Lessons from Truman

President Harry Truman was way behind in the polls, but he wasn’t giving up. Competitive to the core, he came out of the deeply divided and badly fractured 1948 Democratic convention swinging.  

His popular opponent, New York Governor Tom Dewey, had been the crime-busting prosecuting attorney who had locked up the Cosa Nostra kingpin, Lucky Luciano. Dewey went on to be elected New York Governor and had run a competitive race for president in 1944 against perhaps the greatest president of the 20th century, Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

FDR died just 82 days after, and the nearly-unknown Vice President Truman was abruptly sworn in to replace him. By his record of tough decision making, Truman proved he could rise to the occasion, but his “Fair Deal” program lacked the luster and urgency of Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” Dewey appeared to represent the change the country was ready for.

Undaunted, Truman embarked on a state-by-state train tour across the country. His main foil was the “do-nothing, good-for-nothing Republican Congress.” He accused Dewey of such palliative platitudes as “agriculture is important,” “you can’t have freedom without liberty,” and “our future lies ahead.” 

Dewey’s advisors collectively counseled the Governor not to take the bait and fight back, to simply sit on his lead. To his regret, Dewey kept in line with the advice, but it wasn’t a reflection of his record or his nature. In securing his nomination, Dewey had been implored by most of the same Republican leaders to support outlawing the Communist Party. Dewey’s pointed response was, “That is thought control and a surrender of everything we Americans believe in.” 

In his battle for the Republican nomination with isolationist Ohio Senator Robert Taft, Dewey stood strong as a staunch advocate for a robust foreign policy including the Marshall Plan to provide aid to restore World War II-wrecked Europe, and for what later became NATO to contain the advance of the power-hungry Soviet Union.

In the end, Tom Dewey never really got to show who he was. Plain-talking populist Harry Truman definitely did. Before a crowd of an estimated 40,000 in Butte, Montana, Truman used his recently concocted campaign punch line that he wasn’t giving the Republicans hell “I just tell the truth about them, and they think it’s hell.”  Truman later told a biographer that the size and spirit of the Butte rally gave him a clear feeling that he would win the election.

The race no doubt narrowed as the campaign drew to a close, but no one noticed because so certain was the outcome that the pollsters stopped polling. To the astonishment of just about everyone except Truman, “Give ‘em Hell Harry” was never behind as the returns continued to come in on election night.  He carried the nation by 49.6% to Dewey’s 46.1%; he carried Montana by 53% to Dewey’s 43%.

President Biden’s recent “give ‘em hell” State of the Union speech was a spirited reminder of Harry Truman three-quarters of a century ago. People like a fighter, and so Biden will likely continue with the gloves off. It’s probably his best chance of winning if he does. He’ll attack the weak and ineffectual Congress and its gutless stand on the freedom fighters of Ukraine, its killing of a border security bill only to keep the issue alive, and its allowing the unequal treatment of women with unwanted pregnancies. He will zero in on Trump’s legal difficulties at every opportunity. 

A big difference, though, is that while Biden has shown he can put up a fight, he is 81, and when Truman started his fight he was 64. And Biden’s opponent sure isn’t Dewey – the principled straight-arrow enforcer of the law, or firm and fair administrator who was never legally accused of, or charged, with anything in his entire 12-year tenure as New York Governor.

No, not Trump. Not only will he not hit back, Trump will hit early and often. High and low. That’s been his record all the way back to his childhood in New York. Compromise and good faith are of no use to him, and he has converted the now-dominant MAGA wing of the once Grand Old Republican Party to his authoritarian point of view. Truman never needed to be concerned about attacks by Dewey. Biden must always be wary of Trump.

The 2024 choice is also much starker than it was in 1948. Both Truman and Dewey would have been ethical and balanced leaders. Biden is not quite Truman. But Trump is sure no Dewey.   

Bob Brown is a former Montana Secretary of State and state Senate President. He lives in Whitefish.