GIVE 'EM HELL JOE!

In 1948, Harry Truman was supposed to lose his campaign for election as President in his own right. Every attempt to paint Truman with the grace, charm, and grandeur of Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been a dismal failure; Truman’s virtues were simpler, plainer, more direct. The Republicans had taken back control of the House of Representatives in the “victory election” of 1946 and were dead set on rolling the country back to October 31, 1932 - before the election of “that man,” Franklin Roosevelt. Newspapers and popular opinion nationwide had all but anointed as president New York governor Thomas E. Dewey, who had lost to FDR in 1944.

Interestingly, the Republican Conservatives had figured out by 1944 that they couldn’t beat FDR by opposing everything he had done - even though they did - because the New Deal was just too popular. Wendell Wilkie had actually come close to winning in 1940 as an avowed Republican liberal, until the British won the Battle of Britain that fall and many Americans began to realize they would indeed end up in the war, regardless. Dewey was the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, in opposition to conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft - the Mitch McConnell of his day. Dewey was an advocate for what would later be called the Eastern Establishment, the internationalists who supported the UN and favored the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, and supported most of the New Deal social-welfare reforms. Dewey’s vice-presidential nominee was California governor Earl Warren, who was then seen as a “conservative influence” on Dewey for his support of the detention of Japanese-Americans during the war.

The conservative America First isolationists bided their time and supported things like the House Un-American Activities Committee exposing all the commies in Hollywood. They had shown their power in 1947, passing the Taft-Hartley Act restricting union activities and establishing a “right to work” over Truman’s veto with the support of the conservative anti-union Southern Democrats who had resumed full power in the party after the defeat of the New Deal majority in the mid-term elections of 1942. Conservatism north and south was on the march.

The upheaval at the July convention over acceptance by the national party of Hubert H. Humphrey’s demand for a commitment to civil rights led to J. Strom Thurmond running on the State's Rights Party ticket, known more familiarly as the "Dixiecrats," while Henry Wallace ran on the Progressive Party ticket. Both revolts ultimately worked to Truman's advantage since the “Dixiecrat” defection reassured black voters of Truman's commitment to civil rights, which he reinforced with his executive orders desegregating the armed forces and ending bias in federal employment practices that had been instituted by the southern white supremacist Woodrow Wilson. Wallace was supported by the Communist Party, which made it difficult for anyone to label Truman "soft on communism."

The Republican victory looked so certain that Truman had difficulty raising campaign funds. New Dealers thought he was a rube from Missouri who had played footsie with the KKK and was the political product of the disgraced Pendergast Machine that ran Missouri Democratic politics from its headquarters in Kansas City. (Quick fact check from my Great Grand-Uncle Jim McKelvey, Truman’s lifelong “First Sergeant” from the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne to his death in 1973: Nope - Truman actually broke the power of the KKK in Independence where he was County Judge, and when Tom Pendergast asked him to run for Senate in 1934 he told him “Tom, you may not like what you get if I say yes.” And he didn’t.) They called him “the accidental president” and too damn many of them thought Henry Wallace was the man who should have been running as the incumbent. Those who weren’t for Wallace were so desperate that James Roosevelt tried to convince former Chief of Staff of the United States Army Dwight D. Eisenhower to run instead, since no one knew what his politics were beyond he would garner the “GI vote.” (By 1952, the Republicans were so desperate they would play this card)

Finally, with ingenuity born of desperation, Truman’s aides hit on a plan: get the president in front of as many regular voters as possible, preferably in intimate settings, all across the country. There would be three major tours: first cross-country to California for 15 days; then a six-day tour of the Middle West; followed by a final, hard-hitting ten days in the big population centers of the Northeast and a return trip home to Missouri. The campaign involved 31,000 miles of travel and 352 speeches by the president in September and October 1948.

The train campaign proved an unexpected success. A new, relaxed and confident Harry Truman was presented to the people, a candidate who spoke their language and understood their needs. Truman relentlessly accused the "do-nothing" Republican Congress of failing to meet the needs of the American people, a tirade that served him well with the common voter. When a voter at one stop shouted “Give ’em hell, Harry!” Truman declared, “I don’t give them hell. I just tell the truth about them, and they think it’s hell.”

"Give 'em hell, Harry!" became a battle-cry. The tour and the campaign culminated with the iconic image of a grinning, victorious Truman holding aloft the famous Chicago Tribune headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

In 2022, after a year of “rambling President Biden,” “ muted Joe Biden,” “unconvincing-bipartisan-cheerleader Joe Biden,” last Thursday we got “feisty Joe Biden” and “pugnacious Joe Biden” when President Joe Biden started his midterm campaign with a speech in Rockville, Maryland.,

“In 2020, you and 81 million Americans voted to save our democracy. That’s why Donald Trump isn’t just a former president. He is a defeated former president. Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of your kids from gun violence is on the ballot, and it’s not hyperbole, the very survival of our planet is on the ballot. Your right to vote is on the ballot. Even the democracy. Are you ready to fight for these things now?”

His strongest words came in a blunt assault on the MAGA movement: “The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy. This is why, in this moment, those of you who love this country — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we must be stronger.”

His harshest language came earlier at a fundraiser where he told donors, “What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism.”

No one should be shocked by that. The MAGA GOP tried to overthrow a democratic election, continues to threaten violence, spews the racist Great Replacement theory, operates in a universe of delusion and disinformation and seeks to redefine America as a White Christian nation. Calling that “pro-fascist” or just “fascist” would have worked as well.

Predictably, the party that celebrates Hungary’s illiberal Viktor Orban, embraces Russian propaganda and grovels before Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan started whining and moaning over being held accountable for its right-wing theocratic nationalism and authoritarian hero-worship.

Just to prove that wasn’t a mistake, the speech was followed by the newly-direct White House Twitter account publicly noting how many thousands - even millions - of dollars Republican critics of his student loan forgiveness decision had taken in PPP loans that were forgiven.

Joe Biden has reminded us how he got elected in 2020. When he gets his dander up, he can be an effective campaigner.

Biden is energized by his wins on gun safety, prescription drug prices, climate change, veterans’ health care and the Chips and Science Act. He also appears freed from the necessity in his own mind to pull punches for the sake of getting GOP lawmakers to buy into his agenda.

No more “Biden was elected to lower the temperature” or blather that “voters want to stop the partisan fighting.” Biden has decided to tell the truth and let the GOP think it’s hell.

There is no need to fret about Biden free-ranging on the campaign trail. As vice president and then as presidential candidate in 2020, he was at his best when fighting against special interests and their right-wing pets.

And like the bully who just got punched in the nose in front of everyone in the schoolyard, the Republicans act like they can’t believe it’s happening to them. Republicans have paid little price for opposing a minimum tax on big corporations that pay nothing, opposing middle-class relief from high health-care and energy costs and, most of all, opposing widely held views on contraception, a woman’s right to choose, free speech and LGBTQ equality. When we see the worst of them starting to take down their celebration of supporting all these acts against the American people, we can clearly see they know they are taking hits.

Biden’s message is simple: The Republicans’ free ride is over. Call them out for what they are.

Labor Day weekend traditionally starts the time when even the idiots start paying attention to political campaigns.

Give ‘Em Hell, Joe!

Thanks to everyone who is hooking up to That’s Another Fine Mess with free subscriptions. And a big thanks to those who are upgrading to Paid Subscriber status, which keeps this operation in existence. I hope more of you will join our community. Comments are for the Paid Subscribers.