CHAPTER 5
"A NATION OF MORONS:" THE AFTERMATH OF THE 1948 ELECTION, 1949-
 1950

 The election of 1948 deflated the hopes of the Republican Party and fostered

another intense period of factional strife. While Dewey's campaign strategy proved

unsuccessful, Truman's attack on the 80th Congress and the failure of the special

session to enact any social or economic legislation meant that Capitol Hill

Republicans shared part of the blame. Dewey rejected the contention that a majority

of Americans actually supported Truman. He believed that the Congressional

leadership had made the Republicans seem divided through their failure to enact any

of the progressive planks of the GOP platform. The Taft faction, however, thought

that Dewey's defeat stemmed from an ineffectual campaign and a refusal to embrace

the cornerstones of the Republican legislative program such as the Taft-Hartley Act or

the discontinuation of price controls and wartime tax rates. In 1949, the two factions

once again sought control of the party machinery and attempted to create a set of

policy goals that reflected their interpretation of the polity in preparation for the 1950

elections. Their renewed controversy threw an already bifurcated GOP into further

disarray, and the disharmony over campaign tactics and policy goals nearly splintered

the party in two. As a result, most partisans pledged their allegiance to either Taft or

Dewey and increasingly began to identify themselves as "conservative" or "liberal."

This chapter will explore the enlarging divide in the Republican Party during 1948

and early 1950 and the emerging political identities that the factions ultimately

adopted.