List of fictional United States presidencies of historical figures (C–D)

Last updated

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
Fictional presidencies of
historical figures
A–B C–D E–G
H–J K–L M–O
P–R S–U V–Z

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

C

John C. Calhoun

Julius Caesar

In Howard Wheatley's 1935 satirical fantasy story "The American Ides of March" [1] , in 1949 (a future date at the time of publication) a team of researchers meet in Chicago to review the findings of recent diggings in Egypt. Opening a cask which had been sealed for thousands of years, they find detailed magical instructions on how to bring the dead back to life. Despite feeling skeptical they decide to try it out. Seeking to revive Ramses, a mistake in spelling the magical formula brings them instead into the presence of Julius Caesar. Having been given by the magical process a fluency in colloquial American English, Caesar holds a long and friendly conversation with the researchers. But realizing that they intended to eventually reverse the process and return him to the grave, Caesar - an adept in Egyptian magic, taught to him by Cleopatra - suddenly seizes magical instruments and calls up a demon which devours all but one of the researchers. Caesar then leaves the building into the streets of Chicago, where he survives by acts of theft while getting familiar with American life. Joining a criminal gang, he eventually assassinates the gang leader and takes his place, then uniting with several other gangs and within two years becoming the undoubted Boss of the Chicago underworld. The highly corrupt Mayor of Chicago seeks to use "Cesarini" - as he calls himself, claiming to be an Italian American - for his own ends. However, Caesar eventually outsmarts him and himself becomes the city's Mayor. Contact with the Mayor serves Caesar as a crash course in American politics, which he is astonished to find even more corrupt than the Roman politics of his own time. In 1956 Caesar feels ready to run for President and - after a whirlwind campaign, full of demagoguery and violent intimidation - gets elected. He makes no secret of his contempt for the Constitution and his intention to establish total power. However, the last surviving researcher - horrified at what he and his fellows unleashed upon America - calls up Brutus from the dead. As President Cesarini arrives at Capitol Hill, to address the Senate and inform members of his new decrees, Brutus suddenly emerges from behind a column and runs at him, brandishing a legionary sword. Caesar has only time to exclaim "You again, bastard?" before being cut down.

Al Capone

Jimmy Carter

Lewis Cass

Anton Cermak

Dave Chappelle

Dick Cheney

Frank Chodorov

Winston Churchill

Henry Clay

Grover Cleveland

Bill Clinton

Chelsea Clinton

Dewitt Clinton

George Garley's novel "The Canadian Enemy" is set in an Alternate Twentieth Century in which Canada is much stronger than in actual history, is in control of the whole of the Great Lakes and having both Detroit and Chicago as major Canadian cities, and with constant tensions and bickering between the US and Canada being exploited by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the backstory recounted in the third chapter is it told that in the Presidential Elections of 1812, the most closely contested until then, Dewitt Clinton carried Pennsylvania and thereby won the Presidency against James Madison. Having been strongly supported by anti-war forces, upon election Clinton sent diplomatic feelers to the British, seeking to terminate the War of 1812 in whose initial year American forces did not perform very well. American diplomats discreetly pointed out that a British undertaking to refrain from impressing American sailors to service in British ships would enable the President to end the war, whereupon the Royal Navy would be able to return its squadrons from North American waters back to Britain's unfinished war against Napoleon. Eventually, peace was concluded on these lines; however, Clinton had to accept that Fort Detroit and Fort Dearborn (Chicago), lost in the early phases of the war, would remain in British hands; also, the US had to confirm Tecumseh's confederation of Native American tribes in full possession of their lands. The ending of the war brought angry reactions in the places where the war hawks were strong, and in Baltimore the President was burned in effigy. However, for most Americans the lost territories were distant frontier outposts, and "there was plenty of other land, free for the taking, elsewhere in the West". Moreover, the President blamed the losses on the previous administration which had "started an unnecessary war and went into it woefully unprepared", and asserted that, had the war continued, the US might have sustained far greater territorial losses. Most Americans accepted this view. In his own time, and for most of the 19th Century, Dewitt Clinton was regarded as a moderately successful President. However, in the 20th Century, the increasingly difficult relations with Canada retroactively made his presidency a hotly controversial issue. In the 1960s, Americans stridently demanding that Canada give the US access to the resources of the Great Lakes argued that, had Madison been elected, the US might have continued the War of 1812 and eventually won it - and therefore, the election of Dewitt Clinton had been a disastrous setback for the US; had Madison won in 1812, Detroit would have belonged to the US and its car industry would have been an American industry rather than a Canadian one. An opposing camp pointed out that, should the Cold War turn hot, Canadian Alaska might be the first territory invaded by the Soviets, and therefore the US and Canada needed to close ranks and avoid divisive quarrels. These tended to praise Dewitt Clinton for having ended an unnecessary war and freed British warships to the task of defeating the tyrant Napoleon.

Hillary Clinton

George Clooney

Schuyler Colfax

Calvin Coolidge

James M. Cox

Davy Crockett

Mario Cuomo

George Armstrong Custer

D

Howard Dean

James Dean

Jefferson Davis

Eugene V. Debs

Thomas E. Dewey

Bob Dole

Shaggy 2 Dope

Stephen A. Douglas

Frederick Douglass

Michael Dukakis

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References

  1. Published in the June 1935 issue of the short-lived "Wonderful Science Fiction".
  2. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (April 29, 2017). "Not The White House Correspondents' Dinner, Pt. 8: Woman in the High Castle" . Retrieved August 11, 2022 via YouTube.
  3. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (April 29, 2017). "Not The White House Correspondents' Dinner, Pt. 8: Woman in the High Castle" . Retrieved May 13, 2017 via YouTube.
  4. "Trump to Skip White House Correspondents' Dinner Again This Year". Bloomberg.com. April 6, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2021.
  5. "Trump to Skip White House Correspondents' Dinner Again This Year". Bloomberg.com. April 6, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2021.
  6. Alter, Alexandra (April 25, 2017). "Sci-Fi Writer William Gibson Reimagines the World After the 2016 Election". The New York Times.
  7. "Uchronia: Bloodstained Ground".
  8. "==>".Homestuck. Retrieved 11 July 2023.