10 Fictional Presidents Way Better For America than Trump or Clinton
Given my status as an outsider to the American political system (I’m British, baby), I
am in a fairly unique position amongst the writers of this site in that I have no real
stake in who becomes President next year.
Which means I can do something no American writer can: Dump all over candidates from
both sides of the political spectrum instead of just the side I personally don’t like.
However, rather than mocking the current presidential candidates’ policies or faces, I’m going
to compare them to these 10 fictional Presidents way cooler than they could ever hope to be,
presidents like…
10.
Michael Wilson
Hailing from a Japan-exclusive Xbox game called, Metal Wolf Chaos, seriously, Michael Wilson
is both a distant relative of former President Woodrow Wilson and the son of the previous
President who during his tenure as leader of the free world decided to build a giant
bronze statue of himself on the White House lawn to show how modest he was.
In other words, there’s not going to be any Obama or Cruz-esque birther controversy
with this guy because his birth certificate literally lists his father’s occupation
as “Freaking President!”
To further demonstrate that he bleeds red, white and blue and absolutely isn’t a communist
or heavens forbid, a socialist, Wilson punctuates every sentence he says with a reference to
how great America is.
Oh and he also pilots a giant mech suit decorated with American flag livery called Metal Wolf.
I erm, probably should opened with that shouldn’t I?
In fact, I should probably open every entry for every article I write for this site with
that sentence because it’s awesome.
The basic plot of the game is that Wilson’s vice President Richard Hawk stages a coup
d’état, convinces the military he’s a terrorist, declares martial law and then begins
selling off US citizens into overseas white slavery, none of that is hyperbole.
Wilson responds by climbing into his mech suit and saving America by travelling across
America freeing captured American citizens by shooting at them with giant guns and destroying
American military hardware by punching it with Metal Wolf’s oversized robot fists.
A feat which would no doubt earn him major props with all those annoying Second Amendment
activists you see on Facebook by serving as the only example they’d ever need of guns
being used to save lives in the hands of a responsible American citizen, who also has
the benefit of being inside a totally indestructible robotic suit.
9.
The Big Guy
Known simply as “The Big Guy” both because of his stature and the fact he’s the President,
this unnamed man serves as President in the book World War Z.
You know, that book written by that guy who thinks he knows more about zombies than George
Romero, that was turned into an incredibly disappointing film.
Despite becoming President during the middle of a literal apocalypse after the previous
President wigs out, President Big staunchly refuses to use his presidential powers to
grant himself effectively unlimited power and instead holds an election, arguing that
America was founded on the principles of democracy and freedom and that he wouldn’t want to
lead the country if those ideals weren’t upheld in a soothing Jamaican accent.
Unsurprisingly, he wins the next election by a total landslide, as is wont to happen
when your only campaign policy is the utter eradication of the undead hoards chowing down
on American buttholes and to make America great again.
See, Trump, you’re so close to getting it right, you just need to replace the word “Muslims”
with “zombies” in your speeches and also become a burly black man with a kick-ass Jamaican
accent.
8.
President Booth
One of the burdens of being President is that unless you win in a landslide, around 50%
of the population is going to hate you regardless of what you do because you’re the wrong
color politically, or in Barack Obama’s case, literally.
In such situations, the only thing a good President can do is keep their campaign promises
and lead America as best they can.
President Robert Booth from the Judge Dredd series is a sterling example of this sort
of mindset.
Despite winning via fraud, Booth stuck to his initial campaign promise of making assault,
battery and all other crimes legal, so long as they happened on a sporting field during
competition, effectively legalizing Death Sports (finally!).
Booth is eventually ousted when he declares nuclear war on every other country on Earth
to steal their oil reserves, essentially doing what every current Republican candidate is
trying to convince voters they’d have the balls to do if they were in charge.
While this eventually ends badly for President Booth, with him being put into suspended animation
beneath Fort Knox for 100 years for starting an Atomic War, he does end his presidency
with 100% of his initial campaign promises fulfilled, which technically makes him one
of the greatest Presidents of all time.
7.
President Dale
Played by Jack Nicholson in the film Mars Attacks, President Dale is an anomaly amongst
fictional Presidents given that he’s one of the only, if not the only, fictional President
I can think of that implores peace and understanding when Earth is attacked by Martians instead
of instantly resorting to dooming the world to unending nuclear winter.
Now if you’re currently thinking that this makes Dale a weak President and that he should
have listened to his General and used America’s nuclear arsenal to bomb the Martians the second
they displayed any hostility whatsoever, you’re an idiot.
From the moment the Martians in Mars Attacks land on Earth, it is established that they
are superior to humanity in almost every way and are able to vaporize an entire army with
a handheld ray-gun that turns people into skeletons.
This is a species that has utterly mastered warfare, so there’s no winning a fight against
them and President Dale is the only person who seems able to see that, even putting himself
at considerable personal risk in an attempt to save as many American lives as possible
by actually attempting to negotiate with the Martian leader at gunpoint.
His attempt ultimately fails.
He’s killed and the Martian invasion is halted when someone discovers this song makes
their heads explode, but that’s not the point.
The point is that upon coming into contact with another species, President Dale makes
every possible attempt to coexist peacefully with them so that the entire Earth doesn’t
get destroyed by an advanced race of superior beings.
You may not agree with President Dale’s actions, but being President involves doing
things for the greater good that others may not agree with.
It just so happens that in this case, the thing others didn’t agree with was kissing
a Martian’s ass.
6.
President Patricia Caldwell
Like many fictional Presidents, Patricia Caldwell from the Splinter Cell series is loosely based
on a real-life person, in this case, Hillary Clinton.
While the two are physically similar, their policies couldn’t be more different, by
which I mean President Caldwell actually tells you what hers are.
While Clinton has remained, to quote The Atlantic, “evasive” on her position on things like
the NSA and secretly spying on US citizens, President Caldwell who, according to in-universe
lore, was elected on “a platform of bipartisan cooperation and disentanglement from pointless
foreign conflicts” makes her position on this subject abundantly clear by disbanding
a rogue government element known as Third Echelon, which is basically the super-NSA.
Caldwell also refuses to bend to the whim of big multi-national corporations (while
Clinton’s campaign relies partly on donations from them) or government agencies to the point
they (unsuccessfully) try to have her assassinated, and you know that you’re a good President
when the bad guys in a Splinter Cell game are trying to kill you.
5.
President Tom Dobbs
Played by the late, great Robin Williams in the film, Man of the Year, Tom Dobbs is a
John Stewart-eque talkshow host/comedian who (unknowingly) becomes President due to a computer
glitch when he campaigns to become President as a joke.
When confronted with the fact that he became President due to a glitch and not through
legitimate or honest means, Dobbs ultimately makes the decision to step down as President,
even though he personally believes the man who will take his place is more servile to
special interest groups than the American people.
That’s how much this man loves America.
Dobbs also goes all Bernie Sanders on his opponents during debates, angrily lambasting
his opponents for relying on donations from big companies instead of regular Americans
and criticizing the US’ reliance on fossil fuels, ensuring that even the people who aren’t
necessarily supportive of his politics or ideas, are at least made aware of the unbelievable
amounts of crap that goes on behind the political curtain.
That isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Bernie Sanders as much as its us urging more
people to ask yell at politicians when they aren’t honest during debates.
4.
President Doom
Appearing in the short-lived Doom 2099 comic series, the titular Victor Von Doom returns
from an unknown point in space-time in the year 2099, a century after disappearing quite
mysteriously with a singular goal, saving the Earth, by conquering the hell out of it.
After building himself an even cooler suit powered by a combination of nuclear power,
magic and his own sense of self-satisfaction, Doom re-conquers Latveria, instilling himself
as monarch before turning his attention to America.
Doom effortlessly becomes President, mainly due to the strength and popularity of his
“oppose me and be obliterated by lasers” policy and, to be honest, actually makes a
pretty good go of it for a guy with the most ominous sounding last name ever.
One of Doom’s first acts as President is helping solve the country’s financial crisis
by gathering up the corrupt CEOs and Wall Street fatcats responsible for putting America’s
economy in the toilet and telling them to vote amongst themselves who they feel is responsible,
so that he can kill them with his bare hands because (take note Bernie Sanders) that is
how you ensure that bankers know that screwing the economy is not okay and ensure they never
do it again.
Doom also actually fixes America’s infrastructure problems, instead of just promising to do
so like most current candidates, by installing teleporters in every major US city before
destroying a company responsible for experimenting on humans, which I’m assuming is a pretty
good way to endear people to you.
Doom also makes Ghost Rider, a demonic entity incapable of harming the innocent, to serve
as a Federal Marshall which is just a smart move overall considering “having your soul
consumed by a flaming skeleton” is a pretty good way to discourage criminal activity and
thus lower the number of people needing to be sent to prison.
3.
President Frankenstein
In the fictional universe of the 1975 film, Death Race 2000, Mr President (that’s literally
what the President of this universe is called), rules America with an iron fist and oversees
the titular Death Race, a cross-country race where the goal is to run over as many people
as possible, for points.
A racer called Frankenstein, played by David Carradine, plans to change this by winning
the race and assassinating the President, which he accomplishes by running him over
with his car as he’s in the middle of declaring war on France.
For some reason, the Death Race universe also operates on Highlander logic and Frankenstein
is inexplicably declared the new President while the body of the previous President is
still lodged in his grill.
Although he’s only President for 4 minutes of screen-time and he didn’t even have time
to prepare a speech or anything, President Frankenstein abolishes the Death Race, promises
to re-build America and then commits his first act of officially sanctioned Presidential
murder by running over a guy trying to insist that the Death Race shouldn’t be abolished
because it’s “an American way of life,” even though it kills thousands of innocent
people every year and every other country on Earth thinks it’s stupid.
I’d draw a smarmy comparison between the latter and how depressing it is to see Republican
candidates insultingly clinging to the right of Americans to own deadly assault weapons
guns in the wake of horrific tragedies where children were killed, but given the number
of times I’ve used the word “President” in this piece, I don’t need the FBI thinking
that I’m suggesting that someone run one of those guys over in a car next time they
open their mouth and say something stupid.
2.
President Baxter Harris
President Harris is the sitting President during the events of both Scary Movie 3 and
4 and is played by Leslie Nielsen.
If for some reason you need more information to sway you on why he’s a good President
than “He’s Leslie Nielsen,” President Baxter, despite being an elderly white man,
seems to enjoy almost unanimous support from both black and white Americans and appears
to have no problem acknowledging the struggles and work of African Americans, as evidenced
by his immediate decision to acknowledge that the Wu-Tang Clan died for their country after
being hit with a rocket launcher during a shoot-out with some aliens.
Okay, so that’s a bit of a stretch, but screw it, I wanted an excuse to link that
video in an article and use that sentence in an article and get paid for it.
Sue me.
1.
President George Sears
A lot of potential candidates for presidency like to coast on their military service and,
why wouldn’t they?
America loves war heroes which is why Donald Trump, who heroically avoided being drafted
for the Vietnam war and openly mocked a former POW war hero, is the currently (at the time
of writing this) favorite for the GOP nomination.
It’s arguable that no president, fictional or otherwise, can hold a candle to George
Sears’ war record though because he’s a “perfect” clone of Big Boss, the protagonist
of several Metal Gear games commonly known by the sobriquet “The greatest soldier in
the world”.
This means technically every feat ever attributed to Big Boss or Solid Snake (another of his
clones), like defeating a giant robot or punching a man made of bees to death, during the 60’s
can be attributed to him.
Not content with literally being as good a soldier as the greatest soldier in history,
Sears ensured that no President would ever be able to live up to his legacy of badassitutde
by dying in the most metal and patriotic way possible, being killed during a sword fight
with his adopted son atop Federal Hall under the unflinching watch of a statue of George
Washington, wearing a powered exoskeleton suit.
We don’t even need to discuss his policies or presidency after that because this guy
could have punched a puppy on live TV every day he was in office and he’d still be remembered
as that President who died during a sick katana fight with his son.