Harry Truman, Donald Trump and the Rise of the New Media

It’s an iconic photograph – a smiling President Harry Truman holding aloft a copy of the Chicago Tribune heralding a “fake news” headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

The picture was snapped by W. Eugene Smith two days after Truman’s election in November of 1948. On his way back to Washington, D.C., from Independence, Missouri, aboard the presidential train the Ferdinand Magellan, Truman had stopped in St. Louis. An aide was said to have found the newspaper under a seat in a car attached to the executive entourage.

As the 1948 presidential election approached, media elites were convinced New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey would easily defeat the incumbent Truman. The former senator-turned-vice-president had assumed the presidency following Franklin Roosevelt’s death in 1945.

After an initial honeymoon period as World War II wound down, the former haberdasher had struggled politically.

“He was considered to be a sure loser,” reflected his biographer David McCullough. A week before the election, The New York Times said Dewey’s election was “a foregone conclusion.”

Only Truman believed otherwise.

Sound familiar?

During the campaign President Truman had made the decision to barnstorm the country by train. His hundreds of “whistle-stops” brought him face-to-face with regular Americans. It gave him an opportunity to look them in the eye. Many of them were also seeing a president up close for the first time. A bond formed between the president and the people.

Few experts may have given Truman a chance, but knowing the huge crowds he was drawing, the president was so confident he was going to win that he went to bed at 9 PM on Election night at the Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.

“Please wake me up if anything important happens,” the president told his Secret Service detail. At four in the morning, an agent roused Truman and told him he was winning based on radio reports of election returns.

“We’ve got ’em beat,” President Truman responded confidently.

President-elect Trump didn’t retire early on Tuesday night, but like Truman, he repeatedly expressed confidence in the election’s outcome based on massive crowds at his rallies.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, the former-now-future president took his message directly to the American people via social media and alternative news sources also known as “New Media.”

“New Media” is largely considered to be digital products, podcasts, and streaming services.

Last month, we highlighted podcaster Joe Rogan’s rising popularity.

Wildly popular and often profane as an interviewer and celebrity, Rogan’s conversation with Trump garnered 40 million views on Spotify and YouTube. With 32 million subscribers between the two sites, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance also appeared on Rogan’s show. Vice President Harris and her team were never able to agree on her terms.

Focus on the Family’s rise is directly attributable to “new media” of a sort. While radio as a medium dates to the 1920s, ministry founder Dr. James Dobson pioneered the Christian-help format beginning in 1977.

Not dependent upon books, newspapers, magazines and television to communicate, the ministry’s popularity skyrocketed thanks to the launch of our flagship radio program.

Whether communicating from the back of a train, from a podium, or on a podcast that reaches tens of millions of listeners and viewers, those with a powerful Christ-filled message will find a way to get the word out to those with willing ears to hear.

Image credit: W. Eugene Smith / LIFE Picture Collection, Fair Use and Honolulu Star Advertiser 

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