The Turnip Day Gambit
How Joe Biden and the Dems Can Win Channeling Harry Truman
Certain to lose, said to be too old, too dull, too doddering, abandoned by his party, mocked by the press, the President of the United States turned to one thought: Turnip Day.
“On the twenty-sixth of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry," was an old Missouri farmer’s saying and this President had never turned the soil, but he knew instinctively how to plant votes in the summer that stood for harvest in the fall.
The year was 1948 and the president was Harry Truman, not Joe Biden. But the circumstances, the political field position and the potential upsides for a Turnip Day Surprise are remarkably similar.
Truman knew Thomas Dewey, his Republican opponent, seemed more vigorous. Truman knew he himself lacked the charisma of his predecessor, FDR. He knew only 35% or so of the American public approved of his performance.
Somehow, Truman was unable to rekindle the fire of the New Deal and what it had meant to working voters. The press mocked him. Pollsters saw no need to gather new information past the summer, so lopsided seemed the Dewey win. The party had splintered left and right, with progressives running one candidate, Dixiecrats another.
Harry was in more hot water than Biden is today. Democrats then, like now, seemed to have the same problem. They could not take a punch. And they seemed to have forgotten how to give one.
But Harry Truman could do both. He had a July Surprise for Dewey and the Republicans and for everyone else who had given up on the Democratic platform.
At the Democratic convention, he called a rare special session of both houses of Congress for Turnip Day and put before the GOP majorities a challenge to pass laws to guaranteeing civil rights, extending Social Security coverage, and bolstering health care.
The Turnip Session ended with the 80th Congress sending two bills to the president, one aimed at inflation, another to boost housing starts. Truman signed them but said Congress had failed the test. "Would you say it was a do-nothing session, Mr. President?" was one question from the press corps. "I would say it was a do-nothing session," Truman replied and the phrase stuck.
For the rest of the campaign, Truman railed against the “Do-Nothing 80th Congress” – and pulled off one of the greatest upsets of modern politics. The campaign was reframed. Voters remembered what was real. The New Deal was refreshed. The Truman chances were reborn.
The Turnip Session was an antic in one sense. No true national emergency justified a special session of congress. But in another sense, in today’s age of antics, it could be a brilliant way for Biden to re-set and reframe public attention and focus voters onto real issues rather than the entertainment sideshows and “optics” created by today’s fractured news and social media.
What are the issues? Here’s a rough draft of Biden’s twist on Truman’s Turnip Souffle:
“Fellow Americans, our Supreme Court has presented to us a series of challenges. They have overturned precious rights we have held dear for decades. They have been clear that important issues fundamental to the safety of us all, particularly children and women, rests with our legislature and voters.
“Now I do not agree with the Supreme Court, and I believe that they have overstepped in imposing a radical conservative ideology upon us.
“But I do believe in our system, I believe in the legitimacy of the court, and of their right to act as they have. This is our system. This is our democracy. This is our balance of power.
“What they are telling us is if we want these rights, Congress must act. In the areas of women’s rights, gun safety, border security and economic reform, the courts cannot provide the sort of sweeping change we need as a people to feel safe and to prosper. For that, we need legislative action.
“We’ve been saying that for a while. Just take one example. The border. Many Republicans have agreed action I’ve proposed is needed. Bi-partisan plans could be law right now were it not for extremist MAGA elements of Congress and politically motivated leaders who have torpedoed a sane border policy that concedes many conservative points. We are being run by a selfish minority that puts political self-interest and chaos above the common good.
“For that reason and several others, to remedy the rulings of the Supreme Court, and the rise of radical politics, I am calling a special session of both houses of Congress to meet on July 26 to consider this legislation:
“First off, we need a comprehensive border bill that gives the President authority to humanely control the chaos caused now by cartels and organizations like ISIS who seize on loopholes in our refuge laws to profit and overwhelm our borders and cities. This is a matter of national security.
“We’ve brought this proposal before, backed by conservative Republicans, only to have it sabotaged by Republican opportunists who thrive on disorder and chaos. End this chaos now. Pass this bipartisan bill.
“Secondly, we will take illegal machine guns out of the hands of irresponsible gun owners and potential mass shooters, by banning bump-stock devices. There should be no issue on the unanimity of this move – which would reinforce a ban proposed by Donald Trump himself, which was overturned by a radical Supreme Court that says that a gun that fires 600 rounds a minute is not an automatic weapon. Put an end to this insanity. Ban bump stocks now. If it sounds like a machine gun, if it kills like a machine gun, it’s a machine gun. For God’s sake, re-instate common sense. And while we’re at it, pass legislation recommended by the Surgeon General to help protect kids against gun deaths – the number one cause of death among children.
“Third: End the cruel subjugation of women’s rights to cruel, fundamentalist, 17th Century laws repealing reproductive rights that have existed here for more than half a century.
“Such laws, in Texas, for example, have actually increased the number of infant deaths. Radicals who claim to be ‘right to life’ are against invitro fertilization and the chance for new life. You cannot claim ‘right to life’ if your policies threaten life. We cannot stand by and mumble about pieties about ‘states rights’ now any more than we could during Jim Crow. Re-establish national standards that give back to women the right to control their own bodies working with ethical doctors and humane laws that benefit humanity.
“Lastly, create now a system that assures social security will be sound now and forever by simply making the billionaires of our country pay their fair share – people who have prospered beyond their ability ever to spend their fortunes because of our great middle class and society and market. Just move their tax rate above eight percent. They can afford it.”
“The special session I’ve called is unique because our times are unique. Never has a Supreme Court acted in quite so radical a manner to reverse rights enjoyed by our citizens in pursuit of freedom and happiness. Never have we ever quite been so endangered by the threat to these freedoms.
“In that light, I am calling on Congress to reinstate what the Courts have taken away. This is how our system works. Majorities of voters favor humane women’s rights. Majorities favor sane gun rights – and the control of fully automatic weapons that can mow down crowds in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Majorities favor a sound social security system and fair taxation.
“It’s time now for the radical minorities that stand against these freedoms to step aside and for Congress to represent those views to the full force of the laws being proposed. If they do not, it is time for the voters to speak loudly in November to claim their rights and freedoms.”
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Of course, Republicans and the media will howl. The media story book so far is that the election is about Biden’s infirmities.
In one action, the Turnip Day twist changes the conversation. It gives Biden the advantage of defining the priorities – and taking credit for many of his policies that are sound and sane. It highlights the MAGA nuttiness – and will accent then because MAGA is craziest in the House, and the House in special session will be a spectacle of frothing MAGA heads rotating 360 degrees.
Images of doddering Joe Biden are replaced by the Looney Tune All Stars of the splintered House caucus mud wrestling live on camera.
Republicans will say it’s not fair. It’s not. Politics isn’t. Neither is the obsessive media depiction of Joe Biden as a feeble geriatric.
But Turnip Day does create a context – which the news media is not – where merit, policy and real outcomes rather than optics mean something.
The Turnip Day Gambit will take courage and test the Democrats abilities on two levels.
Can they take a punch? Can they absorb Joe Biden’s faltering debate performance and handle their panic. Can they put that admitted failure in the context of an overall record of policy performance, dignity and decency and have Joe’s back.
And can they give a punch – a focused, united statement of intent and policy that puts the MAGA minority and its leader on its back foot for good.
Somewhere the spirit of Give-em-Hell-Harry is hoping they can.