Donald Trump-Harry Truman link? Yes

My first thoughts when I considered my subject here was that my considerations were preposterous. It seemed as if no link between die-hard Democrat Harry Truman and the pompous Donald Trump could be possible. Their politics are almost polar opposites, Truman being the ultimate liberal and Trump the reactionary right winger. Truman was a Missouri farm boy, Trump the heir to a New York real estate empire. Truman was humble, Trump arrogant. Truman is said to always look to find the best in humans, Trump shows he can find the worst whenever it is expedient. However, there are three attributes that make them twins in history, the least of which is that their names are very close in spelling.

1. Political savvy about the electorate. First, both Truman and Trump were expected to be routed on Election Day. Thomas Dewey was far ahead in the polls in the months leading up to the 1948 election. Truman's popularity at the end of World War II plummeted in the years after. He then launched what many thought to be a foolhardy strategy of going across the nation on a whistle-stop tour, a train journey that would take him from Washington, D.C., to California, and back again to the Upper Midwest. He stopped at more than twenty towns a day and delivered even more speeches from the platform at the back of the train. He hit small towns on numerous occasions, never concentrating on major cities. He spoke about his past as just one of the American commoners and his appreciation for their efforts and their ranking as the backbone of the nation. People lined up several deep as the tour progressed, and calls of "give 'em hell, Harry" were a hallmark of the reactions. The reaction to Truman by the salt of the earth was extraordinarily positive. Political experts dismissed it. They were wrong. Truman won handily, and one of the greatest assets was the huge surge in the overlooked farm vote. The common link of the commoner in the White House resonated in the voting booth.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was as good as enshrined as our next president before Election Day in 2016. Trump was a crass blowhard who was out of his element, and the HRC political campaign was humming along. Not even revelations of hacked emails made public by Julian Assange could make a dent in Clinton's perceived momentum. She booked the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City as the site of her victory celebration on Election Night because it had a glass ceiling that would be emblematic of a woman's triumph for the highest office in the nation. Trump never got close to the common folks the way Truman did, but he pushed the same buttons. His talk to farmers and overlooked labor in the Rust Belt hit again and again at how their plight was overlooked by the Democrats in D.C., and HRC was no different. Trump's strength in his messages to these groups was that he was different and would not bow to politics as usual. He made no great promises other than his usual, tired line of "Make America Great Again." Still, it resonated when it came time to vote. He earned those votes from overlooked farmers and workers where it mattered most, in the electoral vote-heavy states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin. He carried the South, and won Florida, which was being viewed as a toss-up and a probable victory for HRC that would cement her overall victory early in the evening. When the final electoral tally was done, Trump, like Truman, had done the impossible. He won the presidency.

2. Both are feisty and often mean-spirited. Truman was famous for siphoning his anger into letters that he jotted longhand when he felt the need. His targets might be political foes, newspaper and magazine editors, national columnists and commentators. His replies were vitriolic, laced with invective. Trump, of course, is famous for tweets that follow the same course. The difference is that Truman usually put his letters in a drawer and never mailed them, and Trump is almost eager to get his bullying words in public as quickly as possible. The one time Truman failed to put his anger in the drawer was a letter to a music reviewer for The Washington Post who lambasted a performance by Harry's daughter Margaret, who had a sincere desire to be an accomplished singer but not the talent. The letter made its way to the reviewer, who brushed off the content and made no move to make it public. Another newspaper did, however, and published it on the front page. Truman was roundly criticized for being thin-skinned and petty, more intent on defending his daughter than on mounting problems in Korea. There are times when many of us believe that Petty should be Trump's middle name.

3. There were cries for their impeachment. We have only to watch the 24-hour news cycle to hear those calls regarding Trump. It is the news of the day. For many, it has been the aim since Election Day two years ago. Truman faced the same cries. His sin of such magnitude was the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur as commander of forces in the Far East when the Korean War was still ongoing. MacArthur was a revered figure among Americans, and his ouster stunned the nation. It was necessary from Truman's viewpoint and those of his top aides such as Dean Acheson and General Omar Bradley because MacArthur made moves that were opposite of what Truman ordered. Such moves were simple insubordination, and many thought MacArthur saw himself as being above the chain of command. (If you need a history lesson, MacArthur called for a direct war with Red China and the use of nuclear weapons. Those weren't exactly petty ideas.)

Here's an editorial of the time, and all one has to do is substitute Trump for Truman references. This is from the Chicago Tribune's front-page editorial that was part of the firestorm after MacArthur's ouster: "President Truman must be impeached and convicted. His hasty and vindictive removal of Gen. MacArthur is the culmination of a series of acts which have shown that he is unfit, morally and mentally, for his high office. ... The American nation has never been in a greater danger. It is led by a fool who is surrounded by knaves."

See, history has a way of repeating itself. Also, that ludicrous nature of my original idea isn't that ludicrous. These two men are linked in more ways than I first thought possible.

Comments

  1. Trump's history certainly isn't fully written, but when you move beyond the similarities between Truman's win 1948 and Trump's win in 2016, there is very little else that binds them. Their political backgrounds are as far apart as one can imagine - Truman was a product of the Missouri/St. Louis democratic machine, Trump was a real estate and media personality. Their upbringings, Truman's from Missouri and Trump's from NYC, are polar opposites. Truman, if he was known for anything, was his blunt midwestern honesty ("Give 'em hell, Harry"). Trump is known for contempt for the truth and willful dishonesty. Their marriages and family are also about as far apart as one can imagine - Trump married 3 times, countless affairs, and glamorous wives vs. Bess Truman, who met Harry Truman in Sunday School when she was 5 and he was 6, and their only daughter Margaret, who had a penchant for mediocre piano. And while Truman caught plenty of heat for his dismissal of MacArthur (which probably did more to swing many veterans from Roosevelt democrats to Eisenhower republicans than any policies ever would), he was backed into the decision by the blatant disobedience of MacArthur himself. Some historians rank Truman in their top 10 presidents because of the monumental decisions he was faced with as president: dropping the atomic bomb, ordering the integration of the U.S. military, commitment to the first military action to an expanding Communist threat in Korea, and the backing of the United Nations. And while Trump has 2 more years on his presidency, it will take some very heavy lifting to find even one great thing he will be remembered for. Cheers, Pat.

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