How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country (2 page)

You’d have to be crazy to want this job
.

I don’t mean to be casual about that; I mean that the desire to be the president is a currently undiagnosed but very specific form of insanity. Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, “Yeah.
I
should be in charge of that.” Only a lunatic would look at a job where you get slandered and scrutinized and attacked by the media and sometimes even assassinated and say, “Sign me up!” Only a lunatic.

I learned that my professor was right. I didn’t have the specific version of crazy required to be the president. But I
also
learned that presidents, with all of their madness and passion and recklessness and acts of desperation in their relentless quest to become America’s king, were interesting and wild and
freaking badass
. They had balls, and their balls had balls. They were
tough
.

I was so fascinated with the nutcases we made president that I never stopped reading about them, even after that American Government class ended, but my studies took on a different tone. Knowing that I didn’t have what it took to be president, I started thinking about what it would take to
defeat
a president, mentally or physically, via psychological warfare or … the warfare kind of warfare. I looked at the club of presidents and put a spin on the old adage: If you can’t join them,
beat them
.

That’s what you’re reading right now. The most interesting, exciting, bizarre, or otherwise badass facts about every great psychopath who has ever stood on top of Mount America and declared himself its protector, and how you might be able to use these facts to your advantage, should you happen to, I don’t know, travel back in
time to find yourself face to face with a president you angered somehow. I’ll never be president, but I can certainly beat James Buchanan in a fight, and, in the end, isn’t that what American Government is
really
all about?

(I’m genuinely asking. I didn’t exactly ace that class.)

I’ve been studying presidents since I was eighteen years old. This study has impacted every aspect of my life, is entirely responsible for the book you hold in your hands, and it never would have happened if an angry old man hadn’t told me once upon a time that I would never be president. So thank you, sir. You have been a profound influence on my life, freshman-year American Government professor whose name escapes me at the moment. I’ll never forget you.

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who don’t actively enjoy being shot at, and George Washington. Most of you are probably in that first group, and that’s why no one will ever write a book about how to fight you.

The idea that Washington liked being shot at isn’t conjecture, mind you. No one is saying that Washington “
probably
” enjoyed being shot at, based on his willingness to return to battle in service of his country; he
admitted
to it. In a letter to his brother about his time on the battlefield, Washington said, “I heard the bullets whistle and, believe me, there is something charming to the sound of bullets,” which, according to rumor, prompted King George III to remark that Washington’s attitude would change if he’d heard a few more. “Oh, ho ho, perhaps you’re right,” Washington may have good-naturedly said with a chuckle, before he beat the shit out of King George’s entire army and ran America for eight glorious and strong-jawed years.

But we know all that already. We all know how badass Washington was. We all know what a good and just president he was. We know him as the Soldier-Farmer, as a man of the people. We know all of this, because everyone talks about how bright, and strong, and fair President George Washington was. So I’m going to talk about how he was probably
magic
.

Let’s start with how Washington knew America was going to war before America even had an
army
. Sure, the seeds of discontent had already been sown, but war was not a foregone conclusion to anyone but Washington even in 1775, when the Continental Congress met for the second time to discuss what to do about Great Britain’s unfair taxation practices. War was an
option
, but not a certainty at that point, at least not in the eyes of the members of the Continental Congress. Many of the framers, like Benjamin Franklin, still had great fondness for their mother country, and were eager to find a solution that involved working peacefully with the homeland.

But not Washington. Whether he could see the future and knew war was coming or he simply
willed
the war into existence, Washington was ahead of the curve. On his way to the conference—before war had been declared (or even discussed), before he’d been given command of the Continental Army—he stopped off to buy some books about war strategy, tomahawks, and new holsters for his guns. If that didn’t send a clear enough message, he showed up to the conference
already wearing his military uniform
, while the rest of the representatives were trying to delicately handle this whole “revolution thing” diplomatically. It was like everyone else at the conference was discussing whether or not they should build a bomb and Washington had already lit the fuse. It wasn’t just about finding another chance to challenge a bunch of bullets to a game of chicken (though, true, Washington never missed an opportunity to do so); he knew war was inevitable and wanted to be dressed appropriately.

And of course, Washington was right. War was necessary. Even if it wasn’t necessary before, it was necessary
because
he said it was, because, for reasons that will never be clear to historians (but will be
to people who accept magic as a possibility), the universe bends to Washington’s will.

Here’s one of the most important things you need to know about Washington: he should not have been able to lead America to victory in the War for Independence. When it came time to choose someone to command the Continental Army, Washington was chosen for his
popularity
, not for his skills as a general. He was brave and a great soldier, but he’d never commanded anything larger than a regiment and, when he’d been handed an entire army of untrained, undisciplined troops, he started screwing up almost immediately. He lost more battles than he won, and the majority of those losses were a direct result of his own arrogance and overaggressiveness. Yes, Washington, the man we all like to remember as the quiet, dignified, reluctant soldier, was a short-tempered fighter who never turned down a battle. Why? The same reason any president does anything:
because he could
. One of the biggest myths about Washington is that he had wooden teeth. This myth, while a cute little bit of superfluous historical trivia, isn’t technically true. In truth, it wasn’t his teeth, it was his testicles, and they weren’t wood, they were stone-cold steel.

Unlike most soldiers (and, indeed, most sane human beings), Washington didn’t see a battle as a means to an end, or as an unfortunate but necessary part of achieving one’s goals; he saw it as a chance to show his enemies how brave and strong he was. And, as commander, he felt that his army should function purely as an extension of himself. He’d treat every challenge from his opponents not like a necessary evil that needed to be stopped as quickly as possible, but like a dick-measuring contest, and the Continental Army was the big angry dick that Washington was always eager to pull out and wave around.

In a dick-measuring contest, sure, that’s a terrific strategy, but it’s not great in a tough war, especially when your opponent is stronger, larger, and more experienced, and this over-aggressive dick-waving strategy blew up in Washington’s face over and over again. He sent his men into battle even when the odds were stacked against them, and he refused to retreat or back down even at the cost of human
lives, all because he wanted his enemy to know that they weren’t as brave as he was (read: their dicks weren’t as big and crazy as his). At many times during the war, it seemed that America’s favorite son was too arrogant and reckless to bring us to victory.

So how did it happen? How did an inexperienced commander with an unfocused and untrained army win the most important war in American history? The short answer, again, is “Probably magic.” Washington firmly believed that Providence or fate was on his side, in everything he did. In the way that war was declared because Washington walked into a room and
said
war was declared, Washington won the war because he
said
he was going to. That’s how Washington could look at loss after loss and say, “Huh, that’s weird. I’m supposed to
win
. I guess no one told these guys I’m George Fucking Washington. No matter, I’ll just go ahead and win it now.” And he did.

Washington’s tyranny of will didn’t just determine the outcome of the war, it also saved his life. He would return from many battles unscathed but with bullet holes in his clothing, or without a horse (two different horses were shot out from under Washington—
in the
same battle
). This happened so many times that George Washington admitted on more than one occasion that he could not be killed in battle. He genuinely believed this, and the crazy part?
We have no way to prove him wrong
.

That’s
how a first-time commander won a war against the most powerful army and navy in the world: Sheer. Blind. Madness. Washington said he was going to win, and he did. He said he couldn’t be killed, and he said it with such casual authority and certainty that Death was like, “Oh, okay. I thought I was supposed to end you, but you just seem so
sure
. You must be right. I’ll … wait, I guess? I’ll wait over here.”

Even Death waited on Washington’s orders before finally claiming his soul for that big battlefield in the sky. In December of 1799, Washington fell ill and a team of doctors tried for hours to restore his health. Having decided that he’d spent enough time kicking ass at being alive, Washington decided to try his hand at fighting ghosts, and he sent the doctors away, telling them to give up. The doctors could have kept him alive, but Washington had had enough. On his deathbed, Washington told his aide, Tobias Lear, “I am just going,” and he died
while taking his own pulse
. You can almost see Death quietly sitting in Washington’s room, waiting for permission to take his life.