Why has Harry Truman been rehabilitated?
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 08:26:16 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  Individual Politics (Moderator: The Dowager Mod)
  Why has Harry Truman been rehabilitated?
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: Why has Harry Truman been rehabilitated?  (Read 495 times)
Col. Roosevelt
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 252
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: October 07, 2015, 11:29:23 PM »

When Harry Truman left office in 1953, he was polling at an abysmal 22% approval - lower than Nixon at the very height of Watergate. The Korean War, which he got us involved in, was locked in a very bloody stalemate and 33,000 American troops had died in under 3 years of fighting with no end in sight. He was so despised that he lost in a landslide victory in the NH primacy to Estes Kefauver (who won 19,000 votes to Truman's 5,000), and Truman promptly pulled out of the race. At the time, his administration was seen as corrupt (he used Executive Privilege to protect members of his administration from having to testify before Congress), soft on Communism (China had been "lost" under his administration), and not very effective - not many bills of his Fair Deal program passed. Not only that, but it can be argued that Truman began the Cold War or at the very least, made it much more tense than it had to be.

Yet, today, Truman's unpopularity and the bloody stalemate that Korea was in 1952/1953 is forgotten and today Truman is celebrated as being among America's greats, as the rowdy "Give 'em Hell, Harry" maverick president from Missouri. None of his failures are truly remembered much today, and only his successes - mainly in his first term - are.

Why has Truman's legacy been so whitewashed?
Logged
Bismarck
Chancellor
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 3,343


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2015, 07:36:00 AM »

A. People like him for his personality and thus overlook his blunders. B: Liberals tend to write history. C: There is a string nastaltia for the time in between WW2 and Vietnam. Truman Ike and Kennedy are remembered as the presidents who presided over that time of economic growth and american dominance and unity.
Logged
Oakvale
oakvale
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,827
Ukraine
Political Matrix
E: -0.77, S: -4.00

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2015, 08:47:26 AM »

People correctly realised he was probably the best President of the 20th century, largely because as time went on people could be more objective about his administration without the cult of Roosevelt overshadowing it, and because his successors were, with one or two exceptions, either criminals or mediocrities.
Logged
OSR stands with Israel
Computer89
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 44,357


Political Matrix
E: 3.42, S: 2.61

P P P

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2015, 07:07:23 PM »

Korean War was justified, Losing China was not his fault, and the cold war was justified , communism had to be contained at all costs
Logged
Col. Roosevelt
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 252
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2015, 07:28:52 PM »

Korean War was justified, Losing China was not his fault, and the cold war was justified , communism had to be contained at all costs

The Korean War was basically the same as Vietnam: Keeping a divided country from going fully Communist. Why is Korea justified and Vietnam isn't?
Logged
OSR stands with Israel
Computer89
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 44,357


Political Matrix
E: 3.42, S: 2.61

P P P

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2015, 11:16:23 PM »

Korean War was justified, Losing China was not his fault, and the cold war was justified , communism had to be contained at all costs

The Korean War was basically the same as Vietnam: Keeping a divided country from going fully Communist. Why is Korea justified and Vietnam isn't?

Because in Vietnam US broke the agreements with Vietnam to allow them to have an election in Korea the Soviet Union broke the agreement and created North Korea just to turn the whole pensuila communist. And 2nd North Vietnam was not has nearly as totaltarian communist as North Korea
Logged
RINO Tom
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 17,002
United States


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2015, 01:24:31 PM »

Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and LBJ all hold a hilariously similar niche in Democratic history in that they were all unquestionably "progressive" for their times (in that they tried to enact legislation that they believed would help the needy and better society ... they just all had different definitions of who the needy were and who was deserving of their help, just as progressives still do today). 

Jackson pretty much committed genocide against American Indians (something the modern Democratic Party obviously doesn't want to associate itself with, rightfully so), so Democrats intentionally forget sometimes that he really did plant the seed for their party to be "The Party of the People."

Wilson was an unabashed racist and segregationist, and his internationalist worldview has fallen out of favor with the left in recent decades, so Democrats intentionally forget sometimes that his fiscal record of reform and regulation set the stage for FDR.

Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb doesn't exactly jive with the anti-war left's worldview, so Democrats intentionally forget sometimes that he might have been the most fiscally liberal POTUS of the 20th Century and that he fought harder for progressive economic legislation than anyone not named FDR.

LBJ vigorously supported an internationalist war that history has decided was a failure (something the modern Democratic Party obviously doesn't want to associate itself with, rightfully so), so Democrats intentionally forget sometimes that his Great Society programs have more or less served as the basis for Democratic fiscal thought since then.

Out of those four, Truman and LBJ are definitely the closest to being re-embraced.  Wilson is third, and Democrats have largely abandoned their founder.
Logged
Bigby
Mod_Libertarian_GOPer
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 3,164
United States


Political Matrix
E: -6.52, S: 3.74

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2015, 06:00:22 PM »

Because he is a Democrat.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.028 seconds with 11 queries.