Ideology wasn’t the right word there. I rephrased it in post #14. People just didn’t know what to expect of him in his first term. He hadn’t campaigned for president, and there were a lot of new things in the world in that time period. So people didn’t know what to expect of him and were making up their minds, and then probably changing them at least once, as events unfolded.
It would seem the OP had his mind made up before posing the question. Rephrasing is pointless, in that case.
No, although I did lean from the beginning toward it being junk data, I was (and am) willing to be convinced of the validity of the Gallup numbers by a credible, persuasive, *specific *explanation as to why voters then would be so radically greater in their volatility in that four year period than in the more than 60 years since. So far I haven’t seen such an explanation.
Have you been reading the thread? I don’t know why, but several reasons have been put forward, and there’s no real comparison to that 4 year period with any other since. Any similarities in later adminstrations are illusory because the circumstances were never the same.
*Every *presidency has different circumstances–that’s a given. But human nature remains. They may change their minds about a president once, maybe even twice, but *six *opinions in four years? I would have to see some very specific and dramatic correlative events to correspond with not just one or two but all five of those shifts in direction to believe that (and I did think, when I posted the OP, that if anyone would be able to provide such a timeline, it would be someone here).
It’s also notable, I think, that it appears Gallup didn’t do approval before 1946–so all the more reason to suspect that their methodology may not have been terribly refined in the early going.
Why do you find it unreasonable that after a barely known senator suddenly becomes president in a time of great social/political/economic upheaval and becomes known for making decisions without regard to polls, then has his approval measured by a questionable process, that if wouldn’t reflect the results that it does? You do seem to have your mind made up that this is some great mystery, yet no one else has found it unusual so far.
Okay, now I think you’re just pulling my leg. Not unusual?!? It’s fine if you think it’s *explicably *unusual, but to say it’s not is just mathematically incorrect in so many ways. Greatest range between highest and lowest rating, the most volatile in its repeated oscillations, etc.
And it’s easy to imagine a president dropping to very low approval if he makes decisions without regard to the polls. That’s the conventional narrative on Truman, and it looks pretty much like that after 1950. But what’s not easy to imagine is his rebounding from the 30s into the 60s twice before 1950. After people soured on him the second time, especially, it defies belief that they would decide to like him again briefly before souring on him the third time. That’s my fundamental issue: not the descents, but the ascents.
I can’t address this accurately because I don’t know any details about approval polling in the late '40s. But I would question the polling methods, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the extent of the ascents and descents were exagerrated. There are only two ascents to explain, and if details about the dates those numbers were established and the events of that time that people were reacting to would be sufficient explanation. This was the post WWII era, and I don’t think the country was as polarized then as it is now, and I don’t think people had the same rigidly entrenched ideologies they do now.
As far as your statistical assessment, you’re saying it’s unusual to find deviation in a set. I’m unconvinced by that logic.
That’s all I’m saying–so actually, we agree!
I’d say this case deviates far enough to be called an outlier; combined with the fact that it represents the dawn of this area of study, I think it’s reasonable, per Ockham, to hold these numbers up to greater than usual scrutiny before accepting their validity. But as noted above, it doesn’t seem like you really disagree with that, so…?
As to ol’ Harry’s gyrations in the polls, I agree he made some very tough decisions in very difficult times, but I suspect the remarkable extremes of his ups and downs are more due to poor polling methodology in the earliest days of the profession than to the nation as a whole veering between adulation and disgust.
Ok, we have consensus. Mods, you may close the thread.
Seriously, it should be closed, laminated, and framed. It’s a discussion of the facts and reasoning that converges on reasonable conclusions instead of breaking down into improbable exceptions, uncharitable interpretation, semantic nitpicking, and personal squabbling. Kind of what I thought fighting ignorance was about before I got here.
+1
We see it on this board and in the public - a Bush2/Obama fan/detractor stays that way no matter what. With the vice-president selection process back then (so Quayle-Lieberman, Biden-Palin is not a good comparison) no one has any buy-in as to supporting their own opinion.
Why should he have kept his popularity? In 1949 his Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson was talking on how America didn’t need the Marine Corps and Navy because the Air Force could do their jobs. A year later Truman has America in war in Korea, that killed almost 37,000 Americans and ultimately ends in a stalemate. When an steel strike is about to happen in 1952, Truman issues an executive order to nationalize the steel industry which is greeted with almost unanimous condemnation and is ultimately overruled by the Supreme Court. When a writer gives Truman’s daughter a poor review of a singing performance, Truman threatens to punch the writer so he needs a new nose, beefsteak for his blackened eyes and probably need a supporter below.
A mean, nasty, hate-filled, small minded little man
…who ended World War II decisively, desegregated the armed forces, recognized Israel, was the first President to speak to the NAACP, stopped North Korean aggression, ordered the Berlin Airlift, authorized the Marshall Plan, etc., and was beloved by many both in and out of politics.
Except your consensus is an illusion.
I don’t know the answer, but suspect there are factors more important than poor polling. For examples
[ul][li] Polarization was less severe then. These days there are partisans who will continue to love or hate an incumbent regardless of policies. This dampens swings.[/li][li] Truman was particularly “non-political.” He made decisions on merits and wasn’t oratorically skilled to explain them.[/li][li] The times themselves were wildly fluctuating. On V-J Day, the President would have hugely favorable ratings regardless of who he was. The Cold War and Korean Wars came as huge disappointments. (Later events, even Vietnam, occurred in an accepted Cold War context.)[/li][li] The relative swinginess seems less wild than OP implies anyway. W Bush’s peak-to-trough was almost as large as Truman’s. HW Bush’s peak-to-trough was about 2/3 that of Truman’s and occurred in a relatively uneventful Administration. (Yes, I know the OP emphasizes number of swings, not just the size.)[/li][/ul]
I do not know which of these factors was most important, and poor polling might be the single most important factor.
Call me ignorant if you wish; I prefer to think I’m not ignorant enough to think I’m not ignorant on matters where I am. 
I mentioned all those other things before and so did other posters. The point here is that the sharp swings could easily be exagerrated in the early polls and if more accurately recorded would have seemed like the normal up and down for the circumstances. And there also seems to be a consensus that Truman wasn’t engaged in poll management the way modern politicians are, that’s where his blunt hard-nosed decisions were a factor. You seem to be joining the consensus.
Indeed–and their steepness (oscillations of a large magnitude in a short period of time).
Still, I probably wouldn’t find it nearly as puzzling if just one “mountain” was eliminated: essentially, the whole year of 1947. In late '46 Truman’s ratings were in the toilet, and in early '48 they were there again. Had he just muddled along through '47 (or even just had a more moderate uptick), his whole presidency would pretty much fit the conventional narrative:
(1) Popular after WWII victory and–like LBJ–benefits from sympathy for FDR’s passing;
(2) Postwar economic downturn and controversial actions taken against his erstwhile allies in labour cause a steep plummet;
(3) “Whistlestop tour” campaigning against “do-nothing Congress” brings him a surge just in time to beat Dewey, and he adds on to that the usual inaugural boost;
(4) Beginning in 1950, the Korean War, firing of MacArthur, etc. take him down to the basement for the remainder of his presidency.
But then there is 1947, during which his ratings “thawed” as spring turned into summer, then plummeted again as the mercury did in the late months of the year. It’s either bad data, or an extraordinary oversight on the part of historians not to provide a narrative to explain it. I’m sure if I had a book on Truman, there would be copious amounts of information about that year; but in shorter histories of the Truman years I’ve perused online, the main two events of significance mentioned for that year are:
–The adoption of the Marshall Plan. We know of course with the wisdom of hindsight that this was hugely important. But I’m dubious of the idea that the average American voter (at least as provincial then as they are now) would swoon over a president sending billions of tax dollars in foreign aid to Europe! And in any case, a majority of Americans hadn’t even heard of the Plan in July 1947, and Truman’s ostensible rise in popularity clearly occurred before that point.
–The passage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act. It had enough bipartisan support to override Truman’s veto, yet, what: his veto would bring him a surge in popularity? Again, I’m dubious. Gallup did poll Taft-Hartley in 1947, and seeing those results would be interesting; however they are apparently available only to subscribers. But I did find a source that said Gallup polling in 1953 found that most people still weren’t really aware of what Taft-Hartley was.
I was curious enough to try to match Gallup poll dates to major speeches. I found a Gallup page showing polls in January, March (2), April, May, etc. An account seems to be needed to see poll results without which correspondence to the WSJ graph may be unclear. The first March poll was immediately after the Truman Doctrine Speech.