How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country by Daniel O'Brien

same party and, in fact, his vocal condemnationsof Jackson were considered an “act of insurgency” by his party. Tyler was originally a Democrat like Jackson and stayed that way until, like a good little rebel, he got fed up with their establishment, quit, and joined a new party, the Whigs. He rose up the ranks of the Whigs quickly and was grateful when they made him William Henry Harrison’s running mate. It’s possible that Tyler would have fought Harrison, as he fought every authority figure in his life, but we’ll never know for sure, as Harrison died before anyone had a chance to decide if he was a good president.
    John Tyler was the first man to serve as president without being elected. He stepped in when Harrison died, setting a president precedent and earning himself the unfortunate but appropriate nickname “His Accidency.” This was actually a fairly badass move; most people assumed a new election would be held, and some thought Tyler should just be an “acting president” until Congress decided what to do, but Tyler didn’t give them the chance. Shortly after Harrison died, Tyler took the oath of office and flat-out
told
everyone, “Hey, I’m the president now.
Deal with it
.” He promptly proceeded to tell Harrison’s cabinet that regardless of how they did things under Harrison,
Tyler
was in charge now. They were going to listen to him, and if anyone didn’t like it they could leave, because
nobody
tells Tyler what to do. A pretty ballsy move for someone who had no clear or legal right to be so ballsy.
    Tyler’s first order of business as president was to piss off absolutely everyone. Whig leader Henry Clay expected Tyler to work closely with the Whigs (as Harrison would have done), but even
that
felt too much like manipulation to Tyler. Tyler vetoed most of Clay’s proposed legislation, hurting the Whig agenda and also running counter to how the Whigs believed a president should behave (their idea of the presidency involved vetoing as a rarity, and Tyler was immediately pretty veto-crazy). One by one, everyone in Tyler’s cabinet resigned out of protest, because he refused to listen to anyone who he thought was trying to influence or control him (which, according to Tyler, was everyone). When he didn’t change his policy even after his entire cabinet resigned, the Whigs officially kicked him outof the party. This makes Tyler the only standing president who was dropped by his own party, and it’s all because he was worried that the Whigs were going to try to push him around. John Quincy Adams tried to get him impeached, and his critics in the media dubbed him “The President Without a Party,” setting a precedent for James Dean and any other future rebels who would go without things. Tyler’s decision to alienate his own party (the first entry on a long list of colossal fuck-uppery) had a devastating impact on his presidential legacy. The Whigs voted against him at every turn, and, as a result, he accomplished very few of his goals and is considered “hapless and inept” by most historians. He managed to officially add both Florida and Texas as states to the Union, but because of his steadfast refusal to play nice and make friends, he never had a chance of getting a second term and the American people saw him largely as a do-nothing president. With no party backing him for reelection, Tyler briefly considered forming his own party, but backed down at the last second because he was worried his running would split the vote between him and Democrat James Polk, ensuring an easy victory for Henry Clay, the Whig candidate. Tyler was always eager to stick it to The Man, and, as the guy with the most influence over the Whigs, Clay was The Man, so Tyler backed out of the race specifically to screw over Henry Clay, and it worked. It was an “If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me” sort of move, and it paid off.
    In one final act of rebellion, Tyler spent his last few days in office