Obviously a United States President has to be smart, I mean they are in charge of running the country. It’s not like just anyone can decide to be President (okay maybe Trump can but that’s a whole other issue). You need to have the experience, intelligence, patience, and the public’s support to even come close to the White House, so naturally your IQ is (hopefully) a little above average. That doesn’t automatically make every President a nerd, does it?
Well, it kinda does. In honor of National Embrace Your Geekness Day, we’re dishing out the nerdiest of nerds that just so happen to double as U.S. Presidents. So break out your suspenders, sweater sets and taped glasses because these are some of the nerdiest men living outside of their mother’s basements (and only because their job came with housing).
President Barack Obama
When Obama is not running the country or using his Jedi force to defeat the dark side, he’s throwing up the Vulcan salute, posing as Superman, or getting caught in Spiderman’s web.
President James A. Garfield
While Garfield is better known for being one of four assassinated Presidents and of course sharing the same name as our favorite orange cat, he was also the only President nerdy enough to prove a math theorem. That’s right, our 20th President came up with a unique proof of the Pythagorean Theorem that is too difficult for us mortals to explain so we’ll let the mathletes take it away.
President John Quincy Adams
Adams was a man of many words. He is known for writing letters of incredible density and included a sentence in his 1797 inaugural address that was 727 words long. Bottom line: you do not want to get this man talking, unless you’ve got a few hours to kill.
President Herbert Hoover
Poor Herbert. As if his name wasn’t nerdy enough, he went on and became an engineer (before he was the leader of the free world, of course). Hoover was a professional mining engineer which means he had to have some geek-level math and science skills to make it in that industry.
President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was the only President to earn a doctorate degree, so that’s President Dr. Wilson to you, or is it Dr. President Wilson?? Whatever. We’re not geeky enough to know the proper order of his many titles, okay? Like seriously. Couldn’t he have just made everything easier and stayed as Mr. Woodrow Wilson? If he was so set on being a nerd he didn’t have to do much more, the glasses did it all for him.
President Thomas Jefferson and President John Adams
Some would call them the original bromance, we prefer to use the original nerds. They were founding fathers together, political frenemies together and even died together (well not like together together but on the same day, so it still counts). Despite all that they accomplished, they continued to write long letters to each other up until the end of their lives about wanting to learn more about the world around them. I mean gimme a break, even God rested on the 7th day, surely they could rest after 50 years of creating a country. Now if that’s not a nerdy pursuit I don’t know what is.
