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Yeah, on my mom’s side. My ancestors on that side of the family are the Harrisons. I’m also related to William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison V, the Declaration of Independence signer
I’m descended from Abraham Lincoln’s grandpas second in command during the Revolutionary War. He was apparently a Lieutenant in the Rockingham County militia during the war. According to Ancestry.com I’m also descended from Robert the Bruce on one side and William Wallace on the other so that’s cool.
>I'm also descended from Robert the Bruce on one side and William Wallace on the other so that's cool.
If Scotland ever gains independence I'd choose you to be the monarch based on that information alone.
Yeah, I kinda figured I probably had some distant cousins out there as a result of that. Sorry, lol. Rich white southern aristocratic families were not exactly great people, apparently
Yes. Legend has it that one day there will be someone to surpass his glory, and that individual’s beard will be so powerful that the world will peacefully unite. But until then…
World War 1 and advancements in shaving. Once we invented better razors and the heroic soldiers came home clean shaven that was it for facial hair. It came to be seen as unclean and only for hippies and radicals.
I guarantee this is an evolutionary attraction. Just 3 CM of beard was shown to reduce fractures when struck in the face by a significant amount, like 35%
I’ll go find the study again
Well yeah, any sexual dimorphism is. Human females 100% could have breasts that don't show until pregnancy like cats or dogs but don't, for purposes of attraction. We just monkey's bro.
Politicians play it safe and men with beards haven’t been elected much so they shave. It’ll happen but just take longer than say for accounts or engineers.
They're still not considered "professional" in the segment of society that produces presidents. [Look at this article about CEO headshots.](https://www.snappr.com/enterprise-blog/the-fortune-500-ceos-with-the-best-and-worst-headshots) Very, very few beards. In fact, I see only two: Sundar Pichai (the CEO of Google, a tech company that prides itself on a modern culture) and Michael Rapino (the CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, needless to say an entertainment company where some degree of edginess is probably desirable). The same standards are applied for these sorts of people as they are for presidents.
Note that nearly all the men are also wearing suits. A surprisingly large number go tieless, but they're still suits. I work in corporate America and haven't worn a suit to work since the '90s. Nobody cares if I have a beard, but at that level you're expected to wear a suit and you're expected to be clean shaven, and the same goes for presidents.
Beards are pretty popular now, but mostly for younger men. Obama is young enough that him having a beard wouldn't be too weird, but the other surviving presidents were born in 1924, 1942 and 1946 (x3). Relatively few men born in those years have facial hair.
Right, but baby boomers (older ones maybe) and the silent generation may still find it unprofessional and they’re the ones that are in the booths for every election. Hell, they’re the ones running for President too
We still have officers in the Army wringing their hands about potentially allowing beards....for...reasons.....yeah There is definitely still beard prejudice. Hipsters with long beards riding scooters probably didn't help.
Also, IIRC, in Ancient Greece lack of facial hair was seen as a symbol of being a solider / common man vs. a member of the high classes. Growing a beard was seen as a luxury because it meant you weren’t going to risk somebody using it as a handle on the battlefield to cut your head off.
I don’t know what that has to do with American presidents. I just thought it was interesting.
That wasn’t it for facial hair, beards are everywhere these days. I can’t rock one personally because it’s too much work, and it itches, but they are definitely not on the outs in 2024.
Ironically, Lincoln grew his beard after receiving a recommendation in fan mail from a young girl. His clean shaven look was seen as a detriment by fellow Republicans going into the election.
1850s was the beginning of the beard comeback in America. Before John C Fremont ran in 1856 all we saw were sideburns on MVB and JQA.
But from 1856 Republicans became the beards only party until McKinley ran in 1896.
When Lincoln was running for President in the 1860 election, he received a letter from a young girl in Ohio who wrote to tell him that women like men with beards, so if he wanted women to tell their husbands to vote for Lincoln, he should grow a beard, which he did.
Unfortunately for a your lithographer named Milton Bradley, he could only make prints of the clean-shaven Lincoln, which nobody wanted anymore, since they were no longer accurate. With his business in shambles, he went to a friends house, where they passed the time playing terrible board games (the family game of Victorian Morality, and the like). Thinking that they could make better games, Milton and his friends drew up what would become the first versions of "The Game of Life", using the card stock from Milton's lithography business to draw up the prototype game board.
To this day, the "standard board size" used in games like monopoly is the same size as Milton Bradley's card stock in 1860.
The benches are kinda empty right now though. I'm trying to think of a person from either party born after 1980 who can potentially rise to the white house by '28 or '32 and they're all women.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was much sooner. They're so prevalent that I think even older gentleman who once held bias against beards have gotten over it. And that gen is literally dying too. Most younger men seem to be picking up a facial hair type, with Republicans especially using beards as a calling card. With populism and relatability only becoming more important, I expect to see more guys getting nominations with beards
Political advisors saw what happened with Dewey and his mustache, arguably costing him the 1948 presidency, and never let their candidates repeat anything close to that mistake.
I think there’s some weird psychology aspect to it. Like people want their leaders to be masculine but restrained. Orderly. Structured. A clean shaven face lends itself to that. Also, part of me thinks that this also reflects some of the Empire-worship that we still have for Rome and Britain. The Roman shaved look was a stark contrast to the barbed barbarians.
The Marquess of Salisbury wants to know why you associate the British Empire with clean-shaven men.
https://preview.redd.it/dd7yg250l23d1.jpeg?width=2233&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=783d0c1a99f5c9d7df59db773626457968892243
The clean shaven look in the antiquity was combination of showing off wealth, and presenting yourself as being younger (and thus still stronger). Until industrial revolution came around, shaving was simply for the wealthier ladders of society.
Think about it. You need something sharp (the razor) that you slide over your skin. Too shallow of an angle and it doesn't cut the hair. A tiny bit too much of an angle, and you end up with nasty cut on your face. Before antibiotics, minor cuts could turn into deadly infections, so you probably wanted to have a mirror (very expensive prior to industrial revolution) or somebody else shaving you every day (again, expensive). Or you'd butcher yourself regularly and sooner or later die of infection.
Fast forward to industrial revolution. Now we can make mirrors for cheap, safety razor was invented, and Gillete comes around with disposable ultra cheap blades (and also huge marketing campaign to popularize clean shaven look -- so they can sell even more of their disposable blades). Shaving wasn't for affluent only anymore, but it was still associated with social status.
In the near future we will have a president with a beard and tattoos. And skinny jeans. And maybe even a trucker hat. This is the America 🇺🇸 I dream about.
You can blame military for this situation. Joining military not required to be POTUS but it does help. So you get used to shaving even during military service and after it as well so not grow any facial hair.
Facial hair fell out of professional preference in the US because of its association with German philosophers and then soviet/ socialist associations. "Clean shaven" became the American image, not the red image. I think we might come back around to a president with facial hair. We see candidates now not havi g an issue with a well maintained beard. Facial hair isn't counter culture anymore, it's accepted mainstream again.
No Soviet/Russian leader had facial hair after Stalin. They do alternate between bald and full head of hair over there though.
European Communist Bloc leaders were also all clean shaven. It’s just Ho and Castro and Walter Ulbricht who were notable exceptions.
Yeah, but the "red scare" was at its height during that time. The clean shaven culture took root as a result and the counter culture was in response to that. Having a beard/ facial hair was seen as going against the establishment as a result for decades after.
The OP asked why and where it all began, my response does just that.
Like all things, it will happen again. Though I think it would be less difficult for a President to pull off a full beard than either “just a beard” like Lincoln, or just a ‘stache.
Because being clean shaven usually makes you look better and gives you a very slight political advantage.
Also it is exceedingly hard to make a beard look good, especially on a politician.
Maybe if you are just unfashionable but beards can definitely be done tastefully. You just need to have basic hygiene and grooming routines to maintain it nice looking.
It interested me, but I found out beards and mustaches fell out of favor due to health reasons. Just bc it was in a time when tuberculosis was a huge thing. But slowly and surely, it became a trend.
I really thought it was something about AGE.
https://preview.redd.it/kiqc1tmxr03d1.jpeg?width=3547&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa6d2321f23f0a3b1d59af80cc9e56919287d86b
Theres a theory that after two certain murderous dictators from the 20th century with facial hair caused so much pain and misery, beards and moustaches has fallen out of favour amongst western leaders.
We need to get a president that has a full style viking/Odin beard complete with the braiding and other ornamentation. Also he needs to be at least 6'6".
There have been candidates in the past that could have grown beards to look more hip with the younger crowds, but they realized that older crowds vote in higher percentages. Same goes for dying hair or hiding bald spots. No one wants to do it, but it's part of aging so what's the bid deal?
Socially there has been a shift where facial hair is now seen as a subtle indicator of someone being either too lazy to shave or too rough-and-tumble to hold a serious political position.
Favorite anecdotal quote from Lincoln - Being well-known, but not very well-regarded, for having the unusual, for a politician, habit of changing his positions when he encountered a convincing argument, he was often accused of being "two-faced." When one elderly lady hurled this same accusation as the candidate during a campaign stump, Lincoln replied, "madame, if I owned two faces, then why in the world do you suppose I'd wear this one?"
It's not seen as respectable among baby boomers and the WWII generations. My grandmother's both tell me repeatedly I would look better clean shaven.
Those generations still vote at a high percentage. Politicians do focus groups on stuff like this and it still shaves off a few percentage points if you have a beard. This will probably change as the baby boomers die off but that won't be for a bit .
It’s to show that you have nothing to hide. Last great president with facial hair was Teddy (sucks we won’t see a president with facial hair for a long time)
Combination of modern expectations of the "clean-cut American" image and possibly because I honestly can't think which president could pull off a beard (as in look better with facial hair than without)
We had Paul Ryan, a bearded Speaker of the house.. 3rd in line to the White House. Too bad the more we got to know him, the less we liked him until his presidential
Aspirations evaporated.
Dewey lost with it. Probably some Progressive Era stuff about sanitation and hygeine; which carried over once we got two generations of Presidents from Truman to HW Bush who were WWI or WWII vets.
From the last time I looked it up it is because of a phobia called Pogonophobia. I gives people overwhelming fear of mustaches and beards and since I could ruin their popularity most candidates just shave
Everything about a candidate’s image is meticulously controlled because it subconsciously sways opinions. Fingernail length? Suit buttons count? Amount of scuff on shoes? You’re selling an image, and it doesn’t necessarily stop after winning an election.
a clean shaven person appears to be more trustworthy. A beard could indicate you’re hiding something. It’s ridiculous but it’s one of those hidden biases people have
Beards fell out of fashion in the west around the time of the first world war. Baby butt clean shaved become the norm for all the professionals, and stayed that way for many many decades.
Beards started to be fashionable only relatively recently, as well as accepted for professionals. Think lawyers, politicians, doctors, pilots, engineers, etc, etc... Mustaches were tolerated, but not beards.
Even as recently as 20 years ago, beard could hurt candidate's chances of being elected. But not anymore. I.e. we could see a president rocking a beard in the future, it's simply about statistical probability. The post WW1 "no facial hair for professionals" standards have almost fully dissapeared in the western cultures.
I believe it had to do with the advent of advanced chemical warfare and face masks. Soldiers couldn’t have beards and wear face masks, and then when they became war heroes and came home, it just stuck.
Because WWI (and the actions of vets returning from it) made clean shaven the standard for male professional dress.....
Standards have relaxed in a lot of the civilian world (thankfully - It's nice to have a white collar job but never actually have to wear a white (or any other) collar), but not for lawyers and the military.... Which is where our political leadership tends to come from.
I was under the impression the fall of politicians having beards had to do with women’s suffrage.
Politicians with lots of facial hair tended to lean against women’s voting rights so women voted them out which caused a change in fashion
As I understand it this is just a sign of changing fashion trends, back in the day facial hair was a gentlemanly/statesmanlike thing to have, over the years this standard was slowly replaced with the more academic clean shaven look. It’s not a clean break off point but at some point, world leaders start favoring mustaches, and eventually a clean shaven look
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No one could compete with Benjamin Harrison’s luxurious beard and just stopped trying, obviously.
As a descendent of his, I can confirm
No kidding? You’re descended from him?
Yeah, on my mom’s side. My ancestors on that side of the family are the Harrisons. I’m also related to William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison V, the Declaration of Independence signer
And Rick from Pawn Stars
Sorry, best I can do is Chumlee.
I’m related to William Ellery who signed the DoI so our great relatives were probably buddies.
I’m related to Signer from Delaware Josiah Bartlett
Go home Martin. You're drunk.
President Bartlet, is that you?
Hello, probably distant cousin.
Hi!
That’s super cool! Yeah, thanks so much for sharing!
I’m descended from Abraham Lincoln’s grandpas second in command during the Revolutionary War. He was apparently a Lieutenant in the Rockingham County militia during the war. According to Ancestry.com I’m also descended from Robert the Bruce on one side and William Wallace on the other so that’s cool.
>I'm also descended from Robert the Bruce on one side and William Wallace on the other so that's cool. If Scotland ever gains independence I'd choose you to be the monarch based on that information alone.
So why haven't you become president yet?
And a former U.S. Senator from Wyoming
John Hancock descendent checking in
I'm related to an actor who I hear was great with shooting pistols.
I’m related to all you guys via r-ape 🌈⭐️
Yeah, I kinda figured I probably had some distant cousins out there as a result of that. Sorry, lol. Rich white southern aristocratic families were not exactly great people, apparently
We're doing famous ancestors in this thread? Okay. Manfred Von Richthofen. Distant cousin of mine, on my Mom's side.
https://i.redd.it/ye5q1uplv63d1.gif
This meme must be from 2015, since Harrison left office in 1893.
Yes. Legend has it that one day there will be someone to surpass his glory, and that individual’s beard will be so powerful that the world will peacefully unite. But until then…
World War 1 and advancements in shaving. Once we invented better razors and the heroic soldiers came home clean shaven that was it for facial hair. It came to be seen as unclean and only for hippies and radicals.
60 years ago. I’m pretty sure that prejudice has passed. I’d even argue that beards are now considered manly.
Still very few politicians rock facial hair even today. Ted Cruz who is one of them was clean shaven when he ran in 2016.
Ted Cruz looks a lot better with a beard
He has a weak chin
Fitting for a weak man.
Never have truer words been spoken
This applies to most men
I guarantee this is an evolutionary attraction. Just 3 CM of beard was shown to reduce fractures when struck in the face by a significant amount, like 35% I’ll go find the study again
Well yeah, any sexual dimorphism is. Human females 100% could have breasts that don't show until pregnancy like cats or dogs but don't, for purposes of attraction. We just monkey's bro.
That’s actually insane! Please link if you find it, that’s super interesting
Unfortunately I couldn’t find that exact study, but several similar studies with similar conclusions
Like putting a diamond on a pile of dog shit.
And he still looks like shit. Says a lot about Ted Cruz.
True, probably due to the ages of most politicians/ or a lot of voters. I suspect we may see that change over the next 20 years
As a man who rocks a beard I can say I hope to see more facial hair representation in our halls of Congress.
I want increasingly impressive mustaches.
Ted Cruz is legally mandated to have a beard. We’ve all seen him clean shaven.
Politicians play it safe and men with beards haven’t been elected much so they shave. It’ll happen but just take longer than say for accounts or engineers.
They're still not considered "professional" in the segment of society that produces presidents. [Look at this article about CEO headshots.](https://www.snappr.com/enterprise-blog/the-fortune-500-ceos-with-the-best-and-worst-headshots) Very, very few beards. In fact, I see only two: Sundar Pichai (the CEO of Google, a tech company that prides itself on a modern culture) and Michael Rapino (the CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, needless to say an entertainment company where some degree of edginess is probably desirable). The same standards are applied for these sorts of people as they are for presidents. Note that nearly all the men are also wearing suits. A surprisingly large number go tieless, but they're still suits. I work in corporate America and haven't worn a suit to work since the '90s. Nobody cares if I have a beard, but at that level you're expected to wear a suit and you're expected to be clean shaven, and the same goes for presidents.
Beards are pretty popular now, but mostly for younger men. Obama is young enough that him having a beard wouldn't be too weird, but the other surviving presidents were born in 1924, 1942 and 1946 (x3). Relatively few men born in those years have facial hair.
Right, but baby boomers (older ones maybe) and the silent generation may still find it unprofessional and they’re the ones that are in the booths for every election. Hell, they’re the ones running for President too
Baby boomers were hippies and hippies loved beards.
Plenty of boomers were pro war, anti hippies
Plenty of Zoomers too.
*Some* baby boomers were hippies. Certainly not the ones running for office.
Even the boomers with beards mostly shaved them off by the time they were thirty.
Bearded baby boomer here, I don’t trust anyone without a beard! Including yo mama!
We still have officers in the Army wringing their hands about potentially allowing beards....for...reasons.....yeah There is definitely still beard prejudice. Hipsters with long beards riding scooters probably didn't help.
I was Navy and joined in the early 2000s. Crazy to think beards had only been banned for 15-20 years at that time.
The folks adopting the 'beards are manly' viewpoint tend to be from parts of society that will only see the White House on vacation.
Also, IIRC, in Ancient Greece lack of facial hair was seen as a symbol of being a solider / common man vs. a member of the high classes. Growing a beard was seen as a luxury because it meant you weren’t going to risk somebody using it as a handle on the battlefield to cut your head off. I don’t know what that has to do with American presidents. I just thought it was interesting.
It is making a return now.
That wasn’t it for facial hair, beards are everywhere these days. I can’t rock one personally because it’s too much work, and it itches, but they are definitely not on the outs in 2024.
I never said they were on the outs in 2024. You put words in my mouth. All I said was why presidents don't have facial hair anymore.
Ironically, Lincoln grew his beard after receiving a recommendation in fan mail from a young girl. His clean shaven look was seen as a detriment by fellow Republicans going into the election.
1850s was the beginning of the beard comeback in America. Before John C Fremont ran in 1856 all we saw were sideburns on MVB and JQA. But from 1856 Republicans became the beards only party until McKinley ran in 1896.
Wasn't he ugly? Not a bad idea to cover that up.
When Lincoln was running for President in the 1860 election, he received a letter from a young girl in Ohio who wrote to tell him that women like men with beards, so if he wanted women to tell their husbands to vote for Lincoln, he should grow a beard, which he did. Unfortunately for a your lithographer named Milton Bradley, he could only make prints of the clean-shaven Lincoln, which nobody wanted anymore, since they were no longer accurate. With his business in shambles, he went to a friends house, where they passed the time playing terrible board games (the family game of Victorian Morality, and the like). Thinking that they could make better games, Milton and his friends drew up what would become the first versions of "The Game of Life", using the card stock from Milton's lithography business to draw up the prototype game board. To this day, the "standard board size" used in games like monopoly is the same size as Milton Bradley's card stock in 1860.
I honestly got to the end and half expected this to be a shittymorph
Same!! No 1998 Hell in a Cell. Instead just a fun fact connecting Monopoly to Honest Abe
Super interesting
Because old people are from a generation when beards were seen as associated with an undesirable element
Think we’ll see the return of a beard within the next 40 years?
Considering beards are pretty common with the millennial and younger generation, it’s only a matter of time before we have a bearded president again.
The Current guy in the chair is from the Silent generation. We are a long way from Millenials.
The benches are kinda empty right now though. I'm trying to think of a person from either party born after 1980 who can potentially rise to the white house by '28 or '32 and they're all women.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was much sooner. They're so prevalent that I think even older gentleman who once held bias against beards have gotten over it. And that gen is literally dying too. Most younger men seem to be picking up a facial hair type, with Republicans especially using beards as a calling card. With populism and relatability only becoming more important, I expect to see more guys getting nominations with beards
My guess is 20 years.
Most people I see are overweight millennial guys with beards
Well that's because you are always hanging out at Piggly Wiggly, come on man we talked about this.
Damn martial Prussians
They’re scared they know they don’t stand a chance against Abe’s
Political advisors saw what happened with Dewey and his mustache, arguably costing him the 1948 presidency, and never let their candidates repeat anything close to that mistake.
Pheww! Good thing Dewey Defeated Truman!
I think there’s some weird psychology aspect to it. Like people want their leaders to be masculine but restrained. Orderly. Structured. A clean shaven face lends itself to that. Also, part of me thinks that this also reflects some of the Empire-worship that we still have for Rome and Britain. The Roman shaved look was a stark contrast to the barbed barbarians.
The Marquess of Salisbury wants to know why you associate the British Empire with clean-shaven men. https://preview.redd.it/dd7yg250l23d1.jpeg?width=2233&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=783d0c1a99f5c9d7df59db773626457968892243
The clean shaven look in the antiquity was combination of showing off wealth, and presenting yourself as being younger (and thus still stronger). Until industrial revolution came around, shaving was simply for the wealthier ladders of society. Think about it. You need something sharp (the razor) that you slide over your skin. Too shallow of an angle and it doesn't cut the hair. A tiny bit too much of an angle, and you end up with nasty cut on your face. Before antibiotics, minor cuts could turn into deadly infections, so you probably wanted to have a mirror (very expensive prior to industrial revolution) or somebody else shaving you every day (again, expensive). Or you'd butcher yourself regularly and sooner or later die of infection. Fast forward to industrial revolution. Now we can make mirrors for cheap, safety razor was invented, and Gillete comes around with disposable ultra cheap blades (and also huge marketing campaign to popularize clean shaven look -- so they can sell even more of their disposable blades). Shaving wasn't for affluent only anymore, but it was still associated with social status.
Elect me and it will be restored
Grants beard is the best, and no one can change my mind
They kept getting shot, or being unpopular, so facial hair had to go.
In the near future we will have a president with a beard and tattoos. And skinny jeans. And maybe even a trucker hat. This is the America 🇺🇸 I dream about.
And he shall be named President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho
You can blame military for this situation. Joining military not required to be POTUS but it does help. So you get used to shaving even during military service and after it as well so not grow any facial hair.
Personally, I think it’s on a comeback. The issue is that our field for the foreseeable future is made up of people who grew up in the 20th century.
It's difficult to maintain a spray tan with facial hair.
He would have looked S tier with a beard though
76 years. Harry Truman had a beard for a brief period of time in 1948.
Facial hair fell out of professional preference in the US because of its association with German philosophers and then soviet/ socialist associations. "Clean shaven" became the American image, not the red image. I think we might come back around to a president with facial hair. We see candidates now not havi g an issue with a well maintained beard. Facial hair isn't counter culture anymore, it's accepted mainstream again.
No Soviet/Russian leader had facial hair after Stalin. They do alternate between bald and full head of hair over there though. European Communist Bloc leaders were also all clean shaven. It’s just Ho and Castro and Walter Ulbricht who were notable exceptions.
Yeah, but the "red scare" was at its height during that time. The clean shaven culture took root as a result and the counter culture was in response to that. Having a beard/ facial hair was seen as going against the establishment as a result for decades after. The OP asked why and where it all began, my response does just that.
A few more years actually. Benjamin Harrison was the last one and that was like 1880-1890
1889-1893
Low T Edit: /s
WASP respectability politics
Like all things, it will happen again. Though I think it would be less difficult for a President to pull off a full beard than either “just a beard” like Lincoln, or just a ‘stache.
Business suits and clean faces are the current trend in American business, finance, etc and they carries over to government.
A fear of man who think patchy beards look good
I am still waiting on them to bring back the white powdered wigs
Last mustache was over 100 years ago, too.
It is not an accident that presidential facial hair and moving picture technology are inversely related.
Because being clean shaven usually makes you look better and gives you a very slight political advantage. Also it is exceedingly hard to make a beard look good, especially on a politician.
Maybe if you are just unfashionable but beards can definitely be done tastefully. You just need to have basic hygiene and grooming routines to maintain it nice looking.
If the AI art is accurate, then I think would look better with a beard but who knows if it would fill in that well in reality.
[This might help explain](https://youtu.be/GymYWJcWlYw?si=KTNknrYW-kLuWkCx)
I think Rosevelt had a mustache at one point.
Americans care a lot about a clean shaven look
I think it would harm there chances
122 years ago is 1902. Roosevelt had a mustache not a beard
America developed a weird prejudice against facial hair
Plays badly with women
As an older millennial- we embrace the beard… maybe once one of my peers is in there we can revive it
It interested me, but I found out beards and mustaches fell out of favor due to health reasons. Just bc it was in a time when tuberculosis was a huge thing. But slowly and surely, it became a trend. I really thought it was something about AGE. https://preview.redd.it/kiqc1tmxr03d1.jpeg?width=3547&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa6d2321f23f0a3b1d59af80cc9e56919287d86b
Theres a theory that after two certain murderous dictators from the 20th century with facial hair caused so much pain and misery, beards and moustaches has fallen out of favour amongst western leaders.
It’s been over 200 years since a President wore a white wig. We are totally unprepared for when the Tories come back to power.
We need to get a president that has a full style viking/Odin beard complete with the braiding and other ornamentation. Also he needs to be at least 6'6".
There have been candidates in the past that could have grown beards to look more hip with the younger crowds, but they realized that older crowds vote in higher percentages. Same goes for dying hair or hiding bald spots. No one wants to do it, but it's part of aging so what's the bid deal?
We will have a woman president, a gay president, and a bearded president again before he have an openly bald president.
Socially there has been a shift where facial hair is now seen as a subtle indicator of someone being either too lazy to shave or too rough-and-tumble to hold a serious political position.
And he was pressured by a nine year old to grow it………women!
People flipped the fuck out when this happened, don't have much hope for facial hair: 
Favorite anecdotal quote from Lincoln - Being well-known, but not very well-regarded, for having the unusual, for a politician, habit of changing his positions when he encountered a convincing argument, he was often accused of being "two-faced." When one elderly lady hurled this same accusation as the candidate during a campaign stump, Lincoln replied, "madame, if I owned two faces, then why in the world do you suppose I'd wear this one?"
When Millennials are in their 90s and we elect one as president, then there will be a resurgence in beards.
a not insignificant portion of "real americans" truly believes Obama did in fact have a beard. I believe the name was Mike or something
It's not seen as respectable among baby boomers and the WWII generations. My grandmother's both tell me repeatedly I would look better clean shaven. Those generations still vote at a high percentage. Politicians do focus groups on stuff like this and it still shaves off a few percentage points if you have a beard. This will probably change as the baby boomers die off but that won't be for a bit .
It’s to show that you have nothing to hide. Last great president with facial hair was Teddy (sucks we won’t see a president with facial hair for a long time)
Bc it’s not “presidential”
Combination of modern expectations of the "clean-cut American" image and possibly because I honestly can't think which president could pull off a beard (as in look better with facial hair than without)
Sorry to use this but Keep those bad boy ads out of my fucking eyes !,
Facial hair only works well if you have a small chin.
I want to see who’s hiding behind the beard and I want to see their lips moving when they lie to me.
The time up-keeping a clean beard could be better spent leading this nation
We had Paul Ryan, a bearded Speaker of the house.. 3rd in line to the White House. Too bad the more we got to know him, the less we liked him until his presidential Aspirations evaporated.
What about James Garfield and Rutherford B Hayes?
Lincoln got assassinated why tempt fate.
Dewey lost with it. Probably some Progressive Era stuff about sanitation and hygeine; which carried over once we got two generations of Presidents from Truman to HW Bush who were WWI or WWII vets.
No Gen X presidents, no bearded presidents. Coincidence? I think not.
From the last time I looked it up it is because of a phobia called Pogonophobia. I gives people overwhelming fear of mustaches and beards and since I could ruin their popularity most candidates just shave
Gas masks
The last president to do so died, just a guess.
No beards, no glasses, no bald men. No women. What the hey America.
Perhaps someone should try an orange beard?
Last UK prime minister with beard 120 years ago
The last one with a mustache was Macmillan 61 years ago. They also had a bearded opposition leader just a few years ago.
Everything about a candidate’s image is meticulously controlled because it subconsciously sways opinions. Fingernail length? Suit buttons count? Amount of scuff on shoes? You’re selling an image, and it doesn’t necessarily stop after winning an election.
a clean shaven person appears to be more trustworthy. A beard could indicate you’re hiding something. It’s ridiculous but it’s one of those hidden biases people have
In my own opinion the only ones that should be clean shaven are women and babies
Because beards are disgusting
It gets in the way when they need to suck off groups and corporations for money.
he only grew the beard after his presidency
Obama should have went full beard for his second term
Artemis N. Falkmore
Beards fell out of fashion in the west around the time of the first world war. Baby butt clean shaved become the norm for all the professionals, and stayed that way for many many decades. Beards started to be fashionable only relatively recently, as well as accepted for professionals. Think lawyers, politicians, doctors, pilots, engineers, etc, etc... Mustaches were tolerated, but not beards. Even as recently as 20 years ago, beard could hurt candidate's chances of being elected. But not anymore. I.e. we could see a president rocking a beard in the future, it's simply about statistical probability. The post WW1 "no facial hair for professionals" standards have almost fully dissapeared in the western cultures.
Disney World only allowed beards for employees around 2013 or so. Was an interesting time to work there 😅
I believe it had to do with the advent of advanced chemical warfare and face masks. Soldiers couldn’t have beards and wear face masks, and then when they became war heroes and came home, it just stuck.
I think I saw a video about this once
The right to bare faces shall not be impinged! Shut yer pie-hole, hippy!
Unfortunately, no one is offended by a clean shave, but some people won’t tolerate beards.
The deal is no facial hair allowed unless you are at least as badass as Teddy Roosevelt, which is a pretty high bar.
nope william taft was not 122 years ago
I think Truman grew his out back in the 50’s. It was a sorry excuse for a beard but it’s the best we got.
based on math, this meme is from 2015
man come here to ask lack of beard, completely missing the lack of cahones
Because WWI (and the actions of vets returning from it) made clean shaven the standard for male professional dress..... Standards have relaxed in a lot of the civilian world (thankfully - It's nice to have a white collar job but never actually have to wear a white (or any other) collar), but not for lawyers and the military.... Which is where our political leadership tends to come from.
Don't forget Grant !!!
Because facial hair is viewed by the public as untrustworthy and foreign (Don’t blame me for the sentiments of the general public)
Probably anti-hippies and general Christian, prudish weirdos are hung up on superficialities like that and make up a sizeable portion of votes, so...
Because after the world wars it was seen as unprofessional with the standards at the time revolving around the military.
I was under the impression the fall of politicians having beards had to do with women’s suffrage. Politicians with lots of facial hair tended to lean against women’s voting rights so women voted them out which caused a change in fashion
He doesn't have to have
Because Taft with a full beard would have been fucking *unstoppable*.
For some reason I feel like the next bearded executive will be a VP
As I understand it this is just a sign of changing fashion trends, back in the day facial hair was a gentlemanly/statesmanlike thing to have, over the years this standard was slowly replaced with the more academic clean shaven look. It’s not a clean break off point but at some point, world leaders start favoring mustaches, and eventually a clean shaven look
Facial hair was out of fashion for a pretty long time.
I’d be interested for someone who can cite sources to answer this. Most of these answers are suppositions without merit.
Nixon had a beard
Because they are not men.
I am guessing the Ulysses S. Grant doesn't count since he came after Lincoln
Taft was the last president with facial hair
I don’t think JB or DT can grow one
Military brain washing. Military turned looking like an infant into sexy. Gotta be baby face to get laid in this place.
Last guy got shot.
I hope the next president who has a beard, is a woman lol.
My understanding is that facial hair used to show virility, much like it does in the Muslim world today. Then it would imply you're hiding something.
Psychologically, clean shaven is taken with more trust and respect.