It Still Feels like 1948

Back in November, I wrote a column where I said that the 2024 election feels like 1948 and outlined the reasons why. 

I still feel that way.

My only quibble is my frustration with segments of the Democratic Party (the fair weather and spineless ones) and the rest of the American populace who feel Joe Biden, because of age, can not defeat Donald Trump. 

NEWSFLASH for those with amnesia. He already has and nothing Donald Trump has done since his electoral defeat has shown cause for the American People to give him the keys to the Oval Office again. 

The parallels to 1948 are still there with a couple of differences. 

In 1948, Democratic elements thought, after being spoiled by the four election victories of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thought President Truman lacked the spark and aurora to be elected to the Oval Office in his own right. 

Several, including FDR's own sons, made overtures to Dwight Eisenhower to run as a Democrat in 1948. 

He rejected those, deciding to run as a Republican four years later. 

Future Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey felt he was too soft on civil rights. 

As I wrote in the first piece, there were Southern Democrats who broke off from the party and formed the segregationist Dixiecrat Party.

Then there were the Progressives, led by Truman's Vice President predecessor, Henry Wallace, who felt Truman was not progressive enough despite the program features of The Fair Deal which called for national health care, an increase in the minimum wage, expanded Social Security, federal aid to education, increased affordable housing, and anti-lynching. 

From Rare First Editions.

Reading David McCullough's acclaimed work Truman is very instructive. 

Poring through the pages, you read the words and hear the voices of downcast Democrats like famed Arkansas Senator William Fullbright suggesting Truman resign the Presidency after the Republicans regained Congress after the 1946 midterm elections.

Truman, upon hearing those remarks, would call Fullbright "Halfbright."

Seeing the Fair Weather Democrats like Arizona's Raul Grijalva and Greg Stanton panic and call for Joe Biden to withdraw is very reminiscent of those bedwetting Democrats from 1947 and 1948. 

The two differences are the polls were not as close as those today and Donald Trump is not Tom Dewey.

Truman's 1948 opponent was a successful crime-fighting prosecutor and center-left Republican Governor of New York.

Donald Trump on the other hand is, as President Biden said "A one-man crime wave," whose Presidency, especially during the Coronavirus, highlighted his glaring executive deficiencies. 

On his worst day, Joe Biden, if he was on a respirator, would be preferable to the Republican nominee who has 34 convictions, two impeachments, two popular vote losses, and has been branded as a sexual assaulter, failed businessman, and coup leader-traitor.

This still feels like 1948 where Truman and the Congressional Democrats defied the electoral odds, but honestly, this should be like the landslides of 1964, 1972, 1984, 1996, and 2008.

Based on his successful record, Biden, even if he was as old as Methuselah, should be up by 20 points in this election. 

It is only the fair-weather Democrats and shallow younger generation that are looking for a candidate without white hair and wrinkles that are making this election close when it should not be.

It is time to get with the program people. 

Otherwise, Donald 'I killed Roe v Wade' Trump, J.D. 'Women should stay in Abusive Marriages' Vance may be marching down Pennsylvania Avenue on January 20, 2025, holding their Mein Kampf/Handmaids Tale Project 2025 under their armpits, ready to execute.

Do not let that happen.