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Fighting illegal aliens since 1971.
"Of all my master schemes to take over the world, the thousands I killed with my army of robotic suicide squirrels, the millions I spent trying to kill you all with Push n' Eat macaroni in a tube, my even-as-of-yet uncompleted orbital death ray, and all I had to do was run for president?! I wasn't even really taking this all that seriously! I even used my real name! You voted for a guy named Doctor Insano! I mean, I know Lex Luthor won last term, but I thought that had something to do with Superboy Prime punching reality!"
So you're fighting a supervillain. You've finally uncovered his secret plan, beaten his Evilbot 3000, and chased him down... until he steps into his embassy, where the majordomo informs you that, due to diplomatic immunity, you can't take one step inside without inciting an act of war.
You've just been foiled by President Evil.
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 Zero Percent 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 Hitlers 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.
Examples:
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 Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure) the president, Funny Valentine (yes, that is his name), is a corrupt, morally devoid lunatic who somehow still mangages 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.
- It's worth noting that he only tried to "rape" said 14-year old girl because she was imporsonating his wife and magically altered to look like her, so he had no idea he was doing anything out of the ordinary.
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 [[Batman: 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 looses it- this is what gets him impeached. Going on a killing spree with your old Apokalyptian powersuit will do that.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 abilities, only better, uses his abilities to become President. Sound familiar?
- 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, Batman had something of a Wall Banger when The Joker, 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...
- Around the time of the Watergate scandal, Captain America discovered that the head of the terrorist organization known as the Secret Empire was in fact "a high-ranking government official" (ie, 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?
- During an arc on Geoff John's 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 thing.
- President Leland McCauley in The Legion Of Super Heroes (postboot version) turned out to be immortal supervillain Ra's al-Ghul in disguise.
- 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 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 (Mc Gruder), 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 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 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 is this at the moment.
- Norman Osborn managed to become (de facto) President of the US 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.
- 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 USA (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.
Film
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).
- Despite appearing only briefly the President in Jason X: Death Moon is quite obviously a lunatic.
Live Action TV
- President Charles Logan 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 US 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, by using the Doctor's first five incarnations, the Time Lord founder Rassilon's fabled secret of immortality for himself so that he might rule Gallifrey forever.
- 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 Five, status quo is not god, and he eventually loses.
- 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.
- Evil Governor Colonel Montoya from Queen Of Swords.
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.
- 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.
- 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 Xanatos Gambit-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'.
- In the recent Sam & Max series of adventure games, the fourth 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, and the only way to defeat him is for Max to become a President Evil himself, a position he still keeps afterwards.
- 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.
- Andrew Ryan of Bioshock is the president/founder/king of Rapture.
Webcomics
- 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, destroying 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.)
Web Original
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.
- 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.
- In Codename Kids Next Door, student council president Jimmy Mc Garfield revealed at the end of his debut appearance that he was in allegiance with the adults instead of the kids. 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.
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