7th president from 1794 to 1812 and from 1836 to 1840 with his actions later starting a Libertarian state known as the North American Confederacy in the 1890s. Despite this, Gallatin insisted that historians would still count George Washington as the first president.
- In George Field's story "Daniel Webster's Road to the Devil", Daniel Webster avoids the accident which in actual history caused his death, and is elected President in 1852. Vowing to "Preserve the Union at all costs" by strictly enforcing the Fugitive Slave Laws, Webster attempts to crush the Underground Railroad by setting up a network of spies and organizing extensive raids by Federal troops. One of these, at a farm in Massachusetts, develops into a large-scale firefight, leading to the death of dozens of Northern abolitionists as well as escaped slaves. This precipitates secessionist agitation in New England. President Webster, setting out to reason with the Massachusetts Legislature, is ambushed by abolitionists on his way to Boston and assassinated along with his Vice President, leaving the Presidential Succession doubtful and hotly disputed. The New England states go ahead with formally declaring all fugitive slaves welcome in their territory – which causes the South to secede in turn. The US plunges into a confused three-way civil war – exacerbated by large-scale Nativist riots, attacks on Irish Americans and the burning of Catholic Churches, which prompts the Irish to form militias and embark on violent retaliations. In the confusion, John Brown and his radical Abolitionists succeed in seizing several arsenals, arming a large number of slaves and setting off several major slave rebellions. After eleven years of total chaos, with widespread destruction and bloodshed throughout the country and no less than nine competing Presidents setting themselves up at various locations, American leaders in 1864 appeal to Queen Victoria to help restore order. The war-weary population mostly welcomes the arrival of British troops. The Declaration of Independence is annulled and the former US territories are united with Canada into the Dominion of "British North America".
- Adam Weishaupt is the first President in The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, after murdering and taking the identity of George Washington.
- In the alternate history novel The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Burton Wheeler succeeded Charles Lindbergh as the 33rd President in 1942. Wheeler was Lindbergh's vice president in the 1940 election.
- In The Divide by William Overgard, Burton Wheeler, running as the Isolationist Party candidate, defeats President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 on a pledge to keep America out of war after the Nazis force the surrender of the United Kingdom and France. After Germany has overrun all of Russia, both Germany and Japan attack and invade the United States in 1941. President Wheeler surrenders the United States to the Axis after a devastating bombardment of missiles from occupied Canada. The surrender takes place on April 20, 1948, Adolf Hitler's fifty ninth birthday. President Wheeler, Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, and other U.S. Government officials are executed by garrote in a meat packing plant outside of Washington D.C. after being found guilty of war crimes. Wheeler does leave behind a secret installation where work of producing an atomic bomb continues, in the hope that it would eventually help in liberating the country.
- In the short story "Fighting Bob" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Robert M. La Follette, Sr. won the 1924 election with Burton Wheeler as his running mate. La Follette was the Progressive Party candidate, defeating the Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge and their Democratic opponent John W. Davis. He entered office as the 31st President on March 4, 1925. However, President La Follette's term in office proved to be short-lived as he died on June 18, 1925 (as he did in real life). Wheeler succeeded him as the 32nd President.
- Harrison Williams was a President in the 1960s in the timeline of Robert A. Heinlein's "Double Star". Not much information is given, as this is an event of the distant past for the book's protagonists.
- Wendell Willkie was elected President in 1940 (when Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to not seek a third term) in the S. M. Stirling novel Marching Through Georgia. He led the United States into involvement in World War II. His vice president was Charles L. McNary.
- In the alternate history short story "The Bull Moose at Bay" by Mike Resnick contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Roosevelt was the subject of an assassination attempt carried out by John Flammang Schrank in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912 as he was in reality. Whereas he was shot in the chest on that occasion in real life, Schrank's bullet missed him in the story. Running as the Progressive Party candidate, Roosevelt went on to defeat both Woodrow Wilson and the extremely unpopular incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft in the 1912 election. Shortly after the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania by the German U-boat U-20 on May 7, 1915, President Roosevelt brought the United States into the Great War, resulting in the defeat of the German Empire by the US and its allies within less than a year. This made the United States a world power. In spite of this and the fact that the economy was experiencing a boom, Roosevelt was widely expected to lose the 1916 election to Wilson. Although the story ends prior to the election, it is heavily implied that Wilson will indeed be elected and therefore take office as the 29th President on March 4, 1917.
- In the short story "Ten Days That Shook the World" by Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne contained in the anthology Back in the USSA, Woodrow Wilson was defeated in the 1912 election by former President Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party candidate. Roosevelt became the last democratically elected President of the United States. Before he could take office, however, Roosevelt was assassinated in Chicago, Illinois on December 19, 1912 by the sharpshooter and exhibition shooter Annie Oakley. Consequently, Vice President-elect Charles Foster Kane, an extremely wealthy newspaper mogul, was inaugurated as the 28th President on March 4, 1913. During his presidency, Kane led the United States into greater levels of oppression, class division and bureaucratic incompetence and corruption. President Kane rigged the 1916, defeating Wilson and the Republican candidate William Howard Taft as Roosevelt had done in 1912. By February 1917, Wilson had been assassinated and many believed that Kane's agents were responsible. Wilson came to be regarded as a martyr by those opposed to Kane's regime. The Socialist Party of America, led by Eugene V. Debs, gained considerable report among the disenfranchised populace and soon the unrest led to outright civil war. After the storming of the White House by the Socialist faction on July 4, 1917, Kane was shot and killed by Oakley, as Roosevelt had been four and a half years earlier. This resulted in the establishment of the United Socialist States of America (USSA) with Debs as its first president.
- In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory alternate history series, Woodrow Wilson served as the 9th President of the Confederate States from 1910 to 1916, serving the maximum one term prescribed by the Confederate States Constitution, and led the country into the Great War (1914–1917). Following the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria's assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, President Wilson affirmed the commitment of the Confederate States of America to the Quadruple Entente with the United Kingdom, the France and the Russia, describing the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia as a case of a smaller nation being oppressed by a larger one. In his speech rallying the nation to war, Wilson reminded the Confederate people of the crucial role which Britain and France had played in the CSA's achievement of independence during the War of Secession (1861–1862) as well as their importance to its continued survival. He called upon the Confederate States to stand up against the "tyrannical" German Empire and the "bitter" United States, reminding the crowd of the "dark path" which the US had followed and that it was the CSA's duty to be a continuing force for freedom in the world by entering the war. By the middle of 1915, the Great War, expected to be over by the previous Christmas, had settled into a bloody stalemate in both North America and Western Europe. With only a few months left before the CS presidential election, Wilson was a lame duck. Nevertheless, he continued to rally the Confederate States while at the same time campaigning for his vice president Gabriel Semmes, the Whig Party presidential candidate. By this time, certain quarters were of the opinion that Wilson had not prosecuted the war as vigorously as he could have. President Wilson left office on March 4, 1916 and was succeeded by Semmes as the 10th President. In September 1917, the Great War ended with the defeat of the Confederate States and its allies. Wilson lived the remainder of his life in relative obscurity. He was buried in Richmond, Virginia and was remembered with a certain fondness by later generations in the CS.
- She is referenced as being President in 2030 in an episode of the short-lived science-fiction lawyer show Century City
- She is elected President in 2020 in an alternate history episode of The Boondocks
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season Two premiere "Into the Mystic" in which the United States was ruled by a commercial empire run by a mysterious sorcerer, Ed Wood served as President prior to 1996, by which time he had died. He was considered one of the greatest Presidents in US history.
- In the alternate history short story "We are Not Amused" by Laura Resnick contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Victoria Woodhull was elected as the 19th President in 1872, defeating her Democratic opponent Horace Greeley and a well known actor who had been nominated by the Republicans, after a constitutional amendment restricted her predecessor Ulysses S. Grant to one term. President Woodhull, the first woman to hold the office, ran for the Equal Rights Party with the former slave and prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass as her running mate. Consequently, Douglass became the first African American to hold the office of Vice President. Shortly after her election, Woodhull began a correspondence with her namesake, the British monarch Queen Victoria. Although the Queen was pleased to hear that President Woodhull had been acquitted of obscenity charges, she expressed dismay at the President's decision to appoint her younger sister Tennessee Celeste Claflin as Surgeon General, given that her medical practices had led to her being indicted for manslaughter in 1864. Furthermore, the Queen was both shocked and bewildered to learn that President Woodhull was in fact married to Colonel James Blood and not Canning Woodhull as she had previously believed. In spite of this, the President's former husband lived with her and her second husband in the White House. Given this complicated arrangement, Queen Victoria agreed with Woodhull's assessment that it would be wiser to accept advice from neither of her husbands for the time being. As time passed, however, the Queen began to greatly disapprove of the so-called reforms being implemented by the Woodhull administration. She took particular umbrage with the concept of free love, believing that it would lead to the breakdown of the family, and the proposed legalisation of prostitution. While the Queen acknowledged that she could not prevent President Woodhull from following this course of action, she firmly resisted the President's attempts to convince her to adopt these positions herself. Queen Victoria was equally contemptuous of the Secretary of Reproductive Freedom's mandate to supervise research and legislation regarding abortion and birth control. She also expressed dismay at the attire of the new American ambassador to the Court of St. James as her short skirt exposed a considerable portion of her limbs, which the Queen claimed caused the Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone great excitement. Within several years, the changing morals and mores of American society spread to the British Empire and even to the Royal Family itself. In 1875, Queen Victoria's eldest son and heir apparent Albert, Prince of Wales abandoned his wife Princess Alexandra as he had chosen to practice free love in the American manner, which he regarded as "a charming and thoroughly civilised custom." For her part, Princess Alexandra objected until being informed by the American ambassador that free love was her right as well. This led to the Princess becoming the constant companion of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose more recent work lacked the moral character for which he had previously been known. The Queen's youngest daughters, Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice, habitually wore the style of short skirt worn by American representatives at court. Thousands upon thousands of young women soon followed suit, many of them establishing "rebellious musical groups which [played] Spanish and African instruments." The Duke of York's eldest son left home to live with the Native American tribes which were beginning to settle in the eastern United States whereas young men in Trafalgar Square had begun wearing their hair in the style of the Mohawk people and protesting the British government's involvement in India and South Africa. women's suffrage was becoming a major political issue with women besieging 10 Downing Street on a daily basis demanding not only the right to vote but the right to apply for men's jobs and earn equal wages and the right to paid maternity leave. This had led to widespread factory strikes across the United Kingdom. Furthermore, factories all over the UK had come to a standstill as workers demanded safer working conditions. Prostitutes took to parading up and down Piccadilly Circus in "most indecent attire," demanding that the government recognise and protect their places of employment. The Queen secluded herself within the walls of Windsor Castle for six months in the hope that the situation would improve, though Gladstone believed that this downward spiral would continue for years to come. However, he assured his supporters that Britain would never have a female Prime Minister. The Queen was particularly upset to learn that her "once dear friend" Empress Augusta of the German Empire had taken to wearing a short skirt and was an adherent of President Woodhull's theory of a woman's right to orgasm. Queen Victoria held the President entirely responsible for what she perceived as the downfall of civilisation, the chaos overwhelming Britain and Europe, the alienation of her sons and the disgrace of her daughters. After serving the maximum one term prescribed by law, President Woodhull left office on March 4, 1877. Her daughter Zula Maud Woodhull subsequently served as Attorney General from 1904 to 1908. Queen Victoria's letters to President Woodhull were included in A Correspondence Between the Victorias: An Insight into the Decline of Victorianism, 1872–1880, written by the latter's descendant Dr. Wiantha Woodhull and published by Femme Fatale Press in 1992.
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- Ralph Yarborough was Robert F. Kennedy's successor as president in Mitchell J. Freedman's novel A Disturbance of Fate. He serves two terms and subsequently is killed during the events of the "Second Civil War".