(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 21 February 2026 6:00, UK
As an avatar of shock rock horror for well over half a century now, what better guise of the American nightmare could there be for Alice Cooper than President of the United States?
It’s long been time since Commander in Chief warranted any respect. Directing grubby regime changes in their Latin ‘backyard’ to appease corporate interests, causing geopolitical chaos across the Middle East, and the incumbent president struck with mountains of allegations connected to the Epstein files, all illustrate a tawdry and corrupt Executive of Uncle Sam’s Evil Empire.
Cooper should feel right at home then. Such a sump of moral rot has inspired the glam veteran to run for office every election cycle as a third-party candidate, representing his Wild Party. As recently as 2024, Cooper ran under the “I have absolutely no idea what to do, so I should fit right in” slogan, running on a platform vowing to end daylight saving time as “all the best things happen at night”, and pledging to add Motörhead frontman Lemmy to Mount Rushmore.
Obviously, such theatre is all tongue-in-cheek. It’s a satirical stunt that’s become a key part of Cooper lore, announcing his presidential bid as early as 1972 during the Billion Dollar Babies era and one of the last classic LPs from their ‘band’ tenure before Cooper carried on solo. Years prior, Cooper entered the counterculture as a Frank Zappa associate with their single ‘Reflected’, a slice of average acid-rock dwell leading 1969’s Pretties for You debut and sinking without a trace.
Yet, embracing the glam glitter cascading across the rock charts in the early 1970s, an abandonment of psychedelic noodles in favour of hard rock and horror vaudeville would see Cooper and the gang find fame, scoring a classic of the day with ‘School’s Out’ and eagerly courting controversy with their on-stage executions and villainous schtick. During the peak of their powers, a look at the political campaigns underway across 1972 inspired one of Cooper’s most defining hits.
There was plenty of satire to be found amid President Richard Nixon’s re-election bid. While winning a landslide victory for his second term, deep pessimism and mistrust began to swirl around his administration and the broader establishment wrought from Nixon’s paranoia and abuses of state power, a suspicion confirmed by the Watergate scandal two years later.
Eager to capitalise on the pervading social anxiety, Cooper dusted off the forgotten ‘Reflected’ number’s hooky riff and reworked the lyrics for ‘Elected’, an excoriation of US politics’ “dirty business” and naturally, centring himself in the grimy thick of it. Legend has it that producer Bob Ezrin placed a mirror in front of Cooper when cutting the vocals, eager to coax a puffed-up performance of campaign hubris.
The single was a success, reaching number four on the UK Singles Chart and helping push Billion Dollar Babies to the top of both the UK and US album charts. To this day, ‘Election’ is a routine feature of Cooper’s live show, often donning a Stars and Stripes top hat and suit, and on occasion corralling a fight between the day’s Republican and Democrat candidates on stage.
In later years, Cooper’s implied support for Donald Trump despite maintaining rock’s need for political neutrality. “I am extremely non-political,” he told Rolling Stone in 2010. “I go out of my way to be non-political. I’m probably the biggest moderate you know. When John Lennon and Harry Nilsson used to argue politics, I was sitting right in the middle of them, and I was the guy who was going, ‘I don’t care.’”