History Main / SleazyPolitician

* Every politician in ''ComicBook/SinCity'' is an {{exaggerat|edTrope}}ion of this. Case in point: Senator Roark. He's so corrupt that he is perfectly willing to allow his son to rape and murder little girls, going so far as to protect him from honest detectives.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E50TheWholeTruth The Whole Truth]]", Harvey Hunnicut tries to sell the Model A Ford to a local politician named Honest Luther Grimbley in order to [[CannotTellALie escape its effects]]. However, his inability to lie means that he is forced to reveal the fact that it is haunted. Grimbley refuses to buy it on the grounds that he would not be able to deliver a single speech if he could not tell a lie.

* ''Film/{{Shooter}}'': Senator Charles Meachum is the film's BigBad, although his partner-in-crime Colonel Johnson is TheHeavy. An unscrupulous man fully complicit in the GovernmentConspiracy, he covers his bases so well that even at the film's end the heroes have nothing on him [[TheBadGuyWins and are forced to let him walk]] ([[spoiler:well, [[VigilanteExecution for a little while, that is]]). In the film, at least, he's a none-too-subtle jab at then-living Senator Strom Thurmond.

* "Boss" Tweed in ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'' cares only about getting votes for his election and will do anything to gain them, even [[PlayingBothSides supporting both sides]] of a potential MobWar. When the New York Draft Riots lead to hundreds of deaths, the only thing he laments are that every single one of the casualties are one vote he won't get.

* ''Film/{{Shooter}}'': Senator Charles Meachum is the film's BigBad, although his partner-in-crime Colonel Johnson is TheHeavy. An unscrupulous man fully complicit in the GovernmentConspiracy, he covers his bases so well that even at the film's end the heroes have nothing on him [[TheBadGuyWins and are forced to let him walk]]. In the film, at least, he's a none-too-subtle jab at then-living Senator Strom Thurmond.

A Sleazy Politician exemplifies the worst stereotypes of politics; they take bribes, engage in blatant hypocrisy, face constant personal scandals, and are generally unpleasant people to be around. Often, they are based on caricatures of real-world politicians, or amalgams of them -- especially ones that tend to get a lot of flak. They tend to be shown with almost no charisma, too, which tends to make you wonder how they got elected in the first place. When taken to extremes, they will often have NoPartyGiven, though they can also be used as a StrawmanPolitical against one specific party, ideology, or against government in general. Compare the more outright and aggressively criminal CorruptPolitician. See also MayorPain (which frequently blends with this trope) and ObstructiveBureaucrat.

* Ministerial Candidate Draco Malfoy is this in ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/series/37557 The Charming Universe]]'' and [[BlackAndGreyMorality he's one of the good guys]] because his [[CorruptPolitician opponent is even worse.]]

* Boss Jim Geddes in ''Film/CitizenKane''. He tries to blackmail Kane into dropping out of the election by threatening to make public Kane's affair with Susan Alexander. Kane refuses to back down, the affair is made public, and Kane loses the election (as well as his wife).

* "Boss" Tweed in ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'' cares only about getting votes for his election and will do anything to gain them, even supporting both sides of a potential MobWar. When the New York Draft Riots lead to hundreds of deaths, the only thing he laments are that every single one of the casualties are one vote he won't get.

-->'''Charlie:''' You know you've reached rock bottom when you're told you have character flaws by a man who hanged his predecessor in a military coup.

* ''Film/TalesFromTheHood'': Duke Metzger is a smarmy racist politician and former KKK member who decided to move into an old plantation house that once belonged to one of his ancestors, a slaveholder who was responsible for massacring all his slaves at the end of the Civil War.
* President Bill Mitchell in ''Film/{{Dave}}'' is both carrying on at least one extramarital affair, and [[spoiler:embroiled in a savings and loan scandal as well.]] He spends most of the film comatose, though, and several characters who are not in on the body-double switcheroo with the titular nice-guy character marvel at the difference in behavior that they think is brought on by a "minor" stroke.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Played with, with Tyrion Lannister, he has some of the traits such as drinking and whoremongering but is ultimately a fettered, earnest statesman. Tyrion knows well that politics are inherently sleazy and corrupt and doesn't disdain this aspect of the dirty game, which makes him a very good player.

* Mayor Hernandez (George Lopez) on ''Series/{{Reno 911}}'' definitely qualifies; his infractions include drug use and adultery.

* In ''[[Creator/ZapDramatic Move or Die]]'', Wilma had an affair with the mayor, whom she was an intern for, and got caught by his wife.

** Mayor Quimby. He has constant extra-marital affairs, takes bribes, dodges taxes, and embezzles city funds. During an outbreak of the flu, he flees to a Caribbean island and mocks the beach up as his office [[BlatantLies saying that he won't leave the city]] and also goes on a "fact-finding mission" to Aruba, where he determines that a supertrain directly connecting it with Springfield is infeasible.
** Senator Mendoza, the BigBad of the [[ShowWithinAShow McBain movies]]. He's an ObviouslyEvil [[TheCartel drug dealer with a vaguely Hispanic accent]], yet is apparently one of the most respected men in America. [[TheAhnold McBain]] gets chewed out by DaChief for breaking the necks of three of his bodyguards [[RefugeInAudacity and driving a bus through his front wall]].

* In ''Film/{{Bullitt}}'', Senator Chambers wants something juicy to present to Congress as his "tough on crime" persona -- either a golden witness to the workings of TheMafia or evidence of misbehavior in the ranks of the San Francisco Police [[WitlessProtectionProgram when the witness is killed on their watch]] ([[spoiler:well, [[FakingTheDead seemingly]]]]). He is so damned sleazy that he may as well have "sponsored by the Mafia" printed on his forehead in letters the size of Golden Gate Bridge -- [[RedHerring but he isn't. He is on the side of angels]], but a huge {{Jerkass}} all the same.

A Sleazy Politician exemplifies the worst stereotypes of politics; they take bribes, engage in blatant hypocrisy, face constant personal scandals, and are generally unpleasant people to be around. Often, they are based on caricatures of real-world politicians, or amalgams of them -- especially ones that fall into AcceptablePoliticalTargets. They tend to be shown with almost no charisma, too, which tends to make you wonder how they got elected in the first place. When taken to extremes, they will often have NoPartyGiven, though they can also be used as a StrawmanPolitical against one specific party, ideology, or against government in general. Compare the more outright and aggressively criminal CorruptPolitician. See also MayorPain (which frequently blends with this trope) and ObstructiveBureaucrat.

* Tomer Darpen, Wedge's diplomatic liaison in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]''. What he did ''was'' all in service to the New Republic, more or less, but [[AssInAmbassador Wedge Antilles]] strongly disagreed with the strict Ends Justify The Means instructions. Which involved slaughtering the [[ProudWarriorRace inferior native pilots]] to play up to the BloodSport-happy local culture and helping to crush dissenting nations rebelling against the local country's [[ConspiracyTheories/HToN New World Order]]. When Wedge refused, Tomer lied to the country's leader, and the order was sent out to have Wedge and his pilots killed.

* "Boss" Tweed in ''Film/GangsOfNewYork''

* ''WesternAnimation/ElTigreTheAdventuresOfMannyRivera'': Municipal President Rodriguez barely manages to avoid being an outright villain, if only because the actual villains are so far out of his league that he needs to stay on the superheroes' good side if he wants to avoid being deposed. Still doesn't stop him from stripping hero licenses if the hero in question has inconvenienced him, giving back said hero license when said hero becomes popular with the people he needs voting for him, owning a solid gold yacht, buying a diamond hat, and setting up "bachelor charity auctions" as a thinly-veiled excuse to get himself and people he needs favors from laid.

A Sleazy Politician exemplifies the worst stereotypes of politics; they take bribes, engage in blatant hypocrisy, face constant personal scandals, and are generally unpleasant people to be around. Often, they are based on caricatures of real-world politicians, or amalgams of them -- especially ones that fall into AcceptablePoliticalTargets. They tend to be shown with almost no charisma, too, which tends to make you wonder how they got elected in the first place. When taken to extremes, they will often have NoPartyGiven, though they can also be used as a StrawmanPolitical against one specific party, ideology or against government in general. Compare the more outright and aggressively criminal CorruptPolitician. See also MayorPain (which frequently blends with this trope) and ObstructiveBureaucrat.

* ''Webcomic/{{Dreamkeepers}}'' Has Viscount Calah, who's easily manipulated, rarely gives straight answers (not even to his own daughter) and also has an illegitimate daughter he's trying to hide from the world in order to prevent a scandal.

--> '''Zeus's Answering Machine:''' Remember to vote Zeus in any and all upcoming elections!

* ''Film/CharlieWilsonsWar'' presents the title character as a congressman who is nearly constantly surrounded with babes, booze and blow, yet is a noble statesman who takes his responsibilities very seriously all the same.

* Governor Fullarbottom in ''Literature/{{Victoria}}''. Unlike most other antagonist politicians in the story, there is no indication that he is ''corrupt'' in the sense of being an outright criminal in office, but he is still deeply tied up in questionable machine politics, horsetrading and various shady applications of executive power.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsTheHighRepublic: [[Literature/StarWarsTheRisingStorm The Rising Storm]]'': Senator Tia Toon just oozes sleaze, spending all his time talk about how instead of spending money on the "wasteful" Republic Fair, they should instead be spending money on his Defense Force Project, a galaxy-wide Republic military--which, coincidentally, would involve quite a lot of money going to his home planet of Sullust, which holds many shipbuilding contracts. He is also very critical of the Jedi, only giving vague platitudes that they "did their part" but the Republic still needs its own military. [[spoiler:Subverted when someone tries to sell him an anti-Jedi weapon. Toon is horrified and has her arrested (the device used illegal materials; she thought he'd let it slide). He doesn't hate the Jedi and he isn't a traitor, he just genuinely believes that the Republic can't rely solely on the Jedi to defend them. Later, when the Jedi realize that the Nihil are tapping Republic comm traffic, Toon capitalizes on his reputation for hating Jedi by making it sound like a specific target will be undefended, allowing the Jedi to ambush a huge chunk of the Nihil fleet]].

* Herbert Love in ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' receives bribes from dubious parties, cheats on his wife and supports the Bluth's initiative to build a wall on the Mexican border.

* Pawnee City Councilman Bill Dexhart of ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' fits this to a T, complete with sex scandals, religious and social hypocrisy, and incredibly obvious sleaze, to which everyone is completely oblivious because he's so good looking (and because nobody cares about local politics).

* Mayor Arthur "Artie" Worth in the ''Series/BlackScorpion''. His crooked actions result in the OriginStory for several {{Supervillain}}s. When the title character asks who would benefit from his death, her colleges give a ''long'' list of people.

* Julian Fawcett MP from ''Series/GhostsUK'' is every inch the stereotypical 1980s-1990s Tory politician -- sleazy, venal, sex-mad, amoral, utterly corrupt and gifted primarily (if not only) in the use of two-faced politico-speak to weasel out of trouble. Unfortunately for him, it caught up with him when he died in an embarrassing sex mishap in the house where his restless spirit lingers to this day, and any other accomplishment he might have been able to claim was utterly forgotten in the face of his humiliating death. And to add insult to injury, he has to spent the entirety of eternity wearing no trousers as a result.

* The Elephant from ''VideoGame/{{Payday 2}}''. He has hired the titular Payday Gang for rigging an election and for framing one of his Democrats rivals (whom, admittedly, was a massive case of an AssholeVictim, but still).

* Used as a gameplay mechanic in ''[[VideoGame/OppressiveGames POWER]]''. Your dishonest reputation increases if you backslap elites, glad-hand a lobby, campaign for a lobby, campaign ''against'' a lobby, use attack ads or contribute to your own campaign fund from your personal finances. If it's high, attack ads against you do more damage to your influence, and your own attack ads are more likely to backfire and damage your influence instead of the target's influence.
* ''VideoGame/EternalChampions: Challenge from the Dark Side'' has the aptly named Senator, a none-too-subtle parody of Joe Lieberman, one of the biggest faces in the topic of violence in video games in the 90s. Senator functions as a head-swap of Larcen, a career criminal, and he fights by throwing literal red tape to bind his opponent, using "BAN" stickers to halt attacking, slinging mud, and shaking his opponent up for their money (as a "donation"). His ending double-subverts it, as it starts with him exposing the corruption in Washington and encouraging the public to hold a new vote, but then it comes out that he was just as awful as the other politicians (supporting the Iran-Contra affair and selling national secrets are explicitly named), he never went to prison for his crimes, and he even turned the scandals into a lucrative enterprise with best-selling books, films and talk show circuits.

-->''Each candidate, according to the other's advertised assertions, possesses not only the mendacity of Baron Munchausen and a concern for one's fellow citizens normally ascribed to Dracula; he is unrivaled in moral turpitude, avarice, misanthropy, corruption, criminality, cheating, stealing, child-starving, puppy-stomping, kitten-drowning and, on a grand scale, just plain old down-and-dirty psychopathy. Fundamentally, each candidate recognizes in his opponent a depravity of personal and professional conduct that not only would make him unfit for public office but, in the real world, unsuited for anything better than maximum security--the very worst example of human sludge ever to have flushed from his sewer with the sinister desire to uphold, protect and defend the laws of the land.''

** Bob Arnold, (former) congressman who accepted a bribe from a timber company who wanted to cut down the Springfield Forest. It's also implied that he accepted bribes earlier to allow another company to bury toxic waste. He was later caught in a sting operation by the FBI when he accepted another bribe to allow oil drilling on President Roosevelt's head on Mount Rushmore.

** Mayor Quimby. He has constant extra-marital affairs, takes bribes, dodges taxes, and embezzles city funds. During an outbreak of the flu, he flees to a Caribbean island and mocks the beach up as his office [[BlatantLies saying that he won't leave the city]] and also goes on a "fact-finding mission" to Aruba, where he determines that a supertrain directly connecting it with Springfield is unfeasible.

* Julian Fawcett MP from ''Series/{{Ghosts}}'' is every inch the stereotypical 1980s-1990s Tory politician -- sleazy, venal, sex-mad, amoral, utterly corrupt and gifted primarily (if not only) in the use of two-faced politico-speak to weasel out of trouble. Unfortunately for him, it caught up with him when he died in an embarrassing sex mishap in the house where his restless spirit lingers to this day, and any other accomplishment he might have been able to claim was utterly forgotten in the face of his humiliating death. And to add insult to injury, he has to spent the entirety of eternity wearing no trousers as a result.

* ''Film/MurdrAt1600'': Despite his ultimately sympathetic portrayal, the President does seem willing to write off the hostages in North Korea despite the advice of all of his subordinates, is willing to let his son get away with murder when he thinks the young man is guilty, and engages in some TreacheryCoverUp rather than admit the late culprit was one of his advisors.

* Every politician in ''ComicBook/SinCity'' is this TurnedUpToEleven. Case in point: Senator Roark. He's so corrupt that he is perfectly willing to allow his son to rape and murder little girls, going so far as to protect him from honest detectives.

* [[ActionPolitician President Curtis]] in ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' is typically [[SlaveToPR more concerned with getting reelected]] or [[TheRival his petty rivalry with Rick]] than actually doing what's best for the country. When clones of the Smith family terrorized the Southwestern US he ignored it because those states didn't vote for him, and when [[WeaponizedLandmark the Statue of Liberty attacked New York]] he was more concerned with opposing Rick than dealing with it. Not to mention the [[ReedRichardsIsUseless advanced technology he developed in the arms race with him that he refuses to make available to the public]]. In the ThanksgivingEpisode, when the [[MakesSenseInContext turkey clone of himself takes his place]] and he calls it out for not caring about America, [[VillainHasAPoint it retorts that he ended up in this situation]] ''because'' he cared more about showing up Rick than America.

* [[ActionPolitician President Curtis]] in ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' is typically [[SlaveToPR more concerned with getting reelected]] or [[TheRival his petty rivalry with Rick]] than actually doing what's best for the country. When clones of the Smith family terrorized the Southwestern US he ignored it because those states didn't vote for him, and when [[WeaponizedLandmark the Statue of Liberty attacked New York]] he cared more about opposing Rick than dealing with it. Not to mention the [[ReedRichardsIsUseless advanced technology he developed in the arms race with him that he refuses to make available to the public]].

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' has Roger Doofenshmirtz, mayor of Danville. Despite [[MadScientist his brother Heinz]] thinking of him as "a goody two-shoes", he's shown to be quite crafty and dishonest at times. In "The Beak", he lets Heinz be mayor for a day just so he'll take the fall for any property damage caused by Khakha Peu-Peu.