A Guest Post by M. B. Zucker, the award-winning author of "The Eisenhower Chronicles" and "Liopleurodon"
Dwight Eisenhower was one of the most popular Presidents in American history. His average approval rating was 65%. It was higher in his final year than it was in his first. It only went below 50% once, for his handling of Sputnik, and in hindsight historians believe he was right and the nation was wrong. His warhero status following Nazi Germany’s surrender partly explains his popularity. Other reasons were his smile, his grandfatherly demeanor, and his moderate, consensus-seeking approach to politics.
Eisenhower (Ike) was a centrist. He called his philosophy “The Middle Way.” He appealed to the majority of Americans by being neither a reactionary nor a socialist; neither an appeaser nor a warmonger. He developed his ideas on the Middle Way at Columbia in 1948. He believed that finding the middle course was a core aspect of American history. He saw the compromises that formed the Constitution as an effort to avoid the extremes of the 1780s, saying, “On the one side were the individualists - the fanatical believers in a degree of personal freedom that amounted to almost nihilism… At the other extreme were the great believers in centralized government - those who mistrusted the decisions reached by popular majorities.”
Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were his centrist role models. Lincoln took four years to end slavery, despite pressure from abolitionists to go faster, out of fear of losing the Border States. Lincoln also used the government to promote infrastructure like the Transcontinental Railroad. Roosevelt ignited the Progressive era by breaking up corporate trusts but resisted the calls from those like William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Debbs that could have ended capitalism entirely.
Ike did not mechanically take centrist positions but believed nature endorsed his theory that the correct answer usually lay toward the middle and away from the extreme ends. Ike wrote a letter to Nelson Rockefeller referring to “nature’s curve,” which said the standard statistical distribution curve (of issues like humans’ height or weight) had the bulk of cases fall near the center.
He disliked extremists and demagogues, believing the far left and right were wrong on all political and moral issues. He referred to the political spectrum as a bowling alley and the extremes as the “gutters” and said he was on the right track when getting attacked by “both sides.” Ike disliked rigid ideologies and political labels like “liberal” or “conservative.” He believed in examining each issue individually and allowing pundits to hang the “labels as they may.”
Ike found his political home in the Republican Party’s moderate wing. He inherited the party from his parents, marching in a pro-McKinley rally when he was six years old. Though a moderate conservative, Ike was frustrated with the far right. He referred to the Old Guard as “the most ignorant people now living in the United States” and said of Oregon Governor Douglas McKay, “He seems so completely conservative in his views that at times he seems to be illogical. I hope that he will soon become a little bit more aware of the world as it is today.” Ike threatened to become an independent if the Old Guard fought Earl Warren’s appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Ike ran for president in part to stop Senator Robert Taft, an isolationist Republican, from becoming president. Ike defeated Taft in the 1952 Republican primary. They worked well together during Ike’s first year in office until Taft died of cancer. The first two years of Ike’s presidency marked the first time the GOP controlled the Executive and Legislative Branches since Herbert Hoover. Excited, they introduced 107 constitutional amendments to repeal the New Deal. Some sought to reverse Appomattox by asserting the states over the federal government. Others wanted to abolish the separation of Church and State. Ike complained to Ann Whitman, his secretary, “I don’t know why anyone should be a member of the Republican Party.”
Ike rescued the party from isolationism and McCarthyism. He wanted to move it to the center. This was one of his main failures as president. William Buckley began the Conservative Movement that dominated the party from 1964 to 2016 as a backlash to Ike’s initiatives. Ike’s failure was evident when Barry Goldwater became the party’s nominee in 1964. Ike had hoped a moderate like William Scranton would be the nominee but told Goldwater he would support him if Goldwater renounced the Klan and other racist groups. Goldwater agreed. Ike appeared in press conferences and campaign advertisements with Goldwater, although Ike winced when Goldwater said that Nazi Germany originated the modern concept of “peace through strength.” Ike told David, his grandson, that Goldwater was “dangerous” and “just plain dumb.”
Ike was a pro-business Midwesterner who would not have been comfortable in the Democratic Party. He joked that his aim was to emulate President Jackson and eliminate the national debt, adding, “As Jackson was a Democrat, there must have been something fishy about it.” But he was non-partisan for most of his life and was happy that FDR and the Democrats won the 1932 election. He approved of FDR’s banking legislation and wrote, “While I have no definite leanings toward any political party I believe it is a good thing the Democrats won - and particularly that one party will have such overwhelming superiority in Congress. Things are not going to take an upturn until more power is centered in one man’s hands. Only in that way will confidence be inspired; will it be possible to do some of the obvious things for speeding recovery, and will we be freed from the pernicious influence of noisy and selfish minorities. For two years I have been called Dictator Ike because I believe that virtual dictatorship must be exercised by our President, so now I keep still - but I still believe it!”
No one knew Ike’s partisan leanings in 1948. Republicans feared he was a closet Democrat. Democrats led by Eleanor Roosevelt pushed for Ike to replace Truman as the party’s nominee in that year’s election. Ike withdrew and said, “It is criminal to allow people to waste their votes on a candidate who is not running.” Ike was disappointed when Truman defeated Dewey. Truman lobbied Ike to run as a Democrat in 1952, assuming Ike was a Democrat in the Roosevelt-Truman mold. Ike declined, asking, “What reason have you to think I have ever been a Democrat? You know I have been a Republican all my life and that my family have always been Republicans.” Ike considered the Democrats too liberal on economic issues.
Ike did not fit well in either the Republicans or Democrats. He spoke of taking the moderates from both and forming a third party. He said, “I would gladly call it the Whig Party, although I have never actually been able to find out what that word meant.” Several biographers believed Ike would have belonged to the Whig Party of the mid-Nineteenth Century, which was home to Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln. The Whigs endorsed Alexander Hamilton’s federal fiscal system and believed in infrastructure like the Transcontinental Railroad. They placed social and political stability as a higher priority than eradicating evils like slavery. Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, sought to cool political temperatures. They were the party of union and moderation. Ike would have been a good fit.
Buy M. B. Zucker's book "The Eisenhower Chronicles" today!
Sources
Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen Ambrose
Mrs. Ike by Susan Eisenhower
Eisenhower: In War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith