How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country (3 page)

So your best bet in your George Washington fight: Run. Run as fast as you can, though it probably won’t do much. If Washington’s already decided that he’s won his fight with you, there’s nothing you can do. George Washington, the quiet soldier who built our country out of blood and willpower, gives the universe its orders.

Let’s get this right out of the way: Our first vice president and second president of the United States of America, John Adams, is much, much smarter than you. He’s not the
toughest
guy in the world (we’ll get to Teddy Roosevelt later), but he had one of the greatest minds of any president in history, and he regularly used that mind to accomplish seemingly unaccomplishable tasks. Like a great boxer who gets so tired of beating other boxers that he starts training and fighting armed grizzly bears, Adams dedicated his mind to fighting and winning the hardest and most uphill battles he could find.

In 1770, members of the British Army shot and killed five civilian men in what came to be known as the “Boston Massacre” (adjusted for inflation, five men from the 1700s would be about fifty thousand today, so the “massacre” bit actually holds up). The soldiers were destined to face trial, but no lawyer in Boston would represent them
in court, because everyone knew that whoever defended the horrible British would: a) probably lose, and b) certainly be vilified by the rest of the British-hating Bostonians.

John Adams was not a man who cared about being vilified. Much like the thousands of reality television stars that would eventually fill the beautiful country he worked so hard to build, he didn’t come here to make friends. He loved humanity, but didn’t care for people and never quite figured out how to relate to and interact with them. He cared about his legacy and getting proper credit for his accomplishments, but he didn’t care about fame or popularity; having principles and sticking to them was all that interested Adams. He had his ideals and his beliefs and his convictions and wasn’t shy about sharing them. Being righteous wasn’t just more important than being friendly or considerate; to Adams, it was
everything
.

That’s why he took the
hell
out of the Boston Massacre case. There was no better way to represent his “Being righteous is more important than having friends” philosophy than by defending the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial. Remember, Boston in the 1700s was basically the
heart
of anti-British sentiment. People in Pennsylvania and New York, for example, weren’t too angry with their across-the-pond oppressors, but discontent with Great Britain had reached a fever pitch in Boston, which is why the “massacre” happened in the first place. It would be convenient for us to believe that the British were needlessly cruel and evil, heartlessly firing shots at the poor, innocent Bostonians, but the less flattering truth is that the “innocent” civilians provoked the attack. They confronted the British in the form of a rowdy, unruly mob armed with clubs, and hurled garbage and insults in equal measure. Most
suggested
that the British start firing upon them. That’s how much the people of Boston hated the British; they begged to be shot just so they’d have an excuse to demand independence. Many townsfolk later went to the post-massacre trial to intimidate the witnesses into testifying against the British. Now the soldiers were facing trial with a jury
full
of Bostonians and, if that wasn’t enough, the witnesses were being tampered with.

John Adams won that case. That’s how good he is. That’s how
smart
he is. If Adams believes he’s in the right, then absolutely
nothing
will stop him from accomplishing his goals. Boston was a ticking time-bomb of anti-British rhetoric, and Adams convinced an entire courtroom that the soldiers who shot and killed five civilians were in the
right
. (That’s the equivalent to knocking out two grizzly bears with chainsaws, if anyone is still following the bear-fighting analogy.)

Adams continued his streak of fighting the hard battles years later at the Continental Congress, where he faced the uphill battle
of convincing every other representative of the thirteen colonies that a revolution was necessary. Almost
everyone
wanted to negotiate with the British peacefully and avoid war at absolutely all costs. Only Adams and Washington knew for sure that a violent revolution was not only necessary but needed to happen
immediately
. Adams did it with his giant, terrifying brain. Richard Stockton, New Jersey’s representative to the Congress, called Adams the “Atlas of American Independence” because of his dedication to carrying this cause on his back. You see, the Continental Congress was like a big street brawl, except instead of fighting with hands and feet, opposing sides traded long, passionate, and olde-tyme-profanity-laced monologues. You can call it “word-fighting” (or simply “talking,” if you’re a square), and Adams was the best word-fighter around. His speeches advocating independence were so heartfelt and convincing that he reduced grown men to tears. His most outspoken opponent in the Continental Congress, Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson, was so devastated by John Adams’s skill as a word-boxer that he resigned his position and joined the Pennsylvania militia. Dickinson was the guy who never wanted to resort to war—he wanted peace with Great Britain more than anything—but Adams’s argument was so moving that he quit and picked up a gun.

Damn
.

To put it simply, Adams just knew how to think and speak better than everyone. He knew how to get inside people’s heads because he paid attention. Whenever he met someone new, he’d go home and write about them in his diary. How tall they were, what their hobbies were, what their strengths were, what their flaws were. Adams was an observer, and he used the information he gathered to cut to the core of people. He knew men well enough to know what they needed to hear to get them to see his point of view, and if they
refused
to join his side, he would take their biggest insecurity and shine the brightest spotlight on it for everyone to see. If you have shortcomings, he will find and exploit them.

You’re at a disadvantage in your fight with Adams specifically because he’s already the underdog. He was never a soldier (even
though he would often tell his wife that he was jealous that Washington got to go out and fight battles while he had to dick around boring Philadelphia shaping the modern idea of Democracy), and physically, there’s nothing too impressive about him. He smoked, he was overweight, he lost most of his teeth by the time he became president, and his hands shook. Despite all that, Adams lived to be over ninety years old,
in the 1800s
, back when people died at fifty and got married at twelve, probably.

That’s exactly why you have to watch out for him, because unless you’re
also
a toothless old guy with shaky hands, you’ve got the upper hand in this battle, and Adams
thrives
when someone else has the upper hand. He wasn’t a man who often got in fights, so if he’s fighting you, it means he thinks it’s the right thing to do, which puts you in a very dangerous place. Remember, one of the other times someone went up against John Adams, Adams convinced him to quit his job and lead a militia to help defend
Adams’s
ideals.
What do you think he’s going to do to you?