Truman-Dewey race offers insights
Biden-Trump rematch has parallels to 1948
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – An unpopular Democratic president campaigns for re-election, dogged by inflation, domestic supply shortages and fears of World War III – and does so as he is stymied by Republicans in Congress and faces a GOP candidate who has galvanized the base of his party.
That describes President Joe Biden’s predicament in 2024 but also Harry S. Truman’s quandary 76 years ago in 1948 against New York Gov. Thomas Dewey. The comparisons are undeniable and offer lessons for both today’s president and the apparent Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
“The parallels are absolutely there,” said presidential historian Robert Watson at Lynn University. “You’ve got the parallels with global crises, the economic dislocation, ugly social divisions and deep partisanship.”
Those similarities offer lessons and warnings for both Biden and Trump following Super Tuesday as they careen toward a rematch with just over eight months to go before the votes are counted.
They are guideposts that Watson, a foremost expert on Truman, has analyzed in his writing and lectures as well as his work with the board of the Harry Truman Foundation. He is a co-founder of the annual Truman Legacy Symposium at the Harry S. Truman Little White House, which is sponsored by the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.
They are lessons from the past are now more relevant than ever as a BidenTrump rematch is a virtual certainty.
Bidenomics vs. MAGAnomics
In 1948, the U.S. economy was struggling with the dislocations from World War II, not unlike the way Americans are grappling with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic business shutdown four years ago.
Americans 76 years ago were frustrated by spiraling prices for basic consumer items as the annual inflation rate hit 7.7%.
Overseas, the deepening Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union fed fears of another unavoidable global war. The Soviet blockade of partitioned Berlin, many believed, would be the trigger for World War III.
Americans viewed Truman as overwhelmed by the dual crises at home and
abroad and, according one poll, the president trailed his presumptive rival, Dewey, by 11 points at the outset of that year’s campaign.
In many ways, the comparisons 2024 are obvious.
Biden has been hamstrung by consumer exasperation with price increases and the electorate’s concern over “world on fire” chatter among pundits given the wars in Ukraine and Israel’s Gaza Strip.
Trump has seized on it, warning that World War III looms and has ridiculed Biden’s blaming Big Business for “shrinkflation” by accusing consumer brands of charging more for their goods while providing less product in their packaging.
That placed the president behind the political 8-ball, said Watson, despite Trump’s low ratings and enormous legal problems, including 91 felony counts in four separate sets of indictments.
“Biden has allowed Trump to frame everything, to frame himself,” he said. “And Trump has framed Biden on his own terms and combine that with Biden’s age and all that.”
1948 GOP ‘do nothing’ Congress vs. 2024 GOP House chaos
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In 1948, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and roadblocked Truman’s agenda.
That’s where a key pivot in that year’s presidential contest turned – and which Watson said gives Biden an opening.
In the summer of 1948, Truman took on the Republican Congress with relentless attacks as a “do-nothing Congress.” That happened after Republicans promised at their nominating conventions to expand health care, and offer veterans
benefits to returning World War II GIs – which Watson said they “had picked off” from the very aggressive Truman agenda the GOP Congress blocked the prior spring.
“Truman called them out saying ‘I’m going to call them in and tell them to put all those bills on my desk and I’ll sign them all,’” Watson said. “And they didn’t and then he started saying it’s the donothing Congress.”
The parallel to today is the recent Republican flip-flop on border security. After demanding the Biden administration and congressional Democrats address migration at the border with Mexico, Biden and Senate Democrats worked with Senate Republicans to draft the toughest and most comprehensive border security legislation in decades.
But other Republicans in the Senate balked and the GOP leadership in the U.S. House rebuffed the plan. They have also stiff-armed military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Israel. There lies the chance for Biden to become “Trumanesque,” according to Watson.
“Biden needs to do a better job of it,” Watson said of reminding voters of the GOP backpedaling on these issues. “Truman never stopped talking about the do-nothing Congress.”
In fact, Biden seemed to take such advice on March 7 in delivering a fiery, “give ‘em hell” State of the Union Address in which he repeatedly called out “my predecessor” as well as Capitol Hill Republicans.
Dewey campaigned as gentleman; Trump is a fighter
Both Trump and the 1948 Republican presidential nominee are New Yorkers.
But they could not be more different in style.
While “Dewey campaigned like a gentleman” in rejecting personal attacks, Watson noted, Trump is tenaciously on the attack 24/7, even “going after Taylor Swift and Beyonce” and other celebrities. Analysts of the 1948 result fault Dewey for not taking “the gloves off” as a principal reason he lost. Watson and others say it is a mistake Trump will not make. But Watson said the danger for Trump, evident in the polls, is he is making “a different error on the opposite end of the spectrum” with his pugilistic and combative style.
Many polls show Trump leading Biden, but in a notable number of the surveys, neither candidate tops 40%. Trump also registers approval ratings in the low 40-percent range. All of which speak to Trump’s very limited opportunity to expand his electorate.
“You need to bring the fist but you also need to bring the open hand,” he said. “You have to find the 50-yard line.”
Watson said Biden is, nonetheless, at a disadvantage. Where the MAGA base “will crawl through glass” for Trump, the incumbent has suffered from a Democratic voter “enthusiasm deficit” and that could be decisive in a contest that draws low voter turnout. “Democrats suffer from Biden enthusiasm deficit,” according to Watson. “They don’t dislike Joe but they don’t love him.”
Hit the rails, ‘Scranton Joe’
The biggest lesson of 1948, Watson said, is that Biden needs to “get out of Washington” as Truman did.
In the case of the 33rd president, he jumped on a train called the “Ferdinand Magellan, after the explorer, and launched a cross-country whistle-stop tour said to have put enough miles on the train to cover the distance of the Earth to the moon and back. In the rural heartland, Truman talked about crop prices. In urban locales, he spoke of their heroes honored with statues in downtowns and parks.
“Truman, it’s not that he unveiled his policies on inflation or interest rates, he just hammered the do-nothing Congress and made these profound gut-level connections with the people,” Watson said. “Biden is not doing either one effectively and needs to get out of Washington and get on the road.”
In fact, coming off the State of the Union, the president traveled to Pennsylvania and Georgia, two swing states.Watson said getting out to rally voters would help demonstrate vitality amid deep concerns about his age, and a tour by rail would be in keeping with the president’s longtime affinity for train travel and commuting.