What would a Dewey Presidency have been like?

[DevotedDemocrat]

If Thomas Dewey had been elected in '48, what do you think his domestic and foreign policy agenda would've been like?

[mianfei]

Most likely a Dewey Presidency would not have been significantly different from the 1950s as we knew it. He was a moderate Republican who was in favour of expanding black civil rights and international alliances with the non-Communist countries of Western Europe.

His behaviour as a campaigner does give me the impression that Dewey would have been inferior to Truman or Eisenhower at doing these things, and less decisive against hostility from other branches of government. Maybe regarding black civil right he would have been able to do more than Truman as he might not have been weighed down by Southern Democrats?

[(no subject)]

"What Dewey Will Do"--an analysis of the (assumed) new administration from the November 1948 Kiplinger's Magazine. https://books.google.com/books?id=3wUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10

Kiplinger's analysis: John Foster Dulles will be the key man on foreign policy. More aid to China (when this was written, few Americans realized how soon Chiang Kai-shek would be routed). No tax cuts, and maybe even some increases--Dewey believed in a balanced budget, and felt that defense spending needed to be increased. Taft-Hartley will be kept with some mild pro-labor revisions. Union leaders will have to deal with the Department of Labor instead of getting special treatment at the White House. Dewey will advocate anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation but the article gives the impression he will not press for them very hard, lest they lead the South to oppose the rest of his program. The Communist Party will not be outlawed, but Communists will be removed from government. No "theorists" or "professors" for the Supreme Court, but seasoned practicing lawyers and judges.