In 1948, Harry S. Truman was a considerable underdog. The previous congressional election saw Republicans taking over the Congress and now Truman appeared besieged. Within his own party, many Southern Democrats left the party due to Truman support for integration and his policy of containing the Soviet Empire split a portion of the Democratic left from the rest of the Party. His domestic agenda that including socializing medical care in the United States along the lines of Great Britain health care alarmed many Republicans and Republican candidate Thomas Dewey appeared on the way to Presidency.

America was undergoing changes both domestically and in foreign affairs. Europe was in shambles and communist insurgency threatened Greece. There were large-scale communist movements that threatened many of the Western European democracy.

As for America, a new middle class appeared and many Americans moved to suburbs as demographic changes occurred. American essentially disarmed after World War II as millions of former GI tried to fit in the new economy and the economy strained to provide jobs for all of the returning combat veterans.

As for Truman, he was forced to make changes on the lam as nothing prepared him or America for the post war era. After the First World War, America came home from Europe and stayed home. Truman had to break America of Isolationist tendency for America was the lone obstacles to the Soviet Empire.

In 1946, Winston Churchill declared an iron curtain had descended across Europe and many in the Truman administration were more shocked than approving of his speech. What Churchill did was to shake America into the reality that a new World has occurred and that new world included a rival in the Soviet Empire.

In 1947, Truman created the Truman Doctrine in which he sent aid to the Greeks to keep that nation from slipping behind the Iron Curtain and in 1948; Czechoslovakia did slip behind the Iron Curtain. The Marshall Plan was designed to strengthen Europe economy and reduce communist influence in Western Europe. Europe stood on a tightrope and there was no guarantee that whole enterprise would end favorably. I interviewed a German born economists a few years about Europe post war and he told me that the German miracle began when German officials removed wage and price controls placed upon their economy by the American planners. This event occurred three years after the end of World War II. Let us say, there was plenty of mistakes made by the Truman administration.

Much of the opposition to Truman came because Truman was a plain speaking man who were making historical change that ran counter to past American previous past.