Theresa May Could Have Learned From John Adams

In the early summer of 1776, John Adams had grown profoundly exasperated.

King George had declared the 13 American colonies in open rebellion and sent troops to enforce his authority. A declaration of independence, and all-out war, seemed inevitable but still, holdouts in the Second Continental Congress kept clogging the docket with feckless half-measures and spineless appeasements.

“In politics, the middle way is none at all,” Adams fumed that March in a letter to an ally. “If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves in groping for the middle way.”