With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

David Gelernter: Truman Beats Dewey Again

David Gelernter, in the Weekly Standard (Nov. 15, 2004):

ON ELECTION DAY, Establishment big shots were certain that America wanted change and that the suave, sophisticated challenger had to beat the blunt, plain, downright embarrassing incumbent. All day long they were certain. At midnight the famous radio commentator H.V. Kaltenborn summed up the position: Harry Truman was 1.2 million votes ahead, but Thomas Dewey was going to win. At 4 A.M., Kaltenborn issued an update. Truman was more than 2 million votes ahead, and Dewey was still going to win. At 10:30 the next morning, Dewey sent Truman a telegram of concession.

When it was all over, Truman's victory margin was 4.4 percentage points; Bush's margin is a little thinner. But Truman won without a majority: He got 49.5 percent of the popular vote. (There were two bonus candidates that year: the "Progressive" Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond the Dixiecrat.) George W. Bush is the first president in 16 years to win an absolute majority.

The elections of 1948 and 2004 resemble each other in many ways. But there are deeper analogies in play too. The plain-spoken moralist for whom religion matters greatly, the common man who seems too small for the presidency but is confronted in office by a cataclysm that re-creates him; who rises to the challenge and transcends it; who faces a tough re-election battle and wins it; who redefines the nation's mission in the world and emerges a hero--that is a traditional American story. It is Lincoln's story. (In summer 1864, prominent Republicans wanted to find a
stronger candidate.) No president matches Lincoln's greatness, but in modern times this was Harry Truman's story; and today it is George W. Bush's also.

In 1948, the Democratic incumbent beat the Republican challenger. The year 2004 saw a replay of that election upside-down--which tells us something about the current meanings of "Democrat" and "Republican." Today the Democrats are the timid reactionary party with strong isolationist tendencies. Today "Democrat" equals "Reactionary Liberal." Republicans are the bold internationalist progressives--the "Tory Democrats" envisioned by Benjamin Disraeli, creator of modern conservatism, and by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, its late-20th-century champions.

Kerry 2004 was a lot like Dewey '48: the stylish Establishment candidate. No one could figure out exactly where he stood, but it didn't matter. He was bound to win. Bush 2004 was a lot like Truman '48: the unstylish former businessman. Both men served in the National Guard. (Truman's unit was sent to France during the First World War, and the future president served with distinction.) Bush, like Truman, did fine in local politics, was well liked by all sorts of people--but never planned to be president. Bush, like Truman, took office with no clear worldview or plan of action--but with non-negotiable moral principles. Both men developed a worldview and plan of action when they needed to, and moved up boldly to take their places in the front line of world struggle and the long line of American heroism.

Bush and Truman each redefined America's world mission for a new era by reapplying traditional American principles. When Truman became president on the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, World War II was still underway and Soviet Russia was America's more-or-less trusted ally. Roosevelt had been reluctant to heed Churchill's worried warnings about Stalin. To Churchill it was increasingly clear that Stalin would be a dangerous man after the war, with much of Eastern and Central Europe in his gigantic, triumphant Red Army's grip. Truman was uncertain at first. But before long, the Soviet Empire reared up like a killer tidal wave, and it was up to Truman to decline or accept the challenge--to lead America's retreat back into its isolationist hole or to stand up to Stalin and announce: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." He accepted the challenge. In March 1947 he proclaimed the Truman Doctrine in a speech to Congress. "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure." That remained U.S. policy until the Cold War was won almost half a century later.

Click here to read the rest of this article.