President Evil

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But he seemed like such a nice guy during the election!

"Computers may be twice as fast as they were in 1973, but the average voter is as drunk and stupid as ever. The only one who's changed is me. I've become more bitter and, let's face it, crazy over the years. And when I'm swept into office, I'll sell our children's organs to zoos for meat, and I'll go into people's houses at night and wreck up the place! Woahahahahaha!!" —President Richard Nixon's Head, Futurama

This supervillain doesn't just have an Elaborate Underground Base, they have their own country, often a Ruritania, Banana Republic, or Qurac. This affords them so many resources and so much power that the heroes are never able to truly beat them.

Usually, the heroes aren't fighting against the country itself, apart from the occasional loyal citizen who's been turned into a Super Soldier. Their beef is strictly with the villain, and the country is usually just a convenient plot device.

The villain's leaderly reputation varies between Villain with Good Publicity and 0% Approval Rating. Sometimes, the heroes go into the country and foment a rebellion to get the villain kicked out; naturally, this often leads to someone even worse stepping up (as with Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act) and an Enemy Mine storyline to restore the status quo. Or, the "oppressed masses" are actually Gullible Lemmings who like their leader, and might not be oppressed at all!

Similar to the Evil Overlord, but with an international scope. See also The Caligula, which is this trope turned Up to Eleven, sans the Democracy. A Different sort of President. Not to be confused with Hoss Delgado's appearance in the fictional video game within a show President Evil, or with the actual video game series Resident Evil.

Almost always overlaps with Corrupt Politician or Sleazy Politician. In terms of the ranks of Authority Tropes, the tropes that are equal are God Save Us From the Queen, The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask, and The High Queen. The next steps down are The Evil Prince, Prince Charming, Prince Charmless, Warrior Prince, The White Prince, The Wise Prince, and all Princess Tropes. The next step up is The Emperor.

No real life examples, please; we don't want political debates in the examples.

Examples of President Evil include:

Anime and Manga

• In the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and manga, Fuhrer King Bradley is a homunculus. When Colonel Roy Mustang tries to expose him to top military brass, he gets a shocker: most of them were already in on it. In the manga, the entire country of Amestris was founded by Father and the homunculi. Bradley was a human chosen to be the country's ruler and injected with the Philosopher's Stone to make him a homunculus.
• In Steel Ball Run (Part 7 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) the president, Funny Valentine (yes, that is his name), is a corrupt, morally devoid lunatic who somehow still manages to be a Villain with Good Publicity (probably the American flag scar). Among other things, he uses government funds to secretly hire criminals and lackeys for his dirty work and he obviously has some sort of plan for ultimate power that involves using said lackeys to get "Saint Parts" for him. Oh, and he tried to rape a 14 year-old girl in one scene. He wasn't sure she was 14 years-old, but attempted none the less.
• Mai-chan's Daily Life- president of "A Country"
• In Bloody Monday (Season Two) President Adams seems to do this, only he's just more of a Jerkass than someone that's genuinely evil.
• Gundam Seed has Patrick Zala, a General Ripper who is elected chairman of ZAFT and proceeds to lead his nation into a genocidal war. Chairman Gillbert Durandal, ZAFT's leader in Gundam Seed Destiny is a different flavour of this, being a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Anti-Villain, and Dark Messiah.

Comic Books

• The trope name is taken from the Superman arc in which Lex Luthor became President of the United States, which is most likely a play on the title of the Resident Evil series.
  • It's actually more of a multi-arc crossover—he remains president for several years, and becomes more involved in the rest of the DC continuity (for example, framing Bruce Wayne for murder in a lengthy arc in that comic). Surprisingly, though, he's not any more evil than usual; he's no more corrupt or power mad than when he was a regular Corrupt Corporate Executive. The only time he really snaps is a relatively short arc where he tries to frame Superman for a Kryptonite comet heading to Earth, and then loses it—this is what gets him impeached. Going on a killing spree with your old Apokoliptian powersuit will do that.
  • Shortpacked has a great deal of fun with this one from time to time.
• Dr. Doom, archenemy of the Fantastic Four, is probably the best-known, ruling Latveria, an archetypical Ruritania. He's been deposed a couple times, but always manages to get back in. A big reason for this is, not only was the monarch he replaced a far worse despot, but it seems to be the case with anyone who successfully overthrows him; every time it happens, the citizens of Latveria are glad to have him back.
  • And, of course, in the 2099 series of comics, Doctor Doom literally became President Evil when he managed to become President of the United States. Though in that series, he was basically the HERO compared to the soulless evil corporations he was fighting.
    • And he was succeeded by a President who was worse than the corporations. For added irony, this drug-addicted psychopath claimed to be Steve Rogers.
  • It should be noted that he's generally a very good ruler, bringing his country peace and technological advancements. It's only his hatred towards Reed Richards that pushes him towards the Mad Scientist side.
    • Except for the part where Latveria (and when he conquers it, the world) is a hyperefficient Police State. Which, granted, is still a step up from the corrupt, brutal, crapsack Police State it was before Doom cleaned it up.
• Magneto, archenemy of the X-Men, ruled the island of Genosha for a while, transforming it into a haven for mutants, until it was destroyed by Cassandra Nova.
  • It's worth noting that, unlike most of Doctor Doom's enemies, the X-Men have never paid much attention to international boundaries or legitimate governments, and when Magneto headed back towards the crazy end of his personal sanity scale they didn't hesitate to invade the country, attack him in his capital and stab him to near-death.
  • It Got Worse in House of M: Magneto as president of the United States, in an alliance with Starscream wannabe Dr. Doom.
• In Promethea, several hundred howling demons possess the mayor of New York, a highly ineffectual man with a Split Personality or forty. The net result is that the demons displace the personalities and go on to create a popular series of public works (including legalizing devil worship and pentagram shaped buildings), which actually raises his approval rating.
  • "'All shall kiss my smouldering hoof', said the Mayor in a statement yesterday."
  • "Minority groups cheered the Mayor's statement that he would bring 'A new era of blackness' to the city..."
• Philip Nolan Voigt in Marvel's New Universe, a paranormal who can duplicate any other paranormal's powers, only better, uses his abilities to become President. sound familiar? Also, Voigt tries to intimidate an Intrepid Reporter by threatening his elderly mother.
• Black Adam as the leader of Khandaq, though that all came crashing down in 52.
• During the '80s, when tensions with Iran were still high after the hostage crisis, the Joker from Batman, who'd just killed Jason Todd in Africa, was chosen to serve as Iran's UN representative, thus giving him diplomatic immunity. I'll repeat that: Iran made The Joker a diplomat. This was later retconned so that it was Qurac, a (totally fictitious) terrorist state, that gave The Joker diplomatic immunity.
  • And then they did it again in the early 2000s, as part of a plot to nuke New York City.
• Transmetropolitan: Spider's problems get a whole lot worse once The Smiler becomes president. The Secret Service stalks his filthy assistants, assassins start crawling up his butt, and his stories get killed for reasons of "national security." Mind you, he's able to give as good as he gets...
  • The Beast, his predecessor, isn't much better. He is, by all accounts, a venal, selfish bastard, and the main reason he's called "the Beast" is because Spider nicknamed him that and it stuck (to the point that even the guy's kids call him that). But Spider insists that, for all his corruption, the Beast is something America's handled before—the Smiler is just someone who wants to be President for no reason other than he thinks he should, and he'll do anything to get in there.
• Around the time of the Watergate scandal, Captain America (comics) discovered that the head of the terrorist organization known as the Secret Empire was in fact "a high-ranking government official" (i.e. President Nixon). He was sufficiently horrified by this that he temporarily abandoned the Captain America identity, calling himself "Nomad". This troper has no idea what Nixon was supposed to have meant to accomplish by running a conspiracy to take over the U.S.A.
  • Crown himself king?
    • For our non-American tropers, remember that the office of President is the one political position in our federal government that has term limits. You get an absolute max of two successful elections, then you retire. If Evil Nixon wants to be President For Life then forcible takeover is about the only option he has.
  • During an arc on Geoff Johns' Avengers run, America got a Secretary of Defense called Dell Rusk The Red Skull, yes that's an anagram. Who gassed large parts of the country with the Crimson Mist virus.
    • Dell Rusk led to quite a bit of Fan Dumb and/or Unfortunate Implications because the story ran around 2003 or 2004 and he shared the same initials as the actual Secretary of Defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, but come on, it really is an anagram for "red skull", so there's not much else they could have used. "Led Lurks", perhaps.
      • Except for "John Smith", the Anglicization of 'Johann Schmidt', which happens to be his real name... and also a name that makes the heroes look infinitely less stupid for not guessing that he's the Red Skull, precisely because its perhaps the most common name in the English language.
• President Leland McCauley in The Legion of Super Heroes (postboot version) turned out to be immortal supervillain Ra's Al Ghul in disguise.
• The atomic war that originated the Judge Dredd mythos came around because President "Bad" Bob Booth stole an election, went around seizing the resources of foreign countries, and then openly announced he was going to start nuclear war with everyone if they didn't shut up. And then started it. (In "fairness", he thought America's nuclear screens would keep it safe from retaliation. They didn't.)
  • The Judges took over America and have since had one active supervillain for a Chief Judge (Cal), one who gained dementia and began some horrific policies (McGruder), and currently one who is a puppet for Shady Interests (Francisco); every other Chief Judge has carried out some morally questionable acts in the name of protecting Mega-City One, from foreign regime changes (Hershey) to deliberately starting a riot so they could have an excuse to beat up on a pro-democracy march (Silver).
  • The office of Mayor of Mega-City One isn't exempt from evil either, with examples including a greedy, gluttonous wannabe-king (Amalfi), and an unrepentant serial killer (PJ Maybe).
• The leader(s) of Bialya, a fictional country in the DC Universe. Always some kind of homicidal whackjob who got the position by offing the previous leader. Oddly, this doesn't seem to have stopped even after Black Adam kills most Bialyans.
  • The Arch Enemy of the Justice League Europe, and really of the whole Justice League International, the Queen Bee, was the ruler of Bialya.
• The Authority. The President of the U.S. even confesses to being a shill for big business. The Authority, who has had a long history of taking down dictators, depose him. Things go okay for a while, until The Midnighter figures out it's all heading south and fast. Unfortunately, the only way to stop it is to let D.C. explode. Boom.
• Mark Waid's Empire details what happens when a Doctor Doom-esque villain actually succeeds in taking over the planet.
• Though not exactly a President, Norman Osborn was like this from the Secret Invasion to the Siege storylines.
  • Norman Osborn managed to become (de facto) President of the U.S. in the Earth X series, after the Absorbing Man destroyed Washington, D.C. Although strictly speaking, his title was illegal—he simply assumed power without an election—most people were willing to go along with it rather than starve. Curiously, he does relatively little harm before the mind-controlling Skull usurps power and kills him.
  • Now Osborn is considered a criminal by the general public once again following the Siege.
• In the Marvel 1602 series, we see a brief shot of the modern world, where second-string supervillain the Purple Man has been elected President of the United States of America (presumably using his mind control powers).
• Freddy Krueger actually names himself president after decimating Washington DC in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors.
• In Elektra: Assassin, the Beast manages to get Ken Wind elected president, but Elektra thwarts the plan with her psychic powers and ninja skills.
• Monster Plus has World President Mark Darke, who, if the name isn't helping you get it, authorized the creation of EVLI Eye squadrons to handle dissidents.
• In Zombo, Donald Trump is president of Earth, and when he isn't an unholy spawn of George Bush and Ronald Reagan, he runs the planet like The Apprentice. Also, he shredded a puppy.
• In Captain Britain, Mad Jim Jaspers is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom... and also a Reality Warper whose powers drive him completely insane. He becomes a supervillain in two different Alternate Universes and leads campaigns to wipe out the world's metahuman population so he can play with the world undisturbed.
• In Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye (Or Transformers: Cybertron, as it is often called) Starscream becomes ruler of Cybertron through democratic election. Why was he even a candidate? Suffice to say it was Megatron's fault. Starscream won mostly because he had murdered Metalhawk, and then claimed Metalhawk was a hero and martyr who had perished fighting Megatron. Of course, the fact that Metalhawk had been the favored candidate probably helped a little too. Downplayed, however, because this is one of the few stories where Starscream makes a genuine Heel Face Turn, even cementing it with a Heroic Sacrifice at the end.

Fan Works

• The President of the United States is the last foe Vash fights in Christian Humber Reloaded.
• One of the conspirators working for "the council" in Naruto Veangance Revelaitons is the President of the United States.
• Crops up very often in Axis Powers Hetalia fanfiction. Evil presidents and other 'bosses' in the near future are frequently used as either the villains themselves, or as the man behind the man, forcing the otherwise decent nations to do evil things.

Film

• Apparently, the people in John Carpenter's Crapsack World future in the Escape From... film series cannot get a good president. In ...New York, Doctor Loomis was a scheming little crook, and ...LA had Uncle Ben as an outright religious psychotic.
  • The second guy actually managed to get the Constitution amended to stay president for life. His first act after that? Move the capital to his hometown (Lynchburg, VA).
• The poster for Omen III: The Final Conflict makes it seem like Damien becomes President of the United States. He doesn't; he does become the Ambassador to the Court of St. James though.
• In G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Zartan manages to disguise himself and take the place of the President.
• In The Dead Zone, Johnny Smith (played by Christopher Walken) shakes the hand of politician Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) and forsees that he will become president who, in a moment of megalomania ("YOU are not the voice of the people! I AM THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE!"), orders a nuclear strike, thus destroying the world. This scene is pretty funny to those who mainly know Sheen as the wise, principled President Jed Bartlet
• Palpatine of Star Wars was one of these as Chancellor. Of course, it was just a stepping stone to becoming Emperor.

Literature

• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Voldemort manages to take control over the Ministry of Magic and all of wizarding England by placing Imperius Curses over some officials, murdering others, and placing Death Eaters and sympathizers of his cause in positions of power. This allows him to (without much resistance, thanks to the previous Ministers) enact what would end up as a pureblood regime. However, Voldemort never seems interested in becoming Minister of Magic himself.
  • There were several attempts at justification in-story, mostly of the "Direct Parallels To Nazi Germany" variety. Voldemort and his most infamous Death Eaters stayed in the shadows, so mostly semi-legit followers/not-necessarily-enemies like Umbridge were the public face of the DE government; the general wizarding public were lied to as to what was really being done to half-bloods and muggle-borns, and those that did suspect the truth were either too scared to act (remembering Voldemort at his height, 20 years earlier) or were otherwise neutralized (like they attempted to do with the Weasleys).
• In the Left Behind series, Nicolae Carpathia starts out as the president of Romania, and moves on to become Secretary-General of the UN (later called the Supreme Potentate of the Global Community). He's the Antichrist.
• President Lindbergh in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America.
• GamePro Magazine used "President Evil" during the April Fools issue (with a zombie version of Abe Lincoln on the cover) a few months after Resident Evil first came out.
• In one of the Wild Cards books, Puppetman runs for president. (This is a man who controls people's minds to make them commit mayhem, just so that he can get off on their emotions, for crying out loud.)
• Senor Steel, the president-dictator of Blanca Grande in the Doc Savage novel The Freckled Shark.
• President Snow of The Hunger Games definitely qualifies.
• The Star Wars Expanded Universe does this a lot. The current^[when?] story arc features a retired Imperial Admiral as president. Not so bad, until you remember that she oversaw the construction of the Death Star, the enslavement of genius children to build it, and the bombardment of several pacifist planets.
  • And the most recent^[when?] book in the current^[when?] story arc ends with Abeloth becoming president and the Sith in partial control of the Senate.
• Despite appearing only briefly the President in Jason X: Death Moon is quite obviously a lunatic.

Live-Action TV

• U.S. President Charles Logan and Russian President Yuri Suvarov from 24.
• In Read All About It, Dunedon, the evil ruler of Trialveron, is also secretly Don Eden, mayor of our heroes' home town on Earth.
• Nathan Petrelli /Sylar of Heroes becomes the U.S. Prez in the alternate future presented in "Five Years Gone", and tries to enact a program to kill off all the superpowered people in the world (except himself, of course. Because "I can fly. I'm hardly dangerous.").
• At the end of Series 3 of Doctor Who, The Master, posing as Mr. Saxon, gets himself elected as Prime Minister of Great Britain, and promptly uses his authority to gas the Cabinet, declare the Doctor and his friends fugitives, arrest Martha Jones' family, make fun of/assassinate the US President, take over the world and generally act like a Magnificent Bastard. In the end, it is time-reverted, except for the deaths of the U.S. President and the British Cabinet. Ouch. In "The End of Time", he conquers the world by transforming all of humanity into carbon copies of himself, consequently making him president of every single country at once. Even acknowledges this himself: "I'm President! President of the United States! Look at me! Financial solution... deleted!". Also in "The End of Time", we discover that the last Lord President of Gallifrey (who may also have been the first) was an Omnicidal Maniac who was planning to destroy the universe so that he could Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
  • In Series 1, a Slitheen wearing the skin of a mid-level politician manages to become Acting Prime Minister by offing the real one and being the highest ranking elected official around during a time of crisis. Presumably he would have been replaced as soon as the panic subsided, but it gives the Slitheen all the time in power they need to spark a nuclear war and destroy the earth.
  • In "The Five Doctors", Borusa, Lord President of Gallifrey, seeks to manipulate the Doctor's first five incarnations into recovering Time Lord founder Rassilon's fabled secret of immortality for himself so that he might rule Gallifrey forever.
• In Torchwood: Children of Earth, there's Prime Minister Green. True, the whole leadership of the government reluctantly goes along with the plan of handing ten percent of the world's children over to the 4-5-6, but they didn't really have any choice, and they're shown to take no enjoyment from crossing this Moral Event Horizon. However, at the end of the miniseries, when the 4-5-6 have just barely been defeated in time, Green proves himself to be truly morally corrupt by gleefully announcing how he plans to blame everything on the Americans. This proves to be the last straw for his cabinet, and they blackmail him into standing down.
• Babylon 5‍'‍s President Clark: Assassinated the old leader? Check. Iron-fisted regime? Check. Tried to tempt, coerce, and finally smash the heroes? Check, check, and most definitely check. Of course, since this is Babylon 5, status quo is not god, and he eventually loses.
  • His final act as president before offing himself is to set all Kill Sats in Earth's orbit to fire at the planet. Luckily, the good guys manage to stop them in time.
• Various alternate realities in Stargate SG-1 where Senator Kinsey managed to become President.
  • Which is odd because Kinsey doesn't seem to even have a political platform.
    • Nothing beyond "Stop the SGC from using the Stargate so that the National Institute of Defense can use it to make Earth safe by killing anything that isn't from Earth", anyway.
• Evil Governor Colonel Montoya from Queen of Swords.
• In a couple of Smallville‍'‍s Bad Futures, Lex Luthor is shown to either be President, or running for it, as a very intimidating Man in White with a Red Right Hand.
  • In the Distant Finale, set in 2018, Lex has just been elected. Uh-oh.
• A fourth-season episode of Sliders ("California Reich") has a man, Governor Schick, running for President with a very good chance of winning... until the heroes expose the truth behind his "Repatriation Center" concentration camps. The guy's platform? "America for Americans" (a meaningless slogan for a nation of immigrants) and plans to deport anyone whose genes don't match with his ideal American, even if your great-great-grandparents were born in the U.S. That essentially means "anyone non-white". Somehow, he manages to impose this rule on his own state and ship countless people off to camps... and then they get turned into mindless drones called "Eddies" as cheap labor.

Music

• King Geedorah, alter ego of rapper Daniel Dumile, embodies the living hell out of this trope. His methods of dealing with dissenters are expounded upon in the song "The Fine Print": The short version is, he has their heads cut off and mounted on pikes in the middle of town square, where the peasants will throw rocks at the heads for weeks until vultures eventually devour them. As he says, "Maybe then they'll know the right words to speak out loud, at home, in the world, or in the streets."

Video Games

• Lord Recluse of City of Villains. Indeed, most of CoV takes place in Recluse's country, the Rogue Isles.
• John Adams in Conduit 2. Yes, as in the 2nd U.S. President. He's an alien spy, which is why he's still alive and scheming despite being set Twenty Minutes Into the Future.
• Kombayn Nikoladze from the first Splinter Cell game, president of Georgia, is using ethnic cleansing to seize neighboring Azerbaijan's oil, and later attacks the U.S. with information warfare when they try to stop him.
  • His successor is only marginally better, quickly turning on his allies when it proves convenient.
• And Metal Gear Solid did it, too, with Solidus Snake - ex-President of the United States. The 'ex' part was the all important part, though. He was more a traditional baddie who happened to have once been President. The Patriots were a better example - the man plotted and often elaborate plan-loving council which secretly ruled the United States since about the 1970's, and have plans for world domination. It really gets bad when all the Patriots are either dead, in a coma, a vegetable, or actively trying to stop the rogue AI they created from trying to take over the world
• The Dragon of Call of Duty 4, Khaled al-Asad, becomes the President of an unnamed Middle-Eastern country via a violent coup and then goes on a spree to "liberate" the rest of the Middle East until the United States steps in to stop him. It gets worse.
• In the console version of Rainbow Six 3, the Big Bad turns out to be the President of Venezuela, who is secretly the mastermind behind terrorist attacks on the U.S. by seemingly Middle Eastern groups.
• Richard Hawk in Metal Wolf Chaos an evil vice-president turned president after he overthrows his running mate in a military coup d'etat. As for his 'evil' credentials during his actual tenure as president... Geez... Where do we start? 'The giant mechanical spider he sent rampaging through Manhattan', possibly. Or nerve-gassing Chicago. Or executing Metal Wolf sympathysers... and their family... and their friends... and their acquaintances if they don't fess up (complete with evil-eyed Lady Liberty on the ultimatum commercial). Or turning the White House into a missile-launching and armoured fortress and renaming it the 'Fight House'.
  • RICHAAAAAARD!!!
• The fourth Sam & Max adventure game episode of the first season, aptly titled "Abe Lincoln Must Die", sees the titular freelance police up in arms against an evil Abraham Lincoln. Or, in this case, a massive statue of Abraham Lincoln brought to life, who then tries to run for president. The only way to defeat him is for Max to become a President Evil himself, a position he still keeps afterwards. In the third season, it is strongly implied that Max has used literally dirty means to ensure that he keeps his office.
  • Max manages to remain the President even after he sells the United States to Canada.
  • For a while, there was a promotional website called maxforpresident.org, which contained a Donate button (not working on the Wayback Machine) which claimed to syphon dollars donated to organisations like the D'ni Restoration Council, The Communist Party of Rubacava, eBay, The Melee Island Bureau of Tourism and Sam's Wallet into Max's funds. His fundrasing goals were things like jaunty hats for his Secretary of State, spinning rims for the DeSoto, a girlfriend for his pet goldfish Mr. Spatula, an $254 Executive Box of tissues and 'recovery of Presidential email password'.
    • And then Mr. Spatula becomes Vice-President Evil and tries to off Max, accidentally getting himself killed.
• The Big Bads of Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 are President Evils, focused on cleansing the post-apocalyptic world of any dangerous mutants. Given that, under their standards, the vast majority of the irradiated planet's surface-dwelling population would qualify as a dangerous mutant, including most of the good guys, this is obviously not a fun plan. Subverted by President Tandi and Kimball of the NCR, though Kimball is a jingoistic imperialist.
• Andrew Ryan of BioShock (series) is the president/founder/king of Rapture.
• From Final Fantasy:
  • President Shinra in all versions of Final Fantasy VII. A cruel, egotistical, narcissistic, and greedy man who gained his power and retains it through bribery, he is willing to drain the very planet of life energy simply for profit. The destruction of Sector 7 and the mass-murder of its inhabitants in order to eliminate Avalanche was his idea. He eventually gets what he deserves courtesy of Sepiroth.
  • Subverted with Final Fantasy VIII, Vinzer Deling, president of the (mostly portrayed as) antagonistic Galbadian nation is made out to be the Big bad when the plot kicks off, only to be killed very early on by his Dragon, Edea.
• Karasov in Republic the Revolution. He rules Novastrana with an iron fist, siphons money from the national stock exchange, uses his political and military power to imprison and/or murder his enemies, is above the law and he damn well knows it. Until the man whose parents he arrested ten years ago comes back to lead a revolt.

Web Comics

• Subverted in this Sluggy Freelance strip, where the president who's secretly a centuries old wizard who enslaved people's souls isn't actually that bad.

President Kesandru: Living hundreds of years changes you. I used to toy with people, destroy people, all with the selfish goal of untold wealth and power. Now I want to help people, to make up for past deeds. Take steps to make this a better place for everyone ... while still attaining untold wealth and power. Torg: Politics. It's like having evil cake and eating it too!

• In Narbonic, it is revealed that Mell's future self becomes President in the comic's Bad Future. She did this so that she could send a message to the past explaining how to avert the future. The process of sending the message to the past physically destroys her world in the process.
• The Japanese Beetle featured an evil android named Hypnotron whose Compelling Voice fueled a villain-organized run for the Presidency, but ultimately failed because, as a newly-built android, he's too young to legally be President. A later storyline had him succeed in disguising himself as George W. Bush and taking over America, using his powers to alter the world in subtle ways until a few heroes and villains catch on and fight back.
• Zexion was elected governor of Pennsylvania in Ansem Retort. So far, he's stolen tax dollars to finance his best friend's wedding (just to prove he can) and invaded New Jersey. (Granted, he's only a lesser office, not President. Yet.)
  • In a later season, he sold New Mexico back to Mexico for the right of all US citizens to have sexy Latino names. His is Guillermo del Zexiero lo Marquis.

Web Original

• President Dr. Insano, OF COURSE!
  • Notably, this was Dr. Insano's debut on the Spoony Experiment; he was a merciless parody of Sorceress Edea in Final Fantasy VIII becoming a country's leader despite openly despising her own subjects and literally burning the legitimate President of the country alive.
• Supervillain Lord Paramount of the Whateley Universe has his own country Wallachia.
  • And supervillain Gizmatic (now King Wilkins) has his own country, the Caribbean island now known as Karedonia.
• Both of the presidents featured in the e-novel E.H.U.D.: Prelude to Apocalypse are evil, although one is more of the corrupt old polititian kept aloft by corrupt advisers type, while the other is definetly a terrible, terrible human being, even before getting elected.
• General MacArthur becomes this in the Reds! Alternate History, with a healthy side of General Ripper.
• In the Alternate Universe The Nostalgia Critic is shown in the 2010 Christmas special You're A Rotten Dirty Bastard, Angry Joe is shown to have become the evil president of the United States, blowing up Canada and publicly executing Tom Green. To be fair, it's what the people wanted.
  • Debateable, as its possible Canada really had become an evil nation even worse than Nazi Germany in this alternate future.
• In the novel A Girl Who Brought Down the World, Christopher Winnifred Vega is made President of the US thanks to a massive conspiracy. In due time, he ravages the entire world in an attempt to bring in a girl he had fallen in love with years ago who had no interest in him.
• In SCP Foundation lore, Dr. Bright acted as President of the United States by posing as George W. Bush after the latter was killed in a hunting accident; this was primarily done to foil the schemes of SCP-4444, an interdimensional being who had taken possession of Al Gore. While this was obviously done out of necessity (much like anything the Foundation does), it resulted in (for unspecified reasons) Bright being forbidden from ever running for public office (or installing himself as any sort of Head of State) again, as that is now on the Long List of things he is not allowed to do.

Western Animation

• Baron Underbheit, a Captain Ersatz for Doctor Doom in The Venture Brothers, rules over the Mordor Barony of Underland, which is apparently located adjacent to Michigan.
• Parodied in an episode of Futurama, in which it is mentioned that during the 27th century, a supervillain was elected governor of New York. During his term, he stole all the major world monuments and put his face on Mount Rushmore (which he also stole).
  • And more "currently" on the show, there's Earth President Richard M. Nixon's Head, who needs no explanation to people familiar with actual American history.
    • But nobody can be elected more than twice. Exactly! No body can!
  • In the same episode where Nixon gets elected, there's a side discussion about the first robot president, John Quincy Adding Machine, who "struck a chord with the voters when he pledged not to go on a killing spree." "But, like most politicians, he promised more than he could deliver. "
  • A Lincoln-style monument depicts a president (in the sixties I think) who was apparently a brutal alien warlord. His chair is surrounded by a pile of human skulls. The people of Earth apparently do not care who they elect.
    • What does this have to do with "people"?
• In Codename: Kids Next Door, the student council president revealed at the end of his debut appearance that he was in allegiance with the adults instead of the kids. It's fitting that his full name is James Nixon McGarfield, a combination of the names of four U.S. Presidents whose Administrations ended in scandals or disasters At the end of his next appearance, he was sent to prison, leaving Numbuh 1 confident that he would take his place, only to find out that the Delightful Children From Down the Lane had in fact bought the election and become president(s) themselves.
• The text above warned you not to confuse this trope with the moment in The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy where Mandy plays a videogame titled President Evil, but in fact, it DOES features evil presidents. Zombified evil presidents.
• Technically only Governor Evil, but when Nathan Explosion was elected governor of Florida in Metalocalypse, Florida ended up decimated and abandoned due to his rampant disregard for life. Crime was up, the economy was in the tank, etc. He did try to help Florida by putting on a concert, but that ended up summoning a hurricane. The funniest part? He's still regarded as the greatest governor Florida ever had.
• Not technically president, but "his dishonor" the Mayor from Action League NOW can qualify for this. He does everything from kidnapping children, stealing priceless artwork, melting his chief nuclear safety adviser, causing massive train wrecks (he wanted the insurance money), unleashing ancient mummy curses, taking out NFL quarterbacks, and even trying to blow up Washington D.C., all complete with a huge grin on his face, and evil pointed eyebrows. But despite all his acts of villainy, he's never removed from office.
• In The Simpsons, the aliens Kang and Kodos impersonate Bill Clinton and Bob Dole during the 1996 election, figuring one of them would be elected. When Homer reveals the truth, the aliens claim that American citizens have to vote for one of them anyway and voting for a third party would be pointless. The ending of the episode shows that Kang has been elected President, and he proceeds to enslave humanity and forcing them to build monuments. Homer claims it's not his fault, as he voted for Kodos.
• Evil Morty from Rick and Morty; not that previous rulers of the Citadel were much better, of course, but the newly elected Evil Morty has no intention of being the puppet the Council wanted him to be, brutally murdering them and anyone else who opposes him. Possibly he believes Dystopia Justifies the Means, but his true goals are, for now, unknown.
  • Also, President Curtis (the actual President of the United States in the series) is pretty corrupt, as he tends to take advantage of Rick's skills whenever a crisis comes up and then take credit for it. In the second episode where he appears, Rick gets sick of it, leading to an actual fight between them, which shows the guy fitting the President Action Trope too. In later episodes, Curtis hesitates to send aid to part of the country, first asking if he won that state in the election, and in an even later one, his Vice President is revealed to be a Boss Hogg expy (maybe slightly more competent than Hogg), whom Curtis admits he keeps around simply to gain white votes.