tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/harry-s-truman-29491/articlesHarry S Truman – The Conversation2022-03-23T12:16:18Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788772022-03-23T12:16:18Z2022-03-23T12:16:18ZBiden’s plain speaking on Ukraine inspires support without sparking a wider war – an echo of the Truman Doctrine, 75 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453410/original/file-20220321-14070-1yw453b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3762%2C2630&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.K. politician Winston Churchill with U.S. President Harry Truman on March 3, 1946, leaving for Missouri, where Churchill would make a speech warning about the dangers of the Iron Curtain. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-conservative-politician-winston-churchill-with-the-news-photo/613494318?adppopup=true">Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden faces an aggressive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589">Russia waging war to expand its borders</a>. <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2022/03/03/the-invasion-of-ukraine-unites-a-divided-america/">He has rallied Americans to support Ukraine</a> as it resists a devastating Russian attack. But <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-hosts-calls-with-allies-after-putin-put-nuclear-deterrent-alert-2022-02-28/">Biden has also been careful not to intensify enthusiasm</a> for entering that conflict, which could have horrific consequences, including nuclear war.</p>
<p>He’s not the first U.S. president to face the challenge of mobilizing a nation to support – but not join – a war about democracy that carried the potential for wider conflict. In 1947, President Harry Truman was in a remarkably similar position. And he handled it in a remarkably similar way: with plain words and a direct appeal to Americans to support another nation’s independence, while simultaneously avoiding language that could spark further conflict.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://wooster.edu/bio/dbostdorff/">scholar of presidential rhetoric</a> who has written a <a href="https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781603440325/proclaiming-the-truman-doctrine/">book on what’s known as the Truman Doctrine speech</a>, I’m interested in how presidents use language to attain goals in similar high-stakes situations. Strategies can be repeated.</p>
<p>We can better understand Biden’s response to Ukraine by looking at how Truman responded to problems in Greece just after the end of World War II.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A newsreel with excerpts of Truman’s speech to Congress on March 12, 1947.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Growing fears of Soviet threat</h2>
<p>The relationship among the allies of Great Britain, the USSR and the U.S. was never free of strain, but tensions grew toward the end of World War II, just as Truman became president. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-neiberg/potsdam/9780465040629/">In 1945, the USSR unilaterally moved Poland’s boundaries westward by 150 miles</a>, annexing the territory and installing a pro-Soviet government. The USSR also <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Fifty-Years-War-The-United-States-and-the-Soviet-Union-in-World-Politics/Crockatt/p/book/9780415135542">dominated the governments of other countries it occupied, like Bulgaria and Romania</a>.</p>
<p>Truman said nothing negative about the Soviets publicly, but his apprehension grew in the spring of 1946 when Soviet troops initially stayed in Iran after the scheduled deadline to leave, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Cold_War_Interpreting_Conflict_throu/hs56DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Soviets+left+Iran+in+May+1946+after+the+scheduled+deadline&pg=PA173&printsec=frontcover">prompting concerns that they wanted to seize Iranian oil</a>. In August of that year, the USSR <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-united-states-and-the-origins-of-the-cold-war-19411947/9780231122399">proposed joining Turkey in defending the Black Sea straits,</a> the conduits to Mideast oil connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.</p>
<p>Simultaneously, as Soviet behavior began giving Truman pause, messages from inside and outside the administration escalated fears over Soviet intentions. George Kennan, the acting U.S. ambassador in Moscow, warned in February 1946 that <a href="https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/telegram-george-kennan-james-byrnes-long-telegram?documentid=NA&pagenumber=1">the Soviets were “committed fanatically” to the global triumph of communism</a>. His analysis circulated extensively within the administration.</p>
<p>In March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke in Fulton, Missouri, where Truman introduced him. Churchill declared an <a href="https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-elder-statesman/the-sinews-of-peace/">“iron curtain” of communism had descended across Central and Eastern Europe</a> with one exception, Greece, which Great Britain continued to aid in its fight against a communist insurgency.</p>
<p>Churchill warned against appeasement and recommended an alliance between English-speaking peoples of the British Commonwealth and the United States. </p>
<p>While Congress and U.S. media responded in different ways, some supporting Churchill’s perceptions of the Soviets and others criticizing his attacks on an ally, <a href="https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/rhetoric-churchill-fulton-address/">public opinion overwhelmingly opposed Churchill’s proposal</a>. Americans did not want to hear another call to arms, especially from a nation often perceived as a colonial bully.</p>
<p>In September 1946, another internal Truman administration analysis, “American Relations with the Soviet Union,” described a hostile USSR and recommended the U.S. “assist all democratic countries … endangered by the USSR” through primarily economic means; but it also insisted the U.S. “be prepared to wage atomic and biological warfare” <a href="https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/report-american-relations-soviet-union-clark-clifford-clifford-elsey-report?documentid=NA&pagenumber=1">to deter Soviet aggression</a>. Out of fear over volatile reactions from both administration and Kremlin officials, Truman confiscated all copies of the report.</p>
<p>Amid a growing U.S. government consensus about a Soviet threat, Great Britain – devastated by war and bitter winter storms – informed the State Department in February 1947 that it could no longer support the increasingly threatened democratic government of Greece. U.S. intelligence believed communist Greek forces trying to overthrow the government were part of a possible <a href="https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/bostdorff-truman.pdf">“Soviet-inspired plan to dominate all of the Balkans</a>.” To contain communist expansion, the British urged the U.S. to assume its role aiding Greece.</p>
<p>Truman was ready to assist with reconstruction funds and military equipment. But his March 12, 1947, <a href="https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/truman-special-message-speech-text/">Truman Doctrine speech</a> had to convince a war-weary nation to support aid to Greece yet also reassure both Americans and European allies that he was not embarking on war. Nor did Truman want to unnecessarily provoke the Soviets.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Biden, a man with white hair and wearing a dark suit, gesturing with his hands as he gives a speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453416/original/file-20220321-13-1brjqub.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden speaks about funds to aid Ukraine, in Washington, D.C., on March 16, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-speaks-about-funds-to-aid-ukraine-in-news-photo/1239238833?adppopup=true">Nicholas Kamm / AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Crisis and reassurance</h2>
<p>President Truman <a href="https://news.gallup.com/vault/205742/gallup-vault-truman-doctrine-earned-public-kudos.aspx">achieved his objectives</a> by promoting a sense of urgency about helping Greece and also reassuring the public that this act would not lead to war.</p>
<p>He used crisis language to depict Greece as victimized by sinister forces. According to Truman, “armed men, led by Communists” threatened the “very existence of the Greek state.”</p>
<p>Truman also elevated the importance of Greece. In the speech’s most famous passage, he asserted the U.S. must “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” If the U.S. did not aid Greece, Truman warned, its inaction would undermine “world freedom” and “endanger the peace of the world.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Truman wanted to avoid having the crisis escalate into demands for war or military responses from opponents. Truman never mentioned the USSR by name and referred to communists only once and communism not at all.</p>
<p>He stressed assistance would be “primarily … economic,” and he downplayed the military aid involved, which was substantial.</p>
<p>Truman’s words reassured listeners who were concerned about war and clarified U.S. intentions for foes.</p>
<p>Finally, the president heightened his credibility through a plain style that conveyed a realistic view of the world.</p>
<p>Truman spoke of being “frank” and offering “common sense.” This straightforward style, combined with unpolished delivery, gave the impression of forthrightness.</p>
<p>Afterward, <a href="https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781603440325/proclaiming-the-truman-doctrine/">telegrams flooded the White House in favor of helping Greece</a>. Media coverage was also supportive yet reflected anxiety about the risk of a wider conflict. <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/harry-s-truman/key-events">Reactions in Congress were more mixed</a>, but a <a href="https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Loans-and-Debt-Resolution-Unilateral-foreign-assistance-aid-grants-and-loans.html">majority in both parties would approve aid to the Greek government</a>, aid that helped the government defeat its communist adversaries.</p>
<h2>Biden echoes Truman</h2>
<p>Seventy-five years later, Biden has used a similar approach: matter-of-factly detailing Russian attacks on “Ukraine’s right to exist” and declaring “<a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-russia-and-ukraine">the right of … countries to choose their own destiny</a>.” He has emphasized <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-the-state-the-union-28">“powerful economic sanctions”</a> and limited <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-assistance-ukraine-and-exchange-with-reporters">“security assistance”</a> while tamping down <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-wants-a-no-fly-zone-what-does-this-mean-and-would-one-make-any-sense-in-this-war-179282">calls for no-fly zones that might lead to wider war</a>. </p>
<p>Biden has also refrained from comparing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the communist USSR’s acts after World War II. By avoiding any negative references to communism – however tempting the analogy for a domestic audience – he also avoids provoking China, a communist nation, into assisting Russia with the impact of economic sanctions.</p>
<p>There are, of course, profound differences between the conflicts in Greece and Ukraine. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59667938">Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for instance, has proved a far more sympathetic figure</a> than Greek Prime Minister Constantine Tsaldaris, who was widely viewed in diplomatic circles as a fool. But the way two U.S. presidents used language to ask Americans to defend democracy through intervention in a foreign conflict shows the power of a leader who speaks plainly – and who sets clear limits on that intervention.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denise M. Bostdorff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The way two presidents used language to ask Americans to support intervening in a foreign conflict shows the power of a leader who uses plain speaking – and sets limits on intervention.Denise M. Bostdorff, Professor and Chair of Communication Studies, The College of WoosterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1609672021-05-20T12:23:50Z2021-05-20T12:23:50ZSurvey experts have yet to figure out what caused the most significant polling error in 40 years in Trump-Biden race<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401428/original/file-20210518-19-1df2r2l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C27%2C4487%2C2914&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Biden supporters in Philadelphia celebrate when his win -- with a much smaller margin than predicted by polls -- was projected by news outlets on Nov. 7, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-celebrate-while-listening-to-the-president-elect-joe-news-photo/1284491700?adppopup=true">Chris McGrath/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than six months after the astonishing <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-embarrassing-failure-for-election-pollsters-149499">polling embarrassment</a> in the 2020 U.S. elections, survey experts examining what went wrong are uncertain about what led to the sharpest discrepancy between the polls and popular vote outcome since Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/4/newsid_3192000/3192279.stm">near-landslide</a> in 1980. </p>
<p>Lingering questions about the misfire in 2020, in which voter support for then-President Donald Trump was understated in final pre-election polls, suggest that troubles in accurately surveying presidential elections could be deeper and more profound than previously recognized. If the source of the polling miscall isn’t clear, then addressing and correcting it obviously becomes quite challenging.</p>
<p>Moreover, as I discussed in my 2020 book “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">Lost in a Gallup</a>,” polling failures in presidential elections <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-science-history/article/president-landon-and-the-1936-literary-digest-poll/E360C38884D77AA8D71555E7AB6B822C">since 1936</a> rarely have been repetitive. Just as no two elections are alike, no two polling failures are quite the same. </p>
<p>Over the years, pollsters have anticipated tight presidential elections when <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_3783000/3783245.stm">landslides have occurred</a>. They have signaled the wrong winner in closer elections. The estimates of venerable pollsters have been <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/158519/romney-obama-gallup-final-election-survey.aspx">singularly in error</a>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/01/20/report-acknowledges-inaccuracies-in-2004-exit-polls/d895ea8c-b2ad-46ea-af6d-cc5acb011dd7/">Wayward exit polls</a> have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-04-na-pollsters4-story.html">thrown Election Day into confusion</a> by identifying the losing candidate as the likely winner. Off-target state polls have confounded expected national outcomes, which essentially was the story in 2016. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="One voter standing at a white voting both that sits on blue metal legs with casters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401432/original/file-20210518-17-1kcx7zc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A voter walks to a booth to fill out their ballot at Public School 160 on Nov. 3, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/voter-walks-to-a-booth-to-fill-out-their-ballot-at-public-news-photo/1229441647?adppopup=true">David Dee Delgado/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Support that wasn’t there</h2>
<p>In 2020, overall, election polls pointed to Democrat Joe Biden’s winning the presidency. But the polls overstated support for Biden and underestimated backing for Trump no matter how close to the election the poll was conducted and <a href="https://www.aapor.org/Education-Resources/Election-Polling-Resources/Sampling-Methods-for-Political-Polling.aspx">regardless of the methods</a> pollsters chose. Surveys in races for U.S. senator and governor were beset by similar shortcomings.</p>
<p>Those were among the key findings described recently at the annual conference of the <a href="https://www.aapor.org/">American Association for Public Opinion Research</a>, which was convened online. The organization had recruited a <a href="https://www.aapor.org/Publications-Media/Press-Releases/AAPOR-Convenes-Task-Force-to-Formally-Examine-Poll.aspx">task force</a> of 19 experts in survey research who examined the 2020 election polls in detail and reported being unable, so far, to pinpoint specific causes of polling errors. </p>
<p>Their findings did make clear, however, that the 2020 miscall was the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-biden-was-worst-presidential-polling-miss-in-40-years-panel-says-11620909178">most significant in 40 years</a>.</p>
<p>Polls in the presidential race in 2020 collectively overstated Biden’s lead by 3.9 percentage points, the task force chair, Joshua Clinton of Vanderbilt University, said in a presentation at the conference. </p>
<p>This marked the fourth presidential election in the past five in which the national polls, at least to some extent, overstated support for Democratic candidates.</p>
<h2>Masking dramatic miscalls</h2>
<p>Averaging the polling errors, as the task force did in conducting its analysis, is broadly revealing about the extent of those errors. But it has the effect of masking several dramatic miscalls in late-campaign polls conducted in 2020 by, or for, leading news organizations. The final <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/10/28/rel15.pdf">CNN poll</a> had Biden ahead by 12 points. Surveys for The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-trails-joe-biden-by-10-points-nationally-in-final-days-of-election-11604239200">Wall Street Journal-NBC News</a> and by the <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/jsojry0vph/econTabReport.pdf">Economist-YouGov</a> had Biden winning by 10 percentage points as the campaign wound down. A few polls, such as <a href="https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/october-national-poll-biden-with-five-point-lead-one-week-out">Emerson College’s survey</a>, came close in estimating the outcome.</p>
<p>Biden won the popular vote by 4.5 percentage points.</p>
<p>Clinton, the Vanderbilt professor, said the task force eliminated several prospective causes of polling error in 2020, including those that likely distorted survey results in key states in 2016 when Trump unexpectedly won an Electoral College victory. Those factors included undecided voters swinging to Trump late in the campaign and a failure by some pollsters to adjust survey results to account for varying levels of education. </p>
<p>White voters without college degrees were understood to have voted heavily for Trump in 2016, but those voters were underrepresented in some polls in key states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Trump won narrowly and surprisingly.</p>
<p>A source of the miscalls in 2020, Clinton said, may have been that Republicans were less inclined than Democrats to agree to be interviewed by pollsters. </p>
<p>If that’s so, it’s not entirely clear why that happened. And that prospect troubles pollsters and survey research experts.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/courtney-kennedy/">Courtney Kennedy</a>, director of survey research at Pew Research Center, said while moderating a panel discussion at the conference that “what keeps me from getting a good night’s sleep these days is the prospect … Republicans, or maybe certain types of Republicans, seem like they’re less inclined to participate in polls these days than Democrats.” </p>
<p>This may be a tough problem for pollsters to overcome, she said, adding, “It would be a real challenge” to calibrate poll-taking to capture such nuanced distinctions. </p>
<p>Likewise, it is unclear whether Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/us/politics/trump-polls.html">sharp criticism of pre-election polls</a> in 2020 dissuaded his supporters from participating in surveys.</p>
<p>“So it’s possible that these may be short-term phenomena that will abate when Trump is not on the ballot,” <a href="https://twitter.com/danielmerkle?lang=en">Daniel Merkle</a>, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM7AlsJ87qg">said in a speech</a> recorded for conference-goers. </p>
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<p>“On the other hand, it could be a broader issue of conservatives becoming less likely to respond to polls in general because of a decline in social trust, or for some other reasons. It will take further evaluation to understand this nonresponse issue and to adjust for it. This may not be an easy task,” Merkle said. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a Wall Street Journal story on Nov. 1, 2020, reporting a 10-point lead for Joe Biden in the final days of the 2020 campaign" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401433/original/file-20210518-19-60frel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot of a Wall Street Journal story about its poll with NBC News, showing Biden with a 10-point lead over Trump in the waning days of the 2020 campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-trails-joe-biden-by-10-points-nationally-in-final-days-of-election-11604239200">The Wall Street Journal</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Overblown characterizations</h2>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, several media critics asserted that polling seemed “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/we-still-dont-know-much-about-this-election--except-that-the-media-and-pollsters-blew-it-again/2020/11/04/40c0d416-1e4a-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html">irrevocably broken</a>” and faced “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/polling-catastrophe/616986/">serious existential questions</a>.” </p>
<p>Such alarming characterizations appear overblown; <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/political-polling-trust-history.html">polls are not going to melt away</a>. After all, election polling represents a slice of a multibillion-dollar industry that includes consumer and product surveys of all types.</p>
<p>And if election polling survived the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-nov-01-mn-38174-story.html">debacle of 1948</a> – when President Harry S. Truman <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-1021-poll-mistakes-20181017-story.html">defied predictions of pollsters</a> and pundits to win reelection – then it surely will live on after the embarrassment of 2020.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stung by their failure to accurately predict the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, pollsters collectively went off to figure out what went wrong. They have yet to figure out what or why.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1498102020-11-11T00:21:58Z2020-11-11T00:21:58ZIn its troubled hour, polling could use an irreverent figure to reset expectations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368619/original/file-20201110-15-1axwegr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C17%2C2937%2C1953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pollsters predicted a much higher vote for Joe Biden, including in Florida, where workers at the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office in Largo process voters' ballots on Nov. 3.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-at-the-pinellas-county-supervisor-of-elections-news-photo/1229447755?adppopup=true">Octavio Jones/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Polling is hardly a flamboyant field that attracts a lot of colorful characters. It is a rather reserved profession that now finds itself under siege in the aftermath of yet another <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-embarrassing-failure-for-election-pollsters-149499">polling surprise</a> in a national election. </p>
<p>The field is buffeted by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/polling-catastrophe/616986/">intense criticism</a> – by even <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/524478-frank-luntz-polling-profession-done-after-election-misses-devastating-to-my">extreme claims</a> that it may be doomed – following mischaracterizations in national polls that former Vice President Joe Biden was bound for a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/520692-the-memo-biden-landslide-creeps-into-view">blowout victory</a>. </p>
<p>Many preelection polls suggested it was to be <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-2020-be-another-blue-wave-election-year/">a “blue wave” election</a> in which Biden would easily take over the White House, while fellow Democrats would sweep to control in the Senate and fortify their majority in the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>The 2020 election was closer and more complex than most national <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">polls indicated</a>, and it marked the second successive <a href="https://theconversation.com/epic-miscalls-and-landslides-unforeseen-the-exceptional-catalog-of-polling-failure-146959">polling surprise</a> in a U.S. presidential election. In 2016, polls in key Great Lakes states underestimated support for Donald Trump, states that were crucial to his winning the White House.</p>
<p>In its troubled hour, polling could use a prominent, outspoken and irreverent character who knows the profession’s intricacies and whose default isn’t to defensiveness. Such a figure could place polling’s latest misstep in useful and plausible perspective, and do so candidly, without seeming too haughty or arcane about it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Wall Street Journal headline asks " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368612/original/file-20201110-17-1sxp73u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The answer is ‘No’ to the question posed in a Nov. 3 Wall Street Journal story.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/election-2020-will-the-polls-get-it-right-11604334207">Wall Street Journal</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘To prove we’re not yellow’</h2>
<p>Polling has no such colorful, outspoken character now. It did once, in Burns (“Bud”) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/21/weekinreview/conversations-burns-w-roper-private-opinions-public-opinion-question-what.html">Roper</a>, the Iowa-born son of a pioneer in modern survey research, Elmo Roper. Bud Roper was disarming enough to tell a newspaper reporter in the 1950s: “I guess the main reason we do these election polls at all is to prove we’re not yellow,” or cowardly.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-23-me-roper23-story.html">Roper</a>, who died in 2003, was in polling much of his adult life, entering his father’s market research firm after World War II. He retired as the company’s chairman in 1994. He was around when the Roper poll dramatically <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/18/us/50-years-later-pollsters-analyze-their-big-defeat.html">miscalled the 1948 presidential election</a>, predicting that Thomas E. Dewey would defeat President Harry Truman by 15 percentage points.</p>
<p>Truman won reelection by 4.5 points, which meant Roper’s polling error was a staggering 19.5 percentage points – almost as dreadful as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2749114?seq=1">Literary Digest failure</a> in 1936, when the venerable magazine’s mail-in survey erroneously pegged Alf Landon to unseat President Franklin D. Roosevelt by a wide margin.</p>
<p>The 1936 debacle occurred at the dawn of modern opinion research and, as I write in my latest book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>,” it left a legacy of nagging doubt about the effectiveness of polling in estimating election outcomes.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it is also true that journalists, and the public, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-americans-are-so-enamored-with-election-polls-148762">inevitably turn to polls</a> – and the illusion of precision they offer – in seeking clarity about the dynamics of a presidential campaign. Even after the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/07/election-pollsters-2020-reckoning.html">back-to-back embarrassments </a> in 2016 and 2020, election polling is surely not destined for collapse or dissolution. Polling may be an unglamorous profession; it also is a <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/political-polling-trust-history.html">hardy</a> one.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Headshot of Bud Roper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368625/original/file-20201110-19-laprpk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bud Roper was willing to criticize his profession.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/pioneers-polling/burns-bud-roper">Screenshot, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bud Roper’s long career traced fairly well polling’s entrenchment in American politics and culture. He once said that he entered the field when it was somewhere between “a kooky off-the-wall and an established industry.”</p>
<p>In some ways, Roper’s most noteworthy contribution was candor and a refreshing disinclination to take survey research all that seriously. In that sense, he was like his father, who began conducting preelection polls in 1936 but came to doubt their value.</p>
<p>In the run-up to the 1948 election, for example, Elmo Roper equated polling to “a stunt, like balancing cocktail glasses on top of each other or tearing a telephone book in two. It’s impressive. It has a certain fascination. But it tells us very little that we wouldn’t find out even if poll-taking had never been invented.”</p>
<p>Bud Roper similarly tended toward colorful outspokenness. He was not hesitant to call out his profession for its shortcomings and flaws. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An office filled with employees of the Associated Press tabulating election returns in 1940." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368596/original/file-20201110-21-11czexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Associated Press journalists in the Washington bureau tabulate election returns Nov. 5, 1940, keeping the score on both electoral and popular votes for the nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020APHistoricalPhotoGallery/1b1ca259862845b6b91e16cb6b412df1/photo?Query=Associate%20Press%20journalists%20in%20the%20Washington%20bureau%20tabulate%20election%20returns&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Largely art’</h2>
<p>In 1984, at a time when election polling was going through another rough patch, Bud Roper <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">said in a speech</a> to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Our polling techniques have gotten more and more sophisticated, yet we seem to be missing more and more elections.” </p>
<p>Roper was frank about some of polling’s unresolved headaches, such as differentiating between likely and unlikely voters – a determination crucial to a survey’s accuracy. </p>
<p>“One of the trickiest parts of an election poll is to determine who is likely to vote and who is not,” Roper once said, adding with characteristic frankness, “I can assure you that this determination is largely art.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2016/01/07/can-likely-voter-models-be-improved/">likely-voter conundrum</a> remains a defiant and persistent problem. It also is an important reason that election polling is a blend of art and science, which Roper liked to emphasize. In fact, he <a href="https://www.aapor.org/getattachment/About-Us/History/Presidential-Addresses/Public-Opin-Q-1983-ROPER-303-9.pdf.aspx">said</a> it tended to be more art than science. </p>
<p>“I have heard it said that opinion research is half art and half science,” Roper stated in an address to members of the <a href="https://www.aapor.org/">American Association for Public Opinion Research</a> at the close of his yearlong presidential term in 1983. “I would say that a good deal more than half is art and correspondingly less than half is science.” </p>
<p>Roper held some out-of-the-mainstream ideas about polling. He was not enamored with surveys conducted by telephone, noting they too often interrupted respondents and disrupted their routines. Roper argued, somewhat vaguely, a solution to the sharp <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/27/response-rates-in-telephone-surveys-have-resumed-their-decline/">decline in response rates</a> to telephone surveys was to “go back to personal interviews. Telephone won’t do it, internet won’t do it, email won’t do it,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUMBFN9nYCo">said</a> late in his life.</p>
<p>He added: “I don’t have all the answers as to how, but if [the problem of declining response rates] is not solved, I think the industry as we’ve known it is going to be – oh, it’ll survive, but it’s going to survive with worse and worse results every time we go up.”</p>
<h2>Taking responsibility for a bad poll</h2>
<p>Roper was not one to sidestep controversy. He conceded error without hesitation when, in 1993, his company conducted a survey for the American Jewish Committee that suggested 22% of Americans <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2749705?seq=1">doubted</a> the Holocaust had occurred. </p>
<p>It was a surprising, controversial and off-target finding that Roper soon questioned, noting the question’s wording included a double negative and should have been rephrased. When the question was revised and posed in a separate survey, only <a href="https://www.jta.org/1994/07/12/archive/new-ajcommittee-poll-shows-1-1-percent-deny-holocaust-refutes-earlier-survey">1.1%</a> of the respondents said they doubted the Holocaust.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Roper said <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-23-me-roper23-story.html">he regretted</a> that the original poll’s finding “served to misinform the public, to scare the Jewish community needlessly and to give aid and comfort to the neo-Nazis who have a commitment to Holocaust denial.”</p>
<p>In saying so, Roper showed he could stand up and take responsibility for a bad poll. It’s a lesson that has enduring relevance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pollster Bud Roper once said of his field that “a good deal more than half is art and … less than half is science.” After the 2020 polls got a lot wrong, is it time for more candor from pollsters?W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487622020-10-29T12:32:56Z2020-10-29T12:32:56ZWhy Americans are so enamored with election polls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366150/original/file-20201028-13-id5l76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C37%2C4082%2C2719&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters on election night 2016 at a Hillary Clinton party, when it became clear poll-based forecasts had been off target.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/peple-react-to-results-at-an-election-night-event-at-the-news-photo/624326122?adppopup=true">Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Republican pollster Frank Luntz <a href="https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/status/1319382548229681152">warned on Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pollster-frank-luntz-if-trump-defies-polls-again-in-2020-my-profession-is-done">elsewhere</a> the other day that if preelection polls in this year’s presidential race are embarrassingly <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2016/11/09/its-like-1948-all-over-again-for-american-media/">wrong again</a>, “then the polling industry is done.”</p>
<p>It was quite the forecast.</p>
<p>While it is possible the polls will misfire, it’s exceedingly unlikely that such failure would cause the opinion research industry to implode or wither away. One reason is that election polls represent a sliver of a well-established, multibillion-dollar industry that conducts innumerable surveys on policy issues, consumer product preferences and other nonelection topics. </p>
<p>If opinion research were so vulnerable to election polling failure, the field likely would have disintegrated long ago, after the successive embarrassments of 1948 and 1952. In 1948, pollsters confidently – but <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-1021-poll-mistakes-20181017-story.html">wrongly</a> – predicted Thomas E. Dewey would easily unseat President Harry Truman. In 1952, pollsters turned cautious and anticipated a close race between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower won in a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_3783000/3783245.stm">landslide</a> that no pollster foresaw.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1319382548229681152"}"></div></p>
<p>“Predictive failure,” I note in my latest book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520300963/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>,” clearly “has not killed off election polling.”</p>
<p>So what, then, accounts for its tenacity and resilience? Why are election polls still with us, despite periodic flubs, fiascoes and miscalls? Why, indeed, are many Americans so intrigued by election polling, especially during presidential campaigns?</p>
<h2>Illusion of precision</h2>
<p>The reasons are several, and not surprisingly tied to deep currents in American life. They embrace – but go well beyond – a simplistic explanation that people want to know what’s going to happen. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/obituaries/patrick-caddell-dead.html">Patrick Caddell</a>, the private pollster for President Jimmy Carter, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">spoke to that tendency years ago, saying</a>, “Everyone follows polls because everything in American life is geared to the question of who’s going to win – whether it’s sports or politics or whatever. There’s a natural curiosity.”</p>
<p>More substantively, election polling projects the sense, or illusion, of precision, which holds considerable appeal in troubled times. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/polls-wrong-donald-trump-election">hunger for certainty</a> runs deep, especially in journalism, where reporters frequently encounter ambiguity and evasion. Since the mid-1970s, large news organizations such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2014/06/26/times-polling-a-history/">The New York Times</a> and CBS News have conducted or commissioned their own election polls. And reports of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2749389?seq=1">crude preelection polls</a> have been found in American newspapers published as long ago as 1824.</p>
<p>These days, polls guide, drive and help fix news media narratives about presidential elections. They are critical to shaping conventional wisdom about the competitiveness of those races.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Jimmy Carter and his pollster, Patrick Caddell." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366158/original/file-20201028-21-1liifuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Jimmy Carter and his pollster, Patrick Caddell, who once said, ‘Everyone follows polls because everything in American life is geared to the question of who’s going to win.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Jimmy_Carter_with_Pat_Caddell_-_NARA_-_176724.tif">National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Public ignorant of polling flubs</h2>
<p>But polls have an <a href="https://theconversation.com/epic-miscalls-and-landslides-unforeseen-the-exceptional-catalog-of-polling-failure-146959">uneven record</a> in modern presidential elections – which, paradoxically, has contributed to their resilience. </p>
<p>Americans are mostly oblivious to that record. They may be vaguely familiar with the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/chi-chicagodays-deweydefeats-story-story.html">Dewey defeats Truman</a>” debacle of 1948. And they may recall that election polls in 2016 veered off target in key Midwestern states, disrupting expectations that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency. </p>
<p>But other cases, such as the unforeseen landslide of 1952 or the <a href="https://swampland.time.com/2012/10/31/remembering-1980-are-the-polls-missing-something/">close election that wasn’t</a> in 1980, are not often recalled. So polling is at least somewhat shielded from reproach by unfamiliarity with its uneven performance record over time.</p>
<p>Of course, election polls are not always in error. They can redeem themselves, which is another value in American life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot from RealClearPolitics.com" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366160/original/file-20201028-17-exoxzc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You want polls? RealClearPolitics has polls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/">RealClearPolitics.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Horse races to high wires</h2>
<p>Analogies from the sporting world further help to explain polling’s tenacity. </p>
<p>Election polling, and its emphasis on who’s ahead and who’s sinking, long has been likened to a horse race – a metaphor not always agreeable to pollsters. Archibald <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/pioneers-polling/archibald-crossley">Crossley</a>, a pioneer of modern opinion research, revealed as much before the debacle of 1948, in a letter to his friend and rival pollster, George <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/pioneers-polling/george-gallup">Gallup</a>. </p>
<p>“I have a distinct impression,” Crossley wrote, “that polls are still thought of as horse-race predictions, and it seems to me that we might be able to do something jointly to prevent such a reputation.”</p>
<p>Crossley’s “distinct impression” endures. Polls, and the <a href="https://www.cjr.org/criticism/media_election_trump_fail.php">coverage of polls</a>, still invite comparisons to the horse race. </p>
<p>A better analogy, perhaps, is that polling resembles a high-wire act. A presidential election plays out over many months, typically to growing attention and building anticipation. Whether pollsters will slip up and fail in their estimates inevitably becomes a bit of mild <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/why-2016-election-polls-missed-their-mark/">election drama</a> itself.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/polls-hillary-clinton-win_n_5821074ce4b0e80b02cc2a94">forecasts go awry</a>, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN1322J1">they did</a> in 2016, astonishment inevitably follows. For example, Nate Silver, the data journalist who founded the <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">FiveThirtyEight.com</a> polling-analysis and predictions site, said Donald Trump’s victory was, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2016-election-results-coverage/">broadly speaking</a>, “the most shocking political development of my lifetime.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Advertisement that says " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366241/original/file-20201028-17-l4rpry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1940, Gallup crowed about the accuracy of its polling in an ad in the newspaper industry publication Editor & Publisher.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot, Editor & Publisher, 11/9/1940</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many pollsters insist that election polls are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2013/12/10/a-poll-is-a-snapshot-not-a-forecast/">snapshots</a>, not prophesies. But they don’t much mind crowing when their final surveys come <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1996/11/10/election-96-winners-and-weepers/6c864d05-b21c-4d3e-b16a-17e0b5407b9e/">close</a> to estimating the outcome. </p>
<p>An example of pollster braggadocio came a month after the 2016 presidential election, when Rasmussen Reports <a href="https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/rasmussen_reports_calls_it_right">declared</a> that it had said all along “it was a much closer race than most other pollsters predicted. We weren’t surprised Election Night … look who came in second out of 11 top pollsters who surveyed the four-way race.”</p>
<p>George Gallup did much the same in the early years of modern survey research, taking out self-congratultory advertisements in the Editor & Publisher trade journal to tout polling successes in presidential races in 1940 and 1944. “The Gallup Poll Sets a New Record for Election Accuracy!” one of those ads proclaimed. </p>
<p>[<em>Get our most insightful politics and election stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<h2>Which polls to follow?</h2>
<p>The proliferation of surveys over the years – Nate Silver’s site provides <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/">ratings</a> of dozens of pollsters – also allows a sort of team-sport approach to election polls: Savvy consumers can identify and follow preferred pollsters and mostly ignore the rest. Not that this is necessarily advisable, but it is an option allowed by the abundance of polls, many of which can be routinely tracked in the runup to elections at <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/">RealClearPolitics.com</a>. </p>
<p>So, for example, supporters of Donald Trump may take heart from Rasmussen surveys, which have been <a href="https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2020/white_house_watch_oct26">far more favorable</a> to the president during the 2020 campaign than, say, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/cnn-poll-biden-trump-2020-election/index.html">polls conducted for CNN</a>. </p>
<p>Polling, fundamentally, is an imperfect attempt at providing insight and explanation. The desire for insight and explanation is, of course, never ending, so polls endure despite their flaws and failures. They surely will remain features of American life, no matter how next week’s election turns out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Polling is an imperfect attempt at providing insight and explanation. But the public’s desire for insight and explanation about elections never ends, so polls endure despite their flaws and failures.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482332020-10-21T12:20:52Z2020-10-21T12:20:52ZHow might the campaign’s endgame be disrupted? Here are five scenarios, drawn from the history of election polling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364492/original/file-20201020-19-15i4zwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C91%2C4980%2C3284&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Trump voters -- like these at a rally, waving goodbye to him as he leaves -- defy the polls and send him back to the White House?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-wave-as-marine-one-with-us-president-donald-news-photo/1229174276?adppopup=true">Olivier Touron/AFP/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The storyline of the presidential campaign seems to be solidifying, as polls show Joe Biden maintaining a <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html">sizable lead</a> over President Donald J. Trump.</p>
<p>But the lead may not be insurmountable, and the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-trump-biden-clinton-polls-retrospective-zorn-20201015-e4siggpw4vfnbiwddne5az75zu-story.html">election is not over</a>.</p>
<p>The history of polling in modern elections suggests that the endgame could yet be altered by a number of disruptive scenarios.</p>
<p>None of the following narrative-altering scenarios can be considered a certainty. But only one is rather far-fetched. All are informed by the content of my latest book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520300963/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>.”</p>
<p>Here are descriptions of five prospective scenarios, in order of possibility. In a bow to even-handedness, a reality check is appended to each of them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="FBI Director James Comey" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364500/original/file-20201020-17-pa8b9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Did FBI Director James Comey’s statement that the agency was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails – made 11 days before the 2016 election – badly damage her chances of winning?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Campaign2016TheUglyElectionGlance/af4410eb109f48428f480597c4329379/photo?Query=James%20Comey%20Clinton%20emails&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=135&currentItemNo=32">Cliff Owen/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. A powerful late October surprise disrupts the campaign trajectory</h2>
<p>Jarring, out-of-the-blue developments have happened <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/october-surprises-214320">often enough</a> in presidential election campaigns as to be almost expected. Remember James Comey’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/five-takeaways-from-comeys-october-surprise-230489">announcement</a> 11 days before the 2016 election that the FBI had reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails? It <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/">may have shifted</a> enough votes in battleground states to elect Trump. </p>
<p>To alter the trajectory in 2020, the October surprise probably would have to be akin to a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-biden-first-presidential-debate-five-things-watch-n1241336">very public meltdown</a> by Joe Biden – a “<a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/02/09/biden-calls-woman-lying-dog-faced-pony-soldier-at-n-h-campaign-event/">lying, dog-faced pony soldier</a>” moment on steroids – that would clearly signal he’s <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/13/biden-the-great-and-powerful/">not up to the job</a>. While Biden’s <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-repeats-gaffe-that-hes-running-for-the-senate-appears-to-not-remember-mitt-romneys-name">gaffes</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/bidens-ridiculous-claim-he-was-arrested-trying-see-mandela/">exaggerations</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ThomasCatenacci/status/1300494641180139521">garbled comments</a> have been on frequent display during the 2020 campaign, they haven’t been concentrated or dramatic enough to puncture his advantage in preelection polls.</p>
<p><strong>Why it won’t happen</strong>: Presidential elections may be growing <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/10/01/is_october_surprise_an_outdated_concept_in_crazy_2020.html">immune</a> to late October surprises, given the popularity of early voting and the advent of extensive mail-in balloting. As such, millions of Americans will have cast ballots for president well before Election Day – tempering the impact of any late October surprise.</p>
<h2>2. Significant polling errors occur in key states, enough for Trump to win an electoral vote majority</h2>
<p>In states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, which were crucial to the outcome in 2016, preelection polls pointed to a clear lead for Hillary Clinton – an advantage that evaporated when votes were counted. Clinton’s polling advantage in <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/15/western-wisconsin-will-blue-collar-trump-democrats-swing-the-state-to-trump-again/">Wisconsin</a>, for example, was <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/wi/wisconsin_trump_vs_clinton-5659.html">6.5 percentage points</a> at campaign’s end; Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/wisconsin-president-clinton-trump">carried the state</a> by less than a point. Such errors are not entirely out of the question in 2020.</p>
<p><strong>Why it won’t happen</strong>: This scenario essentially is a 2016 replay. If the <a href="https://theconversation.com/epic-miscalls-and-landslides-unforeseen-the-exceptional-catalog-of-polling-failure-146959">history of election polling tells us anything</a>, it is not to expect elections, or polling failures, to replicate themselves. Not only that, but considerably more <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2020/08/18/a-resource-for-state-preelection-polling/">scrutiny</a> is being devoted to polling in battleground states in 2020 than four years ago. Such attention may render this scenario unlikely.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hillary and Bill Clinton." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364506/original/file-20201020-18-1y5aibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hillary and Bill Clinton celebrating his 1996 re-election victory over GOP candidate Bob Dole, which wasn’t the blowout many pollsters had predicted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-bill-clinton-first-lady-hillary-clinton-and-news-photo/824298138?adppopup=true">David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. The 1996 scenario materializes</h2>
<p>This is a nuanced scenario that recalls Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection, when he <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/6/newsid_3686000/3686728.stm">defeated</a> Republican Bob Dole by 8.5 percentage points – a comfortable margin but not the blowout many <a href="https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/polls/cnn.usa.gallup/tracking/">polls</a> and pollsters had anticipated. At the end of October 1996, veteran California pollster Mervin <a href="https://www.aapor.org/About-AAPOR/History/Heritage-Interviews/Mervin-Field-Biography.aspx">Field</a> declared Clinton was “heading for as big a win” as Ronald Reagan’s 18-point landslide in 1984, when he carried 49 states.</p>
<p>The polls in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/62/2/230/1891100?redirectedFrom=PDF">1996</a> didn’t miss on the winner, but some were well off the final margin. For example, the end-of-campaign CBS News survey estimated Clinton’s lead at 18 points, nearly a 10-point miss.</p>
<p><strong>Why it won’t happen</strong>: Polling failure in presidential elections is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/why-trump-vs-biden-lot-2016-why-it-s-not-n1243801">rarely duplicated</a>. A rerun of the 1996 scenario depends on Biden holding a <a href="https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1317201748440846336">double-digit polling lead</a> in the campaign’s final stages – a time when presidential races <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/10/why-do-polls-always-tighten-right-before-an-election.html">tend to tighten</a>. Biden’s aggregate lead in national polls, as compiled by the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/">RealClearPolitics</a> website, stood at <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html">8.6 percentage points</a> two weeks before Election Day.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden at a New Hampshire campaign event" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364502/original/file-20201020-19-1c5krfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Feb. 9, 2020 in New Hampshire, Joe Biden called the woman with the microphone ‘a lying, dog-faced pony soldier’ after she asked him about his poor Iowa caucus performance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020JoeBiden/b4fe5a1b20184038b84446feda301b05/photo?Query=Biden%20dog-faced,%20pony%20soldier&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Elise Amendola</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. ‘Shy Trump’ voters emerge en masse, decisively so in battleground states</h2>
<p>This theory maintains that because they want to avoid disapproval, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-arent-shy-but-polls-could-still-be-missing-some-of-them/">some Trump</a> supporters conceal their preferences from pollsters and others. They are reluctant to acknowledge support for such a divisive character. </p>
<p>Because they are guarded about their intentions, these <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/shy-trump-voters-polls_n_5f20b168c5b66a5dd63690f6">undercover supporters</a> skew polling data because they supposedly are so hard to find, or fail to answer candidly when they are interviewed. By turning out in great numbers, the theory goes, “Shy Trump” voters could <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/10/15/trafalgar-pollster-predict-trump-win-mid-270s/">tip the electoral vote</a> to the president.</p>
<p><strong>Why it won’t happen</strong>: Such voters probably <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/trump-voters-polling-accuracy-1.50032400">do not exist in numbers large enough</a> to alter a national election. Assessments by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/09/politics/trump-voters-analysis/index.html">pollsters</a> and <a href="https://www.aapor.org/Education-Resources/Reports/An-Evaluation-of-2016-Election-Polls-in-the-U-S.aspx">polling organizations</a> have suggested as much. Besides, Trump’s outdoor rallies indicate that his <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/trump-voters-polling-accuracy-1.50032400">supporters aren’t exactly reserved</a> about <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/09/i-didnt-vote-for-trump-in-2016-but-id-crawl-over-broken-glass-to-vote-for-him-now/">expressing</a> political preferences. </p>
<h2>5. An epic polling collapse, akin to that of 1948, takes place</h2>
<p>The famous “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/chi-chicagodays-deweydefeats-story-story.html">Dewey defeats Truman</a>” election signaled a stunning and never-since-duplicated <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-1021-poll-mistakes-20181017-story.html">breakdown of national election polling</a>. George Gallup and other pollsters confidently predicted President Harry Truman’s loss to Republican Thomas E. Dewey – and their polling set expectations for the country’s <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/513735-why-polling-failure-is-often-journalistic-failure">press</a> and pundits. Truman won by 4.5 percentage points in the greatest polling embarrassment in U.S. presidential history. </p>
<p><strong>Why it won’t happen</strong>: Polling since 1948 has become more sophisticated in <a href="https://www.aapor.org/Education-Resources/Election-Polling-Resources/Sampling-Methods-for-Political-Polling.aspx">techniques</a> and more numerous in practitioners. It is almost inconceivable that contemporary election pollsters will be profoundly and uniformly wrong in 2020. While 1948 does offer an intriguing prospective precedent, this is a most improbable scenario.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our most insightful politics and election stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Polling shows Joe Biden with a large lead over Donald Trump nationally in the presidential race. But there are many ways that presidential race polling has gone wrong in the past, and could do so now.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1334732020-03-11T20:02:18Z2020-03-11T20:02:18ZHow the fireside chat provided a model for calming the nation that President Trump failed to follow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319940/original/file-20200311-116261-cghi6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C1241%2C698&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcasting his first fireside chat, March 12, 1933. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6728517">National Archives</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The president of the United States was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/12/donald-trump-coronavirus-address-march-11-2020-sot-vpx.cnn">speaking to the nation live</a>, on television, from the Oval Office. His topic was the new coronavirus, and his mission was clear. </p>
<p>“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-speech.html">he assured the American citizenry</a>, “and we are responding with great speed and professionalism.”</p>
<p>Yet, when the brief address was over, his <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-messaging-confusion/index.html">aides needed to quickly clarify</a> what he had said because it failed to align with the reality of the policies his administration planned to take. And the following morning, stock trading was halted 38 minutes into the daily session <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/12/dow-plunges-trump-speech-fails-quell-coronavirus-fears/5029964002/">when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 7%</a>, demonstrating that the financial markets he sought to calm remained troubled by his leadership.</p>
<p>In other words: President Donald Trump’s March 11 speech failed to fulfill the most important goals of a live, prime-time broadcast address from the White House.</p>
<p>Since Franklin D. Roosevelt offered his first “fireside chat” 87 years ago today, using broadcasting to calm the nation in times of duress has proven to be one of the most potent tools of the presidency. </p>
<p>But these addresses need to closely hew to the blueprint Roosevelt invented in order to be deemed successful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump is seen through a window in the Oval Office as he addresses the nation on the response to the COVID-19 coronavirus, on March 11, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-is-seen-through-a-window-in-the-oval-news-photo/1211885659?adppopup=true">Getty/Mark Wilson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reassuring the nation</h2>
<p>President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers knew he had to do something. </p>
<p>The U.S. banking system faced imminent collapse; depositors around the country waited anxiously in line to withdraw their funds. To stop the run, <a href="http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/100guide.pdf">on March 6, 1933, the entire banking system was shuttered</a>. Three days later, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/emergency_banking_act_of_1933">Emergency Banking Act</a>.</p>
<p>By March 12, with the banks ready to reopen, nobody knew what was about to happen. The nation required both information and assurance. </p>
<p>So at 10 p.m. Eastern time, Roosevelt began <a href="http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/031233.html">his first “fireside chat,</a>” to explain – in clear and accessible terms – precisely what had just occurred, and what was going to happen beginning the next day. </p>
<p>That live address from the White House to an estimated 60 million listeners across the United States proved broadcasting’s power as nothing before or since. As <a href="https://cmj.umaine.edu/faculty-staff/michael-j-socolow/">a scholar of radio history</a>, I’ve analyzed how that first fireside chat inspired both <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0143968042000293856">social psychologists and commercial advertisers</a> to investigate the influential power of broadcasting. </p>
<p>Roosevelt’s address 87 years ago provided the model future presidents would use to inform the American citizenry, calm national anxieties and establish the crucial importance of a moment in time. </p>
<p>The live, prime-time address from the Oval Office became a staple of White House communication. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZNYmK19-d0U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Broadcast’s political potential</h2>
<p>The first president to speak through the new medium of radio was Warren G. Harding, who offered a few words in a brief public ceremony <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/14/this-day-in-politics-june-14-1922-636844">on June 14, 1922</a>. </p>
<p>But for Harding, and successors Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, radio broadcasting – and the national communication it offered – was never considered an essential tool of governance. None of the three Republicans used this new medium of mass communication effectively.</p>
<p>In New York state, however, the Democratic governor – Franklin D. Roosevelt – had <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23183311?seq=1">begun using the state’s small radio network</a> to promote his agenda directly to citizens. </p>
<p>He delivered a series of radio addresses in 1929 and 1930 to counter the intransigence of the state legislature’s Republican majority. His advisers noted both Roosevelt’s natural talent and radio’s remarkable effectiveness in reaching voters directly. The governor could bypass not only his opposition in the legislature, but also the Republican newspapers editorializing against his policies. </p>
<p>By speaking directly to citizens, Roosevelt measurably influenced public opinion and successfully promoted his policies.</p>
<p>Roosevelt and his advisers brought this awareness to Washington after he won the presidential election.</p>
<h2>Calming the panic</h2>
<p>Following his <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/franklin-roosevelts-historic-first-inauguration">March 4, 1933, inauguration during the Great Depression</a>, the Roosevelt administration had to address the cascading series of dire crises facing the nation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/emergency_banking_act_of_1933">The banking crisis proved most threatening</a>. At first it appeared to be yet another economic panic of the sort that had occasionally bedeviled the U.S. financial system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Depositors gathered outside of the Guardian Trust Company and National City Bank after the withdrawals were limited to 5% of deposits, Cleveland, Ohio, Feb. 28, 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elevated-view-of-depositors-gathered-outside-of-the-news-photo/544748673?adppopup=true">Getty/PhotoQuest</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It soon became obvious that the 1932-1933 crisis was potentially more catastrophic than any earlier panic. Aside from legislation, something less formal but perhaps more important was required: reassuring the American people about the safety of their economic system.</p>
<p>Thus, the informal and informative radio address style that Roosevelt pioneered in Albany was rolled out on the national stage. </p>
<p>“I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking,” <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-12-1933-fireside-chat-1-banking-crisis">he began on</a> that Sunday evening. </p>
<p>The address was notable for its stylistic clarity and the way it combined an authoritative discussion of banking with a neighborly, even friendly, tone. </p>
<p>“You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses,” he told an estimated 60 million listeners. </p>
<p>“Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system; it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.” </p>
<p>It worked. It so calmed the nation while slowing (and eventually ending) the bank run that it established the model for all ensuing fireside chats over the next 12 years. Every succeeding president eventually followed the basic Roosevelt model. </p>
<h2>‘Important and historic information’</h2>
<p>The live, prime-time national address from the White House represents a unique opportunity for a presidency. If mishandled or improperly employed, it can backfire. </p>
<p>Among those that didn’t work out: Lyndon B. Johnson surprised the country and much of his Democratic constituency by <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-31-1968-remarks-decision-not-seek-re-election">announcing</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxWGg3AARnI">his refusal to run for reelection</a> in 1968. President Jimmy Carter addressed what he considered <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kakFDUeoJKM">a “crisis of confidence”</a> in the United States in 1979. That speech remains tarnished by a word Carter never actually uttered – <a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-jimmy-carters-truth-telling-sermon-to-americans-97241">it was labeled the “malaise” speech</a> – and it warned future presidents about the format’s rhetorical limits. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kakFDUeoJKM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jimmy Carter’s full ‘crisis of confidence’ speech (July 15, 1979).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet these bad examples do not overshadow the numerous other historical moments when the nation experienced direct presidential addresses via broadcasting. </p>
<p>From President <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/may-8-1945-announcing-surrender-germany">Harry Truman’s addresses announcing the surrenders of Germany</a> and <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/september-1-1945-announcing-surrender-japan">Japan</a> in 1945 to President <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead">Barack Obama declaring the capture and execution of Osama bin Laden</a> in 2011, the American people were given important and historic information direct from the White House through the same basic framework that Roosevelt pioneered 87 years ago.</p>
<h2>The coronavirus and an anxious public</h2>
<p>Several goals characterize the prime-time, scripted, live Oval Office address. </p>
<p>The first is to designate the subject under discussion as historically significant and worthy of the format. The second is to inform the citizenry in order to persuade people to believe or act in specific ways. The third is to reassure the nation. </p>
<p>Underlying those objectives: To establish confidence in presidential authority, which, by itself, should reassure. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Surrounded by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking and taking no questions at the White House March 9, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/surrounded-by-members-of-the-white-house-coronavirus-task-news-photo/1206290262?adppopup=true">Getty/Drew Angerer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the current public health crisis facing the United States, the White House has preferred a different mass communication approach. President Trump has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/">briefly and hastily addressed the media</a> from a podium, but turned over much of his time to his coronavirus response team. He held a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-cdc.html">photo and video opportunity with government scientists</a> at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. And he continues to tweet.</p>
<p>None of these communication strategies was equal to the moment. So the White House finally decided to try the live address to the nation. </p>
<p>But without respecting it as a structured format, the address failed to achieve its mission of clearly informing, and calming, the anxious nation.</p>
<p>While social media seemingly spreads and inflames our national anxiety, television offered the Trump administration a valuable opportunity to seize the moment and ameliorate a national problem. </p>
<p>Yet, like the earlier presidential administrations that approached the format without the care and practice of the Roosevelt administration, the whole exercise only exacerbated the problem it was ostensibly employed to fix.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On March 12, 1933, President Roosevelt addressed the nation from the Oval Office during a time of great crisis. That ‘fireside chat’ proved broadcasting’s power as nothing before or since.Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/817962017-08-08T01:07:15Z2017-08-08T01:07:15ZThe military, minorities and social engineering: A long history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181256/original/file-20170807-25556-1vddnfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">LGBT veterans march in a Boston parade. Contrary to what some may say, the military has a long history of embracing socially marginalized groups.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steven Senne</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 25 President Trump signed a directive reinstating a previous ban on transgender persons serving in the U.S. military, thereby continuing the perennial debate about the relationship between military service and social policy. </p>
<p>In an interview with the BBC after the president tweeted his intention to reverse Obama policy, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/28/trump-aide-transgender-troops-obama-era-social-engineering/520296001/">then White House adviser Sebastian Gorka</a> said the military “is there to kill people and blow stuff up. They’re not there to be socially-engineered.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ash Carter, who as Barack Obama’s secretary of defense <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/30/pentagon-lifts-ban-transgender-troops/86551686/">lifted the ban</a> on transgender individuals in 2016, used similar terms <a href="http://poststar.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/the-latest-ash-carter-criticizes-trump-transgender-ban/article_1302525d-04c7-576c-a14c-efef31c42759.html">to condemn President’s Trump’s tweets</a>: “To choose service members on other grounds than military qualifications…is social policy and has no place in our military.”</p>
<p>In fact, as I found while researching the story of African-American soldiers and of immigrant recruits during World War I for my book <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/lostbattalions/richardslotkin/9780805081381">“Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality</a>,” the armed forces have played a vital role in shaping American social policy toward the country’s minorities. </p>
<h2>Race and the right to serve</h2>
<p>The right to serve in the common defense has always been a fundamental civil right in the U.S. and a hallmark of full citizenship. </p>
<p>Originally, the prerogative to serve in the militia was restricted to “freemen” or citizens. A few blacks had served in state and federal units in the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. But it was not until the Civil War that blacks were generally allowed to enlist in the federal Army. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">African-American soldiers serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DutchGapb.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Between the end of Reconstruction and the start of World War I, the U.S. underwent a demographic revolution. Cities and industrial towns were transformed by <a href="https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/immigration-timeline">massive waves of immigration</a>. The arrival of large numbers of ethnic groups from hitherto untapped parts of Europe and Asia – groups whose language, culture and religion were strikingly alien – seemed to threaten existing cultural norms and social structures. </p>
<p>At the same time, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, the “<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/long-lasting-legacy-great-migration-180960118/">Great Migration</a>” carried large numbers of black people out of the South. African-Americans became a national rather than regional minority. </p>
<p>Fear and resentment of these newcomers generated a political backlash. </p>
<p>Already in the period between 1890 and 1915, the South had established a new regime of <a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Folly-of-Jim-Crow,6978.aspx">oppressive racial laws known as Jim Crow.</a> In response to the Great Migration, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Sweet_Land_of_Liberty.html?id=NA_UPxK6jroC">racial animus grew in the North</a>. In parallel to this, there was <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520269910">an anti-immigration movement</a> backed by both Populists and Republican “progressives.” Harvard President Lawrence Lowell stated <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=untfy7pCwWgC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=%E2%80%9CIndians,+Negroes,+Chinese,+Jews+and+Americans+cannot+all+be+free+in+the+same+society.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=sc111A9B4C&sig=WuOS2gAsv61x-uC6wkiq7tjD9gs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7oc_NsL7VAhXGSyYKHa9OCy0Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CIndians%2C%20Negroes%2C%20Chinese%2C%20Jews%20and%20Americans%20cannot%20all%20be%20free%20in%20the%20same%20society.%E2%80%9D&f=false">the core belief of these movements</a>: that “Indians, Negroes, Chinese, Jews and Americans cannot all be free in the same society.” </p>
<p>The crisis produced by American entry into World War I brought these movements up short. Suddenly the nation had to raise an army of millions from scratch, with the utmost speed. </p>
<h2>The Great War and a new social bargain</h2>
<p>There was no way to achieve that goal without enlisting large numbers of African-Americans and immigrants or “hyphenated Americans,” a derogatory term for immigrants first used at the turn of the century. It was in this crisis that American leaders rediscovered the ideals of civil equality that late 19th-century <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ethnonationalism">ethno-nationalism</a> had called into question. </p>
<p>A wave of official publications produced by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-woodrow-wilsons-propaganda-machine-changed-american-journalism-76270">Committee on Public Information</a> now described the U.S. as a “vast, polyglot community,” whose <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_ideals_of_our_war.html?id=1QZFAAAAIAAJ">democratic ideal</a> was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“higher than race loyalty, transcend[ing] mere ethnic prejudices, more binding than the call of a common ancestry … [an ideal] to which every citizen, of whatever race, may rally, without losing hold upon the best traditions of … his race, and the land of his nativity.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The official ideologists of America’s Great War offered minorities a new <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/lostbattalions/richardslotkin/9780805081381">social bargain</a>: recognition as Americans in exchange for loyal service in wartime. </p>
<p>Through the special <a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Americans-All,3082.aspx">Foreign Soldier Service</a>, a military agency organized to provide language and civics classes for the foreign-born, the Army would become a school for citizenship. Organizations representing minority communities – the Jewish Welfare Board, Knights of Columbus (for Italians) and various black church groups – were invited to provide support services in the training camps. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/immigrants-in-the-military-during-wwi.htm">Half a million immigrants</a> from more than 40 different nations would serve during the war. The 77th Division, initially recruited in greater New York, was noted for the high percentage of immigrants, especially Jews and Italians. But immigrants served in every division. Sergeant Alvin York of the 82nd Division, for example, the Tennessee mountain man and later war hero, <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Over-There/">found himself</a> “throwed in with a lot of Greeks, Italians and New York Jews.” </p>
<p>Over 350,000 African-Americans would serve with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Units of the 93rd Division (including the “Harlem Hell Fighters” of the 369th Infantry) won distinction fighting as part of the French army. But most blacks were used as labor and support troops, and the combat units faced discrimination and mistreatment serving with the American Army. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 369th Infantry, better known as the ‘Harlem Hellfighters,’ challenged assumptions about the capability of African-Americans to serve in the military during World War I.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colonel_Hayward%27s_%22Hell_Fighters%22_in_parade._The_famous_369th_Infantry_of_(African_American)_fighte_._._._-_NARA_-_533518.jpg">Public domain</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From racial backlash to renewed liberalism</h2>
<p>Once the war ended, racial and ethnic fears and resentments reasserted themselves. </p>
<p>Jim Crow was violently reaffirmed by <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/redsummer/cameronmcwhirter/9781250009067/">lynchings and racial pogroms</a>, and in 1925 an <a href="http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16635coll14/id/56025">Army report</a> distorted the combat record of its black units to justify policies limiting the role of black troops in future conflicts. </p>
<p>New policies of “race”-based exclusion were aimed against white ethnics too. The tone was set by Congress’ passage of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act">Reed-Johnson Act</a>, restricting immigration by ethnic groups deemed undesirable – Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans. Most Ivy League colleges <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12">adopted formal quotas</a> limiting the number of Jewish students, and informal rules affecting Italian applicants. <a href="https://www.mappingprejudice.org/what-are-covenants/">Real estate “covenants”</a> barred Jews and other ethnic groups from purchasing or renting homes in certain towns or districts.</p>
<p>However, the war experience had roused the political consciousness of racial and ethnic minorities. Black civil rights organizations <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Freedom_Struggles.html?id=OrfLRKS4OloC">cited</a> their people’s record of military service in demanding an end to Jim Crow. New ethnic veterans organizations, most notably the <a href="http://example.com/">Jewish War Veterans</a>, were prominent in fighting for veterans’ benefits and civil rights. Blacks, Jews and other working-class ethnic groups gained influence <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/the-american-franchise">as part of the New Deal coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The crisis of mobilization for World War II recreated the opportunity for social change that had been squandered after World War I.</p>
<p>Once again the large-scale enlistment of black and ethnic minority soldiers was a necessity. And this time the conflict pitted Americans against the explicitly racist ideology of Nazism. The resemblance of Nazi race laws to the segregation and exclusion enforced by Jim Crow helped <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Double-Victory-Multicultural-History-America/dp/0316831565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501884588&sr=1-1&keywords=double+victory+a+multicultural+history+of+america+in+world+war+ii">discredit</a> the South’s racial regime with a broad public. And Hollywood played a critical role in transforming public opinion, through its production of war films, later known as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4Y_nBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=richard+rorty+platoon+movie&source=bl&ots=jMzU4PP5dl&sig=O8Kp4ajApHTVRg0fqxIrPOSTnrs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia1pLorrvVAhXi7YMKHYMpD7sQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=richard%20rorty%20platoon%20movie&f=false">“platoon movies.” </a></p>
<p>The pattern was set by “Bataan” in 1943, which symbolizes America in a small unit whose members include (in addition to some white regional types) a Jew, a Pole, an Irishman, two Filipinos and – most extraordinarily – an African-American. The U.S. Army was still racially segregated, but Hollywood deliberately set reality aside to create an ideal <a href="http://img.youtube.com/vi/EuO-zwORDJg/hqdefault.jpg">vision</a> of an integrated America. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I1r_Q2HAstA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The new vision: A diverse military for a diverse society</h2>
<p>It was this integrated vision that would shape post-war social change. White minorities were the first to benefit, pushing back against the patterns of discrimination that had barred Jews and Italians from employment, elite college admissions and housing. A new federal commitment to civil rights for African-Americans was signaled by <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2008/02/truman-desegregates-armed-forces-on-feb-2-1948-008258">President Truman’s 1948 decision</a> to racially integrate all military units. </p>
<p>As new laws (like the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html">Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964-65</a> and <a href="https://www.si.com/vault/2012/05/07/106189983/title-ix-timeline">Title IX</a> in 1972) have mandated the increased inclusion of hitherto marginalized or excluded groups in the mainstream of economic and political life, those steps have registered in the makeup of our armed forces.</p>
<p>In a representation of today’s Army, a symbolic “platoon” would have to include many more African-Americans and Latinos, Asians of different national origins – and also women, and gays and lesbians.</p>
<p>Each act of inclusion has raised concerns about the effect on unit cohesion and military effectiveness. In 1948, for example, Army Secretary Kenneth Royall <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/01/most-americans-opposed-integrating-the-military-in-1948-most-americans-support-transgender-military-service-today/?utm_term=.99fcfc26c30c">declared</a> Truman’s order would lower the morale of the many white Southerners in the service, and that the Army should not be “an instrument for social evolution.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">LGBT soldiers, many serving openly, are an essential part of today’s military.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.fairchild.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2001756535/">U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Senior Airman Michael Smith</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/01/would-transgender-troops-harm-military-effectiveness-heres-what-the-research-says/?utm_term=.5bb8a745a560">Similar objections</a> were raised to the integration of women, gays and lesbians into the military. Nevertheless, in these cases military leaders <a href="http://archive.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/a_history_of_the_service_of_ethnic_minorites_in_the_u_s_armed_forces">achieved integration without loss – and indeed, generally with an enhancement of military effectiveness.</a></p>
<p>In the mass armies of the two World Wars, inclusion was mandated by the sheer size of the force. Now that we have an all-volunteer military, the requirement of inclusiveness is, if anything, greater, because force size and the mix of specialists cannot be augmented by mass conscription.</p>
<p>As Senator John McCain <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/congress-reaction-transgender-military-policy/">recently said</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so – and should be treated as the patriots they are.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Editor’s note: this is an updated version of an article originally published August 7, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard S. Slotkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether it be African-Americans, Catholics or transgender people, the armed forces have played a vital role in shaping US social policy toward the country’s minorities.Richard S. Slotkin, Olin Professor of English and American Studies, Emeritus, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/788962017-06-08T02:36:53Z2017-06-08T02:36:53ZJ Edgar Hoover’s oversteps: Why FBI directors are forbidden from getting cozy with presidents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172825/original/file-20170607-29563-t1c9ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How are U.S. presidents and FBI directors supposed to communicate?</p>
<p>A new FBI director has recently been nominated, former Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray. He will certainly be thinking carefully about this question as he awaits confirmation.</p>
<p>Former FBI Director James Comey’s relationship with President Donald Trump was strained at best. Comey was concerned that Trump had approached him on <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-060817.pdf">nine different occasions</a> in two months. In his testimony to Congress, Comey stated that under President Barack Obama, he had spoken with the president only twice in three years.</p>
<p>Comey expressed concern about this to colleagues, and tried to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/us/politics/comey-sessions-trump.html">distance himself</a> from the president. He tried to tell Trump the proper procedures for communicating with the FBI. These policies have been enmeshed in <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/white-house-interference-justice-department-investigations-2009-holder-memo">Justice Department guidelines</a>. And for good reason.</p>
<p>FBI historians <a href="http://greaterallegheny.psu.edu/person/douglas-m-charles-phd">like myself</a> know that, since the 1970s, bureau directors try to maintain a discrete distance from the president. This tradition grew out of reforms that followed the often questionable behavior of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who served from 1924 to 1972.</p>
<p>Over this long period, Hoover’s relationships with six different presidents often became dangerously close, crossing ethical and legal lines. This history can help us understand Comey’s concerns about Trump and help put his testimony into larger context.</p>
<p>As the nation’s chief law enforcement arm, the FBI today is tasked with three main responsibilities: investigating violations of federal law, pursuing counterterrorism cases and disrupting the work of foreign intelligence operatives. Anything beyond these raises serious ethical questions.</p>
<h2>From FDR to Nixon</h2>
<p>When Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933, <a href="https://ohiostatepress.org/books/Book%20Pages/Charles%20Edgar.html">Hoover worked hard</a> to develop a close working relationship with the president. Roosevelt helped promote Hoover’s crime control program and expand FBI authority. Hoover grew the FBI from a small, relatively limited agency into a large and influential one. He then provided the president with information on his critics, and even some <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520500133836">foreign intelligence</a>, all while <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/Hoover%20FDR.JPG">ingratiating himself</a> with FDR to retain his job.</p>
<p>President Harry Truman <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879566-3,00.html">didn’t much like Hoover</a>, and thought his FBI was a potential “<a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Truman/David-McCullough/9780671869205">citizen spy system</a>.” </p>
<p>Hoover found President Dwight Eisenhower to be an ideological ally with an interest in expanding FBI surveillance. This <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1345-8.html">led to increased FBI use</a> of illegal microphones and wiretaps. The president looked the other way as the FBI carried out its sometimes questionable investigations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172546/original/file-20170606-3677-mtgq0v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Director of FBI J. Edgar Hoover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Visit_of_Attorney_General_and_Director_of_FBI._President_Kennedy%2C_J.Edgar_Hoover%2C_Robert_F._Kennedy._White_House..._-_NARA_-_194173.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/Abbie Rowe</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/572_reg.html">Hoover’s relationship with the president faced a challenge</a>. JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy, was made attorney general. Given JFK’s close relationship with his brother, Hoover could no longer bypass his boss and deal directly with the president, as he so often did in the past. Not seeing eye to eye with the Kennedys, Hoover cut back on volunteering political intelligence reports to the White House. Instead, he only responded to requests, while collecting information on JFK’s extramarital affairs.</p>
<p>By contrast, President Lyndon Johnson had a voracious appetite for FBI political intelligence reports. Under his presidency, the FBI became a direct vehicle for servicing the president’s political interests. LBJ issued <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/IMG_0249.jpg">an executive order</a> exempting Hoover from mandatory retirement at the time, when the FBI director reached age 70. Owing his job to LBJ, Hoover designated a top FBI official, FBI Assistant Director <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4390370/cartha-deloach">Cartha “Deke” DeLoach</a>, as the official FBI liaison to the president.</p>
<p>The FBI monitored the Democratic National Convention at LBJ’s request. When Johnson’s aide, Walter Jenkins, was caught soliciting gay sex in a YMCA, <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/Oct%2014,%201964%20Deloach%205884.mp3">Deke DeLoach worked directly</a> with the president in dealing with the backlash. </p>
<p>One might think that when Richard Nixon ascended to the presidency in 1968, he would have found an ally in Hoover, given their shared anti-Communism. <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1345-8.html">Hoover continued</a> to provide a wealth of political intelligence to Nixon through a formal program called INLET. However, <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/572_reg.html">Hoover also felt vulnerable</a> given intensified public protest due to the Vietnam War and public focus on his actions at the FBI. </p>
<p>Hoover held back in using intrusive surveillance such as wiretaps, microphones and break-ins as he had in the past. He resisted Nixon’s attempts to centralize intelligence coordination in the White House, especially when Nixon asked that the FBI use intrusive surveillance to find White House leaks. Not satisfied, the Nixon administration created its own leak-stopping unit: the White House plumbers – which ended in the Watergate scandal.</p>
<p>Not until after Hoover’s death did Americans learn of his <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94intelligence_activities_VI.pdf">abuses of authority</a>. Reform followed. </p>
<p>In 1976, Congress <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors">mandated a 10-year term</a> for FBI directors. The Justice Department later issued <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/01/17/guidelines-are-civilettis-monument/9034b608-b761-4f8b-9fe0-49dc007dda9e/?utm_term=.1402e4ec7a01">guidelines</a> on how the FBI director was to deal with the White House and the president, and how to conduct investigations. These guidelines have been reaffirmed, revised and reissued by subsequent attorneys general, <a href="https://lawfare.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2017/2009%20Eric%20Holder%20memo.pdf">most recently in 2009</a>. The guidelines state, for example: “Initial communications between the Department and the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal investigations or cases will involve only the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General.”</p>
<p>These rules were intended to ensure the integrity of criminal investigations, avoid political influence and protect both the Justice Department and president. If Trump attempted to bypass these guidelines and woo Comey, that would represent a potentially dangerous return to the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas M. Charles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hoover abused his power as FBI director to serve presidents’ interests. The reforms that followed were set up to prevent it from happening again.Douglas M. Charles, Associate Professor of History, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/762682017-04-20T00:28:43Z2017-04-20T00:28:43ZTrump and the history of the ‘first 100 days’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165954/original/file-20170419-2401-ae05v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will history give Trump a thumbs-up for his first 100 days?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government is currently being funded by a continuing resolution that expires on April 28, 2017 – which also happens to be the 99th day of Donald Trump’s presidency. </p>
<p>If Congress fails to approve a new spending deal before then, Trump’s 100th day as president will begin with a <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/trump-spending-bill-shutdown?utm_content=buffer3279d">federal government shutdown</a>. </p>
<p>The last government shutdown took place under President Obama and lasted for more than two weeks in 2013. Hundreds of thousands of federal government <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304373104579107480729687014">employees were furloughed</a>. The Smithsonian museums and National Park Service sites were closed, including the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall in Philadelphia and the Washington monuments and memorials. </p>
<p>With current fights in Congress over spending on the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/29/politics/john-mccain-cr-continuing-resolution-shutdown/">military</a>, the <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-voters-open-to-government-shutdown-over-border-wall/article/2619410">border wall</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/sanctuary-cities-crackdown-government-shutdown-237121">sanctuary cities</a>, it’s certainly possible that no new continuing resolution will be passed in time.</p>
<p>That would make Trump’s 100th day in office an unusual anniversary, but the truth is not all recent presidents have much to brag about when it comes to the impact of their first months in office.</p>
<h2>Creating the concept</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165961/original/file-20170419-2423-ah1val.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President John Nance Garner (left) affectionately pats the head of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea of using a president’s first 100 days in office as a way to evaluate him began in 1933 with Franklin D. Roosevelt – although FDR actually had in mind measuring the New Deal achievements of the first 100 days of a special congressional session that year. In a <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14488">July 24 Fireside Chat</a>, FDR referred to “the crowding events of the 100 days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal.” Journalists, historians and political scientists continued the practice of looking for accomplishments in the early months of a presidency.</p>
<p>During those 100 days, FDR got many <a href="http://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/35195?ret=True">major bills</a> through Congress to battle the economic crisis of the Great Depression. These bills created the Public Works Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps to provide job opportunities, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to insure bank deposits and the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide rural electricity. This flurry of activity became the standard by which future presidents would be judged – often coming up short.</p>
<p>In a 2001 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290105400409">study</a>, political scientists John Frendreis, Raymond Tatalovich and Jon Schaff determined that the presidents who followed FDR have not come close to his success levels in seeing proposed bills pass into law so early in their administrations. The authors attributed that to changes in Congress that have slowed down the lawmaking process. </p>
<p>Let’s consider how the presidents have done.</p>
<h2>Truman to Clinton</h2>
<p>Following FDR’s death, Harry Truman’s <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/02/26/the-first-100-days-harry-truman-showed-decisiveness-and-intelligence">first 100 days</a> were focused on the closing battles of World War II, with Germany’s surrender occurring less than one month after Truman took office. </p>
<p>Dwight Eisenhower’s first 100 days were similarly dominated by foreign policy, including the death of Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin and negotiations to end the Korean War.</p>
<p>John Kennedy entered office with an ambitious agenda, which included the creation of the Peace Corps, but his first 100 days are probably <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26reeves.html">best remembered</a> for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. </p>
<p>Lyndon Johnson’s first 100 days were most consumed by coping with the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination, but LBJ also used the period and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/03/05/the-first-100-days-lyndon-johnson-fulfilled-kennedys-legacy">Kennedy’s legacy</a> to begin the groundwork to pass major civil rights and war on poverty legislation.</p>
<p>While Richard Nixon also promoted an ambitious domestic agenda in the White House, his first 100 days contained no major visible achievements at the time. <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1969/04/28/page/3/article/nixon-weighs-programs-of-1st-100-days">Nixon told reporters:</a> “I don’t count either the days or the hours, really. I never thought in those terms. I plan for a long term.” Later, it was revealed that he had ordered a <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-bombs-cambodia-for-the-first-time">secret bombing</a> of Cambodia during the period. </p>
<p>Gerald Ford’s <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/03/19/the-first-100-days-clinton-and-ford-got-off-to-a-rocky-start">first 100 days</a> are best remembered for his swearing-in ceremony following Nixon’s resignation, when he announced that “our long national nightmare is over.” He then pardoned Nixon one month later for any crimes the former president had committed in office.</p>
<p>Jimmy Carter also had an inauspicious start. Possibly due to his inexperience in Washington, he asked Congress to pursue several different domestic policy goals, many of which never passed into law. Perhaps best remembered from Carter’s early months is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbNFKgNoWc0">his speech</a> from the White House to declare that energy policy and efforts to end American dependence on oil were the “moral equivalent of war.”</p>
<p>Ronald Reagan’s administration drew the lesson from his immediate predecessor that it was best to focus on one or two domestic issues during the first 100 days. Reagan spent <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/03/12/the-first-100-days-reagan-pushed-his-agenda-of-tax-cuts-and-less-government">his first months</a> as president promoting an agenda of tax and spending cuts, though those did not pass into law until August 1981, four months later. Reagan’s first 100 days as president were also notable for the assassination attempt made against him, which limited his political efforts for part of the time period.</p>
<p>George H.W. Bush’s first 100 days as president were largely a continuation of the policies of the Reagan presidency. They were noted at the time for being <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/opinion/president-bush-s-hundred-days-seen-against-ronald-reagan-s-2922-days.html">relatively uneventful</a>, with a congressional battle over a secretary of defense nominee and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska dominating the political news.</p>
<p>The biggest political news story during Bill Clinton’s first 100 days was probably the failure of his stimulus package of domestic spending increases to get past a Republican filibuster in the Senate, though the eventual budget that resulted helped steer the United States toward budget surpluses later in the decade. Clinton’s <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/03/19/the-first-100-days-clinton-and-ford-got-off-to-a-rocky-start">first month</a> also included his signing of the Family and Medical Leave Act into law, the start of a debate about service of gays in the military and the creation of a task force on national health care reform, chaired by Hillary Clinton.</p>
<h2>The 21st century</h2>
<p>George W. Bush took office in January 2001 after a disputed electoral outcome in Florida led to a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that essentially made him president. In a politically divided country, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/25/bush.interview.02/">Bush’s strategy</a> seemed to be to avoid controversy and build his political capital, with his major legislative proposals in the time period involving tax cuts and education reform.</p>
<p>Due to the economic crisis that began during Bush’s final months as president, Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office were dominated by the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a package of economic stimulus investments that <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/first_quarter_2017/the-recovery-act-of-2009-vs-fdrs-new-deal-which-was-bigger">by some measures</a> was even larger than those passed in FDR’s 100 days in 1933. During a <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-on-economic-crisis-transition/">CBS “60 Minutes” interview</a> in November 2008, Obama even said he was reading about FDR’s 100 days as an example.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Trump’s main political success so far has been the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. His promised repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act failed to get support in Congress. His attempted travel entry bans of citizens of certain Islamic countries into the U.S. and attempted suspension of refugee entry have so far led to massive protests and have been blocked by federal judges.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has also taken military action in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, approved the construction of oil pipelines through North Dakota and sent out a request for <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/mexico-border-wall-construction-contract-bids-open-march-6/">contract bids</a> to build a border wall with Mexico. It’s not clear yet which of these events will be well-remembered a year – or 10 – from now.</p>
<p>One thing is sure. If the Liberty Bell or the Lincoln Memorial is closed to tourists on Trump’s 100th day as president, it’s likely that government malfunction will be what is remembered about Trump’s first few months in office.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Speel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Franklin D. Roosevelt is famous for really getting a lot done fast. Will history remember Trump so kindly?Robert Speel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Erie campus, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624642016-07-20T19:58:33Z2016-07-20T19:58:33ZSpain’s Civil War and the Americans who fought in it: a convoluted legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131278/original/image-20160720-31117-16v9rmp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Lincoln Brigade Memorial in San Francisco.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_Brigade_Memorial_San_Francisco.jpg#/media/File:Lincoln_Brigade_Memorial_San_Francisco.jpg">Tom Hilton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Eighty years ago this week, in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla, a group of right-wing generals staged a military coup, aimed at overthrowing Spain’s democratically elected government. </p>
<p>The July 1936 uprising unleashed what would come to be known – somewhat inaccurately – as the Spanish Civil War, a horrific conflagration that lasted almost three years. </p>
<p>The general consensus is that the war sent about a half-million Spaniards into exile, and another 500,000 to their deaths. Still today, more than <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13800&LangID=S">100,000 Spaniards</a> lie in hundreds of <a href="http://mapadefosas.mjusticia.es/exovi_externo/CargarMapaFosas.htm">unmarked mass graves</a> strewn all over the Iberian peninsula.</p>
<p>Those mass graves still haunt contemporary Spain, and the question of how the Spanish Civil War ought to be commemorated is still far from buried, not only in Spain, but also in the U.S.</p>
<p>Just two weeks ago, when President Obama visited Spain, <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/07/11/inenglish/1468224007_858914.html">the gift he received</a> from Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the upstart left-wing political party Podemos, generated controversy. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"752152021105537024"}"></div></p>
<p>The present was a copy of the book <a href="http://zinnedproject.org/materials/the-lincoln-brigade/">“The Abraham Lincoln Brigade: A Picture History,”</a> and in it, Iglesias penned a dedication to President Obama: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The first Americans who came to Europe to fight against fascism were the men and women of the Lincoln Brigade. Please convey to the American people the gratitude felt by Spanish democrats for the antifascist example provided by these heroes.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To understand the symbolism and the controversial nature of this gift, we must examine the convoluted legacy of that war whose 80th anniversary is commemorated this week. </p>
<h2>International war</h2>
<p>Pablo Iglesias’ inscription points to why the term “Civil War” is a misnomer when applied to Spain, 1936.</p>
<p>Though the Spanish war did pit Spaniard against Spaniard, the conflict quickly became international. Within days of the onset of the coup, Hitler and Mussolini intervened on the side of the insurgent generals. Before long, the Soviet Union would come to the aid of the Loyalists, also known as the Republican forces, who supported the government. </p>
<p>To the chagrin of Spain’s elected government, the U.K., France and the U.S., in full appeasement mode, decided to remain neutral. They even imposed – and enforced – <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-spanish-civil-war-a-very-short-introduction-9780192803771?cc=es&lang=en&">an embargo on the sale of arms to the Republic</a>. </p>
<p>Despite – or perhaps because of – that embargo, for the duration of the war, Spain would be on almost everybody’s mind in the U.S., whether they liked it or not. </p>
<p>Moviegoers, for example, eager to see newly released movies such as Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” or Walt Disney’s “Snow White,” had to sit through newsreels depicting the new form of modern warfare being premiered in Spain. With melodramatic music swirling and swelling in the background, audiences would hear foreboding <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOUQIwDaQjc">newsreel narrators exclaiming</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“hundreds of thousands of noncombatants suffer the indescribable horrors of a continuous nightmare of fear and destruction.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FOUQIwDaQjc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Second Year of Spain’s Civil War’ at 1'30"</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new medium of photojournalism – <a href="http://time.com/3638051/capas-falling-soldier-the-modest-birth-of-an-iconic-picture/">Life Magazine</a> began circulation in 1936 – would bring fresh and horrifying images of the faraway conflict into the living rooms of average Americans. </p>
<p>Indeed, the war in Spain was felt with such immediacy in the U.S. that in an unprecedented display of international solidarity, some <a href="http://www.alba-valb.org/about-us/faqs/">2,800 American men and women</a> risked life and limb to travel to Spain and join the International Brigades: the 35,000 volunteers from 50 nations who were recruited and organized by the Communist International to defend Spain’s Republic. </p>
<p>The first contingent of Americans arrived to Spain in January of 1937, and they called themselves the “Abraham Lincoln Battalion,” invoking the leader who had successfully presided over a Civil War in their own country. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131163/original/image-20160719-8005-1dt4rlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. volunteers in Spain, spring 1938.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York University's Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ernest Hemingway’s portrait of Robert Jordan in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/hemingway-forwhom.html">“For Whom The Bell Tolls”</a> would become the iconic image of an American volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. But if Hemingway’s protagonist was a solitary and rugged WASP from Montana, most of the nonfiction volunteers emerged from vast, politically active communities, which were decidedly <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=2509">urban, working-class and ethnic</a>. </p>
<p>The closest thing to a rifle that most of the volunteers had ever handled before Spain was probably a picket sign. Unlike Hemingway’s outdoorsman, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUkRP_9o8Hg">real-life volunteers</a> were likely to have had more experience sleeping on tenement fire escapes than in field tents.</p>
<p>And for each individual who made the ultimate sacrifice of taking up arms in Spain, there were thousands of Loyalist sympathizers who stayed behind. <a href="http://www.mcny.org/exhibition/facing-fascism">They raised funds</a> to send medical supplies to the besieged government. They urged the FDR government to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=00wEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=Life+the+embargo+against+loyalist+spain&source=bl&ots=g38tFEOA6J&sig=wKBwhFnBc9BbfS7VkHFQ2I9qtSc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI24rX9P_NAhWG4yYKHR2XD1YQ6AEIJTAB#v=onepage&q=Life%20the%20embargo%20against%20loyalist%20spain&f=false">“Lift the embargo Against Loyalist Spain.”</a> They did their bit, as the popular slogan went, <a href="http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/oso.html">“to make Madrid the tomb of fascism.”</a> </p>
<h2>Anti-fascist war</h2>
<p>The Republic, hamstrung by the embargo, and splintered by internal differences, eventually fell. Franco’s troops marched into Madrid in April of 1939. Exactly six months later, Hitler invaded Poland and, <a href="http://time.com/3194657/world-war-ii-anniversary/">according to most standard accounts</a>, World War II was officially underway. </p>
<p>The horrors of that war help explain why the memory of Spain was subsequently eclipsed and almost forgotten. But there were other forces at work that would contribute to the transformation of how Spain would be remembered. </p>
<p>The fact is that, at the time, for many contemporary observers, the war in Spain was of a piece with the war against Hitler. </p>
<p>For starters, the Lincoln volunteers frequently depicted themselves as soldiers attempting to stave off another world war. In November, 1937, for example, volunteer <a href="http://www.alba-valb.org/resources/lessons/document-library/letter-from-hyman-katz-to-his-mother">Hy Katz</a> would write home to his mom:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If we sit by and let them grow stronger by taking Spain, they will move on to France and will not stop there; and it won’t be long before they get to America. Realizing this, can I sit by and wait until the beasts get to my very door – until it is too late, and there is no one I can call on for help? And would I even deserve help from others when the trouble comes upon me, if I were to refuse help to those who need it today? If I permitted such a time to come – as a Jew and a progressive, I would be among the first to fall under the axe of the fascists; – all I could do then would be to curse myself and say, ‘Why didn’t I wake up when the alarm-clock rang?’”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131147/original/image-20160719-8014-1a674yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First National Conference of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade n 1938. Robert Raven, in the middle, lost his eyesight while fighting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_National_Conference_of_the_Veterans_of_the_Abraham_Lincoln_Brigade.jpg#/media/File:First_National_Conference_of_the_Veterans_of_the_Abraham_Lincoln_Brigade.jpg">Harris&Ewing, Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>In March of 1945, President Roosevelt himself, in a <a href="http://www.albavolunteer.org/2011/02/wikileaks-avant-la-wiki-fdr-on-franco-in-1945/">missive</a> to a diplomat, would characterize the continuity he perceived between the Spanish war and WWII, between the Axis and Franco’s regime:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Having been helped to power by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and having patterned itself along totalitarian lines, the present regime in Spain is naturally the subject of distrust by a great many American citizens […] Most certainly we do not forget Spain’s official position with and assistance to our Axis enemies at a time when the fortunes of war were less favorable to us, nor can we disregard the activities, aims, organizations, and public utterances of the Falange [Spain’s Fascist party], both past and present.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even a publication like “Stars and Stripes,” a semi-official organ of the U.S. Armed Forces, would, in its European edition of July 1945, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ALBAclassroom/photos/a.1546264042353855.1073741828.1543596215953971/1558352301145029/?type=3&theater">unhesitatingly affirm</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Nine years ago last week, the first blow was struck in World War II. On July 17, 1936, in the picturesque garrison town of Melilla, in Spanish Morocco, a Spanish general and his Moroccan regiments proclaimed civil war against the infant, five-year-old Republic and its government…” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1945, the general contours of how the Spanish Civil War was likely to be remembered into the future were quite clear: as part and parcel of the long struggle against international fascism, perhaps even as the opening salvo of World War II. </p>
<p>But a funny thing happened on the way to the fifties…</p>
<h2>Cold War</h2>
<p>Between 1945 and 1955, Francisco Franco managed to refashion himself completely. No longer an ally of the Axis – in fact, he claimed that he had never been such a thing. Franco repackaged himself as a stalwart anti-communist, ruling over a strategic land mass at the corner of Africa and Europe. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Franco-Biography-Paul-Preston/dp/0465025153">And it worked</a>.</p>
<p>If, for FDR, Franco had been an illegitimate ruler, for Truman and Eisenhower, the generalissimo would become a crucial partner in the war between “freedom” and “communism.” Truman and <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=19591219&id=5DtYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XPcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1234,6171957&hl=en">Eisenhower</a> helped end the Franco regime’s post-war diplomatic ostracism. In exchange, the U.S. got to build <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sp1953.asp">an archipelago of Cold War military bases</a> on Spanish soil. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131150/original/image-20160719-7906-1oxpwlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">General Franco and President Eisenhower in Madrid in 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franco_eisenhower_1959_madrid.jpg">US National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Franco morphed from “Adolph’s Man in Madrid” to “Ike’s Man in Madrid,” and as the Spanish Civil War came to be viewed more and more through the retrospective lens of the Cold War, much history would get rewritten, on both sides of the Atlantic. </p>
<p>Franco actively <a href="http://www.albavolunteer.org/2011/02/the-resynchronization-of-a-regime-1940-1950/">destroyed or altered evidence</a> of his dalliance with the Axis. And in the U.S., as historian <a href="http://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2014/from-guernica-to-human-rights/">Peter Carroll reminds us</a>, it was precisely in anti-communist crusader <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/joseph-mccarthy">Joseph McCarthy’s</a> 1950s that George Orwell’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Homage-Catalonia-George-Orwell/dp/0156421178">“Homage to Catalonia”</a> became a fixture of the Cold War canon. Orwell’s book was a powerful indictment of the Communist Party’s ruthless behavior in the war, and it was used to cast a shadow over the experiences and motivations of the Lincoln Brigade. </p>
<p>Before long, in both Spain and the U.S., the Spanish Civil War would be talked about not so much as an early battle of the anti-fascist World War II, but rather as a <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1812421-wolfftestimony.html">chapter in the annals of communist mischief and perfidy</a>. </p>
<p>The actions of American volunteers, rather than being seen as heroic and prescient, would become suspect. And that is why, even 80 years on, Iglesias’s gift to Obama could still seem laden with symbolism and wrapped in controversy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James D. Fernandez is Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA).</span></em></p>For many contemporary observers, the Spanish Civil War was seen as very much of a piece with the war against Hitler and Mussolini. But then things changed. Why?James D. Fernandez, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Vice-President, Board of Governors, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.