Beards are fun. Beards are manly. Hey, beards made ZZ Top a household name.
And now, beards have taken over MAGA Land.
I think it began with Donald Trump Jr. A few years ago; he sprouted a nifty brown beard — with just a few flecks of salt intermingling with his pepper. Next came Eric Trump: He grew a new beard, too.
Somewhere along the line, Ted Cruz also donned a beard. And a trend began.
The Bearded Brigade then added JD Vance to the Trump ticket, potentially putting a Hirsute Hero within a whisker of the presidency. It’s actually been a very long time since the president sported whiskers — over a century. You’ve gotta go all the way back to 1913: The (impressively) mustached William Taft.
(If you’re a stickler for facial hair, it’s true that Harry Truman briefly sprouted a mustache and goatee after the 1948 election. But it was pretty embarrassing — scarcely a spattering of hair strands. You can see for yourself in Life Magazine. He shaved it off almost immediately — probably out of shame — so we’re not gonna count it.)
In recent times, the success rate of bearded presidential candidates has been (ahem) threadbare: Republican Charles Evans Hughes was the last major party presidential candidate to have a beard (he lost in 1916), and the last one to have a mustache was Republican Thomas Dewey (who lost in 1944 …and also 1948).
That’s the very last time a bearded/mustached shadow loomed over a presidential ticket. At least ‘til 2024.
Not too many bearded vice presidents in American history either. You’ve gotta go all the way back to Schuyler Colfax (also a Republican) in 1873. There was a veep in 1916 (Thomas Marshall) who sported a John Bolton-ish ‘stache, but that’s it for 100+ years.
JD Vance has a chance to make Hairy History.
Our Founding Fathers despised beards. Powdered wigs were about as far as they’d go. You have to go to the son of a Founding Father for our first president to sport facial hair: John Quincy Adams in 1825. (Hey, those sideburns still count. Let’s not split hairs.)
Following Adams’ lead, presidents Martin Van Buren and Zachary Taylor also grew long, bushy (and ugly) sideburns. But nobody was willing to take the next step and grow the rest of it out until the arrival of our 16th president.
You know who he is.
In 1861, Republican Abraham Lincoln became America’s first bearded president. Coincidentally or not, he also became one of our greatest presidents. (I’m pretty sure the beard had something to do with it.)
Grace Greenwood Billings lived all the way ‘til 1936. Even diehard history buffs are (mostly) unfamiliar with her name, but she literally changed how our $5 bill looks. When she was 11 years old, she mailed Abraham Lincoln a letter advising him to grow a beard.
“I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way,” she wrote, “and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you [sic] you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.”
Although it sounds a bit too Hallmark-esque to possibly be true, Lincoln and Billings later met at a train station:
“He climbed down and sat down with me on the edge of the station platform,” she recalled years later. “‘Gracie,’ he said, ‘look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.’ Then he kissed me. I never saw him again.”
Lincoln started a trend. For nearly half a century (48 years) after, all American presidents grew either sideburns, a beard, or a mustache—or all three—sans two (Andrew Johnson and William McKinley).
Want a random trivia fact that’ll win you money at the bar? Try this: Every single bearded president in U.S. history has been a Republican. No other party had the manliness to grow ‘em out.
Depending on how you define Martin Van Buren (his parties included the Democratic-Republican, Democratic, and Free Soil), there’s never been a Democrat president with ANY facial hair AT ALL. And Van Buren only had sideburns, so no matter how you cut it, no Democratic presidents have ever had a beard or a mustache. Wonder why? (Maybe they lack adequate testosterone?)
Incidentally, if you’d like to see our government’s priorities in action, all you need to know is that the president of the United States’ official taxpayer-paid website actually took the time to track which presidents had beards and which ones didn’t. Great work, guys!
Clearly, growing a beard (and/or other facial hair) is kind of a Republican thing. (It certainly isn’t a Democrat thing!) And with JD Vance as the heir (hair) apparent to the MAGA crown, we’re within a hair’s breadth of the Golden Age of Beardom.
Apologies to Jeremy’s Razors.
