IQ and the American Presidency
Most liberals will voice the opinion that President-elect Donald Trump is not the most intelligent person. However, it has been speculated that Donald Trump has a rather high IQ; some estimates peg him around a staggering 156. If so, he would be a President with one of the highest IQs in history. It is more likely that he is somewhere in the 120-130 range. After all, you need some smarts to succeed in business, as Trump clearly has. But what does IQ mean in terms of serving as President of the United States? While the IQs of those traditionally regarded as great presidents were indeed high (such as Thomas Jefferson [153.8], JFK [150.7], James Madison [141.3], and Lincoln [140]), there is much more to a successful presidency than a high IQ score. There are numerous examples of presidents in the past whose high IQs did little to salvage their presidencies. For example:
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce, our 14th president, had an IQ of 134.8. He was accepted to Bowdoin College at a young age, where he graduated 5th in his class. Although plagued by alcoholism and other problems, by all accounts he was a successful lawyer and Congressman in both the House and Senate.
The trouble started when he became president in 1853. Throughout his term, he showed a stunning lack of judgement and regard for the political climate. America could not agree on the issue of slavery. More specifically, the North and the South were divided as to whether new territories should be free, or if they should allow slavery. The Compromise of 1850 had brought the debate down to a simmer, but by this time the nation was a powder keg.
Pierce came in and almost immediately blew it up. In his inaugural address, Pierce used the example of the American Revolutionaries to suggest that the taking of new territory was a part of America’s spirit. This enraged Northerners, who believed that the pro-slavery Pierce was attempting to aid the South in gaining new slave territory.
But perhaps worst of all was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed the slavery question in Kansas to be decided by popular sovereignty. What followed would later be known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
“Bleeding Kansas” was basically a practice run for the American Civil War. Because the slavery question was to be decided by popular vote, Northerners and Southerners both rushed into the territory to try to create a majority. With these opposing factions in so close quarters, and with each knowing what the other was about, violence soon broke out. At least 56 people were dead by the time the fighting subsided; and perhaps more unfortunately, Bleeding Kansas brought America closer to the Civil War.
And so, even with his high IQ and successes of the past, Franklin Pierce had a disastrous presidency. He was not considered for a second term. As he said after he left office, “There’s nothing left to do but get drunk.” I'm sure that many Americans felt the same way on November 9, 2016.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Hayes, our 19th president, had an IQ of 133.9. He graduated from Harvard Law and was a successful lawyer until he went to battle in the Civil War. After the war, he was elected to Congress and as Governor of Ohio. Finally, in a hotly contested election, he became President in 1877.
Hayes' term was not near the catastrophe that was Pierce's. He is commended for,"... dignity, honesty, and moderate reform." However, some of the choices he made regarding Reconstruction and Native Americans left much to be desired.
During the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War, federal troops were deployed to Southern states in order to enforce anti-slavery laws and protect African Americans from violence. Many troops had already been withdrawn by the time Hayes was about to take office, but they were still present in Louisiana and South Carolina. As a condition of his acceptance as the winner in the extremely narrow election, Hayes agreed that federal troops would no longer interfere with Southern politics. The removal of these troops has been blamed by some to have helped facilitate the rise of the Jim Crow era.
Hayes also had ideas about what to do with the Native Americans. Although Native American culture called for communal living as tribes, it was the policy of Hayes to break up Native American land into individual allotments. The goal was to ensure that Native Americans could be successfully assimilated into white culture. This was a bad idea in the short term because it made it easy for Native Americans to lose their land to white speculators. It was also a bad idea in the long term because assimilation was clearly not the answer to the "Indian problem." Look to Standing Rock for evidence of how past Native American policy has worked out.
So while not a total disaster, Hayes was certainly not an exceptional president.
Richard Nixon
Ah, Richard Nixon. Our 37th President, he had an IQ of 131. He attended the Duke University School of Law on a full scholarship, was president of the Duke Bar Association, and graduated third in his class. He became a lawyer, then a Congressman, and finally President in 1969. Things went downhill from there.
It started with "Vietnamization," Nixon's plan to get America out of Vietnam. Nixon wanted South Vietnamese troops to take over most of the battle duties. What happened as a result of this policy is best described by Digital History:
"The most controversial aspect of his strategy was an effort to cut the Ho Chi Minh supply trail by secretly bombing North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia and invading that country and Laos. The U.S. and South Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia in April 1970 helped destabilize the country, provoking a bloody civil war and bringing to power the murderous Khmer Rouge, a Communist group that evacuated Cambodia's cities and threw thousands into re-education camps."
Not only was it bad for Cambodia, it hurt morale at home as well. Protests against the war erupted anew when it was learned that Nixon planned to invade another country. The war ended with a victory for North Vietnam.
And then there was the scandal that led to Nixon becoming the only President to resign from office: Watergate. In 1972, right before Nixon's reelection, five men broke into the DNC's office in the Watergate Hotel. They were discovered trying to repair wiretaps that had already been placed in the office at an earlier date. The men, all linked to Nixon's reelection committee, were tried and convicted in 1973, and the investigation broadened.
It was suspected that Nixon and other officials had known of the wiretapping, and were actively covering up the administration's involvement. Nixon asked for the resignations of key aides; six were ultimately convicted of being involved in the scandal. Eventually, altered tapes and documents led the House to approve articles of impeachment against President Nixon. Instead of facing impeachment, Nixon resigned in the late summer of 1974.
And so, as history shows, a high IQ can't prevent a president from being inept, or politically tone-deaf, or just a plain jerk. If the actions of Donald Trump and the candidates for his cabinet are any indication, IQ or not, the United States might be in for all three starting January 20.
