How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country (27 page)

Oh, he’s in a wheelchair, how bad can this fight be?” you might find yourself wondering. Oh, you. Oh simple, naïve, stupid, stupid
you
. FDR’s charisma, optimism, and foresight got us out of the Depression. His leadership skills eased us out of World War II. His effectiveness as a president got him elected for an unprecedented third term. He swam
several miles daily
despite his paralysis.

And you think
you
can beat him just because you’ve got
legs
? Who do you think you are,
fear itself
? If not,
you are fucked
.

FDR, one of the top two most Rooseveltian Presidents we’ve had (so far), was, like his fifth cousin TR, incredibly sick and close to death as a child. His mother was so worried that she kept him out of school and had him educated at home until he was fourteen. She also made him wear a dress for the first five years of his life, which doesn’t inform FDR’s presidency or personality or fighting style, but
it’s a really weird thing, and you should know. FDR used to wear dresses as a kid.

Whether he was wearing a dress or pants, FDR constantly suffered from headaches and harsh colds and influenza and pneumonia and chronic sinus trouble and occasional temporary paralysis and polio and whatever else was around. If there was a bad disease in the early 1900s, FDR probably caught it.

Unfortunately for disease, no one told FDR that he was supposed to die, so he never let any of his many illnesses stop him. Whenever he wasn’t bedridden, FDR could be found working out, swimming, or boxing, making sure his precious windows of good health were spent on physical improvement. He likely would have grown to be just as strong and imposing as TR (he, after all, saw his cousin as a hero), but then that pesky polio showed up. In 1921, Roosevelt spent a day sailing and fishing, then helped some locals put out a forest fire on his way home, then went for a swim, then jogged a mile. Two days later, he couldn’t move his legs and the doctors diagnosed it as polio. FDR’s doctors told him he wouldn’t be able to walk again, and his mother and friends told him it was time to retire and take life easy.

For anyone else, that would be the end of the story, but we’re not dealing with anyone else here. The biggest mistake anyone can ever make is telling Franklin Delano Roosevelt that he can’t do something. Through years of rigorous and painful exercise, FDR massaged and worked his leg muscles enough that, with the help of iron braces and canes, he was able to stand and walk again. As far as retirement and “taking it easy” went, FDR decided to become New York’s governor, assistant secretary of the navy, and eventually settled into a relaxing career as president for longer than anyone else has ever been president.

FDR’s struggle with illness and subsequent metal-filled life are remarkably similar to the story of another great leader who was part robot: Iron Man. FDR, much like Tony Stark, was cocky and arrogant before his life-changing diagnosis, but the years of suffering changed all of that, and he emerged more humble, more fearless, and ready to defend America. Also, FDR wore iron braces and used a wheelchair,
which, for the purposes of this comparison, is
exactly
like a well-armed robot suit.

Scientifically speaking, being more president than other presidents was in FDR’s blood. In addition to Teddy, FDR was related in some way to Ulysses S. Grant, Zachary Taylor, and Winston Churchill, which caused many leading historians to dub FDR “The Voltron of Presidential Badassery” (though there are also some fringe historical groups that prefer the label “The Captain Planet of Political Asskickery”). Whichever label you go with, you can’t deny that the collection of ridiculously powerful DNA flowing through FDR’s veins made it impossible for him
not
to be a great leader.

FDR inherited the presidency when America was in the worst shape it had been in since the Civil War. Twenty-five percent of American workers were jobless, two million people were homeless, and thirty-two out of forty-eight states had closed their banks. You’d
have to be crazy to want to take over the country under those conditions, but Roosevelt was part RoboCop, and
all
crazy, and used to facing uphill battles, so he took the job and went to work immediately, passing massive legislation during his first hundred days in office. FDR’s New Deal, he assured the American people, was rescuing the United States from the Great Depression; and, at the time, it certainly seemed like it was.

The truth, which we now know thanks to us being in the future, is that the New Deal
didn’t
save anyone from the Great Depression. In fact, four million additional people lost their jobs during the beginning of FDR’s presidency, and he at times seemed completely at sea, freezing, backpedaling, and struggling to come up with a solution. Really, America’s entrance into World War II is likely what saved the nation; the increase in jobs and government spending that a war necessitates put Americans back to work.

We know that
now
. At the time, however, FDR told the nation that his New Deal had saved the day and everyone believed him, because that was simply Roosevelt’s way. His legs never technically healed, but he used braces and canes to present the
illusion
of mobility, so hey, he might as well be walking. His New Deal didn’t fix the economy, but because he
said
it did, he pumped Americans full of faith and hope. Roosevelt’s will was more powerful than reality. He navigated us through World War II and was elected to an unprecedented fourth term. He needed to die in office; it was the only way Americans would stop voting for him. Hell, I
still
write him in every four years.

That’s not helpful. Sorry. Here’s what you need to know about FDR, the man described by Lyndon Johnson as “the only person I ever knew, anywhere, who was never afraid.” After overcoming the illness that resulted in his paralysis, he reportedly said, “If you had spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that everything else would seem easy.” That includes walking again, swimming, being more president than anyone else will ever be, and, presumably, fighting you.

That was also not helpful. I am so, so sorry.

Many of our presidents had tough or at least inspiring early lives. Lincoln was born in a log cabin and rose up to become president. Hoover cheated death. Grant was born in a barrel of whiskey and raised by snakes (I think, I’m not an expert).

Thirty-third president Harry S. Truman—not so much.

Unlike Jackson, who pursued fights as a child with the manic eagerness of someone who believed candy would fly out if he beat his enemies hard enough, Truman ran from fights. Literally. Schoolyard bullies often chose Truman as the target of their aggression, and he chose the “flight” option and bolted at the first sign of trouble. Truman preferred to spend his childhood reading or braiding his sister’s hair. His only childhood injury of note was a broken collarbone, which he received when he accidentally knocked himself out of his chair
while combing his hair
, which is the most embarrassing way to break your collarbone that doesn’t involve pooping yourself.

For a long time, Truman was very unremarkable. He spent many years trying to start businesses so he could have enough money to leave home (he lived on a farm that was
also
very unremarkable), but he failed, consistently. Business after business went under, sending Truman deeper and deeper into debt. It seemed, for the first twenty years or so of his life, Truman was as good at running a business as he was at not breaking his collarbone after brushing his precious hair too hard (which is to say, “not very”).

Unfortunately for you, it looks like Truman got all of the cowardice and failure out of his system early, because all of that fight-fleeing, hair-braiding, and general pussifying in which Truman so regularly engaged stopped dead when he got older. It seems that decades of running from fights turned into a burning desire to get
into
fights when he was older, which might be why he signed up to fight in World War I back in 1917. Despite how bad he was at literally everything he’d ever tried, Truman advanced quickly in the military and, in 1918, was made captain of Battery D (also known as “Dizzy D”), a unit of 194 soldiers who were known for their drunkenness and rowdiness. This was a unit that many considered “uncommandable,” and in fact Truman was made captain of their regiment only because they’d already driven the previous two captains away with their wild antics, refusal to listen to authority, and overall assholishness. Most assumed that Truman, with his limited fighting experience and his nerdy glasses, would quit before you could say “Hey, it’s like the military version of
Dangerous Minds
!”

Surprisingly, in a few weeks, Truman turned the uncommandable unit of drunken-ass clowns into a well-disciplined and efficient fight squad. He spoke to them plainly and simply and in a language that they understood (which, in Battery D’s case, meant a shitload of goddamn cursing. Bitch. Farts). Truman warned his troops that if any of them didn’t think they could get along with him, he would punch them in the nose (because that would make them get along with him better?). On the subject of cursing, one of his troops said, “I never heard a man cuss so well or so intelligently … The battery didn’t say a word. They must have figured the cap’n could do the cussin’ for the whole outfit.”

Just one month after Truman took command, the unit came under fire from its German enemies, and when the men panicked and tried to flee (running, as Truman so often had as a child, from the fight), Truman stood his ground and started yelling and cursing at them. He screamed and insulted and belittled anyone who tried to leave, and let rip a string of profanities. The men of Battery D were so moved by Truman’s determination and filthy mouth that, one by one, they all came back and stood with him, all while still under enemy fire. This band of unruly jerks was prepared to stay and die for Truman, but they would never actually need to; Truman marched his unit all over France, taking out Germans every step along the way, and never lost a single man. Maybe if one of the German soldiers had handed Truman a comb, things would have been different, but, as things are, Truman left the war a hero.