History Main / RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman

* The ''VideoGame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'' mod to ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIronII'' does this a lot (because it's trying to avoid using the OTL historical figures): UsefulNotes/JosefStalin is the minister of security for Georgia; UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini is minister of transportation in the Socialist Republic of Italy; UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is dead and his [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI wartime]] letters home (along with those of many other soldiers') has been published under the title ''Mein Kampf'' by Ernst Röhm, who for some reason wears a Creator/CharlieChaplin-style mustache; Oswald Mosley is a leader of a radical ''left'' faction in Syndicalist Britain, which includes [[Creator/GeorgeOrwell Eric Blair]] and a gay Creator/CSLewis.

[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gukt.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Would ''you'' buy a taco from [[Music/{{Metallica}} James Hetfield?]]]]

* In Creator/TerryBisson's ''Fire on the Mountain'', General Harriet Tubman and John Brown led a successful slave revolt in the American south and established the independent socialist state of Nova Africa. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a former Whig Congressman who tried and failed to reunite Nova Africa with the United States, which itself becomes a socialist democracy after Lincoln's death. Karl Marx did not write any of the books he wrote in reality after 1859, but was a prominent foreign supporter of Nova Africa. And, finally, a hundred years after Tubman and Brown's raid; the protagonist of the story encounters a gas station mechanic and motoring enthusiast named Elvis Presley.

* In Creator/TerryBisson's ''Fire on the Mountain'', General Harriet Tubman and John Brown led a successful slave revolt in the American south and established the independent socialist state of Nova Africa. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a Whig politician who tried and failed to reunite Nova Africa with the United States, which itself becomes a socialist democracy after Lincoln's death. Karl Marx did not write any of the books he wrote in reality after 1859, but was a promenient foreign supporter of Nova Africa. And, finally, a hundred years after Tubman and Brown's raid; the protagonist of the story encounters a gas station mechanic and motoring enthusiast named Elvis Presley.

* In Creator/TerryBisson's ''Fire on the Mountain'', General Harriet Tubman and John Brown led a successful slave revolt in the American south and established the independent socialist state of Nova Africa. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a Whig politician who tried and failed to reunite Nova Africa with the United States, which itself becomes a socialist democracy after Lincoln's death. A hundred years after Tubman and Brown's raid, the protagonist of the story encounters a gas station mechanic and motoring enthusiast named Elvis Presley.

* The short film ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwH3Xr6uyG0 It's A Wonderful Life! (with captalism)]], has the protagonist (vaguely hipsterish middle-class youth) gets transported by a wish-granting fairy to a world without capitalism (i.e. where America is a Soviet-esque hell-hole). When confronted with the fact he now has no UsefulNotes/XBox, is told by the fairy that that greedy Bill Gates works in a bowling ball factory somewhere so win some, lose some, right?

* In Creator/TerryBisson's ''Fire on the Mountain'', General Harriet Tubman and John Brown led a successful slave revolt in the American south and established the independent socialist state of Nova Africa. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a Whig politician who tried and failed to reunite Nova Africa with the United States, which itself becomes a socialist democracy after Lincoln's death. A hundred years after Tubman and Brown's raid, the protagonist of the story encounters a gas station attendant and motorcycle enthusiast named Elvis Presley.

* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin in ''Retroperspective'', which is a mix of autobiography and reprints of his old stories, mentions that his debut on professional writing scene was in magazine "Galaxy", but it happened months after they bought his story because it got lost in the office. He notes that there probably is another world, in which it was never found and he is now a journalist.

* Marvel's series ''ComicBook/{{Powerless}}'' is all about this trope - it's set in a world where none of Marvel's protagonists or antagonists have superpowers. [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Peter Parker]] is a normal teenager, Tony Stark and [[Characters/MarvelComicsNormanOsborn Norman Osborn]] compete for a government's contract for their PoweredArmor projects (codenamed ComicBook/IronMan and The Characters/{{Juggernaut|MarvelComics}} respectively), [[Characters/DaredevilMattMurdock Matt Murdock]] is just a blind lawyer, [[Characters/MarvelComicsMagneto Eric Magnus]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsProfessorX Charles Xavier]] are senators, [[ComicBook/DoctorStrange Stephen Strange]] is a stage magician and [[Characters/IncredibleHulkBruceBanner Bruce Banner]] is in an insane asylum. The only one who has any sort of extraordinary life is [[Characters/WolverineJamesLoganHowlett Logan]], caught in political intrigue, and the protagonist of the story, who has visions of everybody's counterparts from the mainstream Marvel Universe [[spoiler:because he is The Watcher's counterpart in that universe]].

* Sometimes Marvel series ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' went there, mostly in humorous backups, which featured things like Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} working at a delicatessen or the [[Characters/IncredibleHulkBruceBanner Hulk]] becoming school hall monitor (he later became a principal and hired Characters/{{The Punisher|FrankCastle}} to do his old job).

** In one story, a supercomputer shuts off all the input and reshuffles the data inside itself for a couple of hours every day, which essentially makes it an AI unable to express itself otherwise than in piles of data. Accidentally fed a WWII-never-happened alternate history novel, it treats its content as any other dataset and starts spitting out statistical data with lots of people who died in World War II alive, well and hugely successful, and most of primary timeline's political elites ({{exp|y}}ies of our world's politicians) presented as small crooks and burglars. As a result, it has its funding cut by politicians offended by the simulation.
** In another, an accident involving a supposed past-viewing device (it's left vague whether it's tapped into an alternate timeline or never was anything more than odd case of LotusEaterMachine) presents a world where Stalin became a priest in Georgia. He actually organizes a vicious cult, but difference in scale means the death toll is much lower.

* On Creator/TheHistoryChannel's ''TheUniverse'', in an alternate universe, UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush never became Governor or President. Instead, he became Commissioner of Baseball. That was actually based on (almost) real history: Bush had wanted to be the Commissioner of Baseball, but couldn't get the job, so he went into politics instead.

The TropeNamer is from Creator/HarryTurtledove's alternate history novel ''Literature/TheTwoGeorges'', where UsefulNotes/RichardNixon is a successful used car salesman in the [[AmericaIsStillAColony North American Union]]. That itself was a joke about a 1960 Democratic campaign poster, showing Nixon with a KubrickStare and the caption "Would YOU buy a used car from this man?" Funnily enough, Nixon's parents did own a gas station when he was growing up, so him going into the auto industry instead of politics isn't too implausible.

* The ''Literature/{{Baltimore}}'' series "The Curse Bells" - set during an AlternateHistory version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI - features an unnamed German corporal / warlock, and tries to make a [[DealWithTheDevil deal]] with the vampire BigBad. He's depicted as a singularly bad guy, probably worse than the vampires themselves. Eventually we learn that although he's in the German army, [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler he was born in Austria, and he thinks that swastikas are really cool, and he is probably considering shaving off the tips of his mustache.]] Ultimately, [[spoiler: he is torn apart by vampire nuns and never gets to see his dream come to fruition, in what is perhaps the only way ''Baltimore'''s CrapsackWorld is better than ours.]] A rare case where this trope is played deadly serious.
* Occurs in ''ComicBook/BulletPoints''. [[ComicBook/BuckyBarnes James Barnes]] never becomes Bucky, Stephen Strange uses S.H.I.E.L.D's implants to continue his work as a surgeon and Tony Stark is just a businessman [[spoiler:until he takes the mantle of Iron Man after Steve's death]].

* One of Creator/DCComics' {{Elseworld}} stories has [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] as Gotham City's police chief.

* One of the projects in Marvel's anthology ''Millennial Visions'' has alternate versions of ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}, ComicBook/{{Rogue}}, ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} and ComicBook/{{Nightcrawler}} never becoming superheroes, but founding a rock band called "[[WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution X-Men: Revolution]]".

* In Creator/WarrenEllis' ''ComicBook/{{Newuniversal}}'', counterparts of various characters from main Franchise/MarvelUniverse live mostly mundane lives - ComicBook/MaryJaneWatson is a movie producer and drug addict, John Jameson is black and joined the military, and supervillain Jim Braddock is an archaeologist. [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] is a complete moron who gets gifted with supernatural talent to make all kinds of technology from literally [[MemeticMutation a box of scraps]], but gets himself killed before having a chance to become a superhero ... and [[ComicBook/RedHulk Thunderbolt Ross]] [[SubvertedTrope is still a General in the U.S. Army]], but is bald.
* A DC/Wildstorm crossover had the ComicBook/{{Planetary}} team looking into murders in the Wildstorm universe's Gotham City. There's no Batman, but their universe's Dick Grayson (the first ComicBook/{{Robin}}, later ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}) is the head of Planetary's Gotham field office, assisted by someone heavily hinted to be an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker.
* Marvel's series ''ComicBook/{{Powerless}}'' is all about this trope - it's set in a world where none of Marvel's protagonists or antagonists have superpowers. [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] is a normal teenager, Tony Stark and ComicBook/NormanOsborn compete for a government's contract for their PoweredArmor projects (codenamed ComicBook/IronMan and The ComicBook/{{Juggernaut|MarvelComics}} respectively), [[ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} Matt Murdock]] is just a blind lawyer, [[ComicBook/{{Magneto}} Eric Magnus]] and [[ComicBook/ProfessorX Charles Xavier]] are senators, [[ComicBook/DoctorStrange Stephen Strange]] is a stage magician and [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Bruce Banner]] is in an insane asylum. The only one who has any sort of extraordinary life is [[ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} Logan]], caught in political intrigue, and the protagonist of the story, who has visions of everybody's counterparts from the mainstream Marvel Universe [[spoiler:because he is The Watcher's counterpart in that universe]].
* In ''ComicBook/SupermanRedSon'', Nixon won the 1960 election but was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. In 1978, Franchise/WonderWoman opines that the US has been going downhill ever since then. By that time, UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy is President. His father Joseph P. Kennedy (who was seemingly dead by then as he was in reality) was concerned that being the first President to divorce and remarry while in office would be JFK's lasting contribution to history. His second wife is Creator/MarilynMonroe, who goes by her real name Norma Jean Mortenson as First Lady. She once had an affair with the head of the Moscow Police. After the United Kingdom becomes a communist country, Tony Benn is seemingly a senior figure in its government.

* Sometimes Marvel series ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' went there, mostly in humorous backups, which featured things like ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} working at a delicatessen or the [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk]] becoming school hall monitor (he later became a principal and hired ComicBook/ThePunisher to do his old job).

** The most significant change is undoubtedly George Washington's role. While he still serves as a founding father for the United States, [[spoiler:he became an entity living in Earth's core known as the "Horned Serpent" after climbing one of the [[GaiasVengeance Special Trees]] inside [[EldritchLocation Wonderland]]. Eventually, he was cut into pieces by [[FictionalCounterpart Maize Machines]] in order to serves as a power source for their computers, with his head being kept under control under the Statue of Liberty, which is used as a slaughterhouse to feed him. In the season 2 finale, he is responsible for transforming the entire universe into the [[WebVideo/CornerFolklore Cornerworld]] after the [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Airforce One Angel accidentally destroys the Earth in their fight with Freedom.]]]]

** Prince Charles marries Julie Nixon instead of Diana Spencer [[spoiler:and becomes King of Britain in the '70s.]]

* ''VideoGame/RedAlert3Paradox'':
** Most of the individuals who would have become President of the United States in real life have instead fallen in line with the Confederate Revolutionaries. Nixon himself is not only a Confederate officer, but also ''was'' a car salesman. UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy not only survived [[WhoShotJFK his assassination]] (a plot by the Cult of the Black Hand which got foiled by their nemeses, the Order of the Talon), but went on to become head of the Confederate Navy after his presidency ended. On top of all that, UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy is revealed to have become President for the [[FictionalPoliticalParty Federalist Party]], the party from which Howard T. Ackerman is part of, and is the one responsible for the [[WeaponizedLandmark weaponized Mount Rushmore]] seen in the Allied campaign.
** UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev is a lowly grain farmer who complains about how Trofim Lysenko's influence over Soviet agriculture has ruined his livelihood. Similarly, UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev was instead a Soviet Conscript who got unceremoniously killed in action.
** The Confederate Deck of 52, an in-universe lore article about the Confederates' most wanted targets, includes several historical figures in different positions than what they ended up doing in real life. For example, Usefulnotes/LyndonJohnson is Secretary of American and Pacific Civil Affairs, while UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr is in charge of the Allied Poverty Reduction Programme. In addition, rather than becoming President like in ''VideoGame/RedAlert2'', Michael Dugan is instead a senator of Illinois. In contrast, General Benjamin Carville has thrown in his lot with the Confederates.
** UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini failed in his invasion of Ethiopia, leading to his execution by partisans occurring in 1938.
** Creator/TheWaltDisneyCompany is ironically a subsidiary of the [[MegaCorp Mediterranean Syndicate]], which stems from the Syndicate orchestrating the assassination of Charles Mintz (the man responsible for Walt losing the rights to WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit), which in turn not only allowed Walt to keep Oswald but drew him and his company into the Syndicate.
** Wernher von Braun became the wartime superhero Captain Rocket, the inspiration for the modern Allied Rocketeer Corps. He is also responsible for killing Boris, the Soviet commando from ''VideoGame/RedAlert2''.
** Due to AdaptationExpansion regarding how Cherdenko made himself Premier of the Soviet Union in the alternate timeline he created, it is revealed he orchestrated the deaths of most of the Soviet characters from ''VideoGame/RedAlert2'' such as Alexander Romanov, Vladimir, Bronislav, and even Yuri himself (with Cherdenko ensuring the last one became a complete UnPerson). Only Zofia was spared, and even then Cherdenko had her [[ReassignedToAntarctica assigned to a post in the middle of Kazakhstan]].

* WebVideo/TheMonumentMythos, given that it takes place in an alternate universe, has several examples: