Unfortunately, Truman Is Not 'Neglected' or Forgotten

Of all the bad foreign policy presidents one could choose to defend for ideological reasons, Truman is one of the strangest choices available.

Janan Ganesh takes the strange positive revisionism about Harry Truman to weird new heights:

Since the last decade, when Donald Trump won the presidency, Vladimir Putin took Crimea and Xi Jinping set China on a more assertive path, liberals have tried to put a name to what we are defending from these revisionist leaders. The best effort, the “rules-based international order”, is terrible. So call it the Truman Show.

There are many things I don’t fully understand about liberal internationalists, but their admiration for Harry Truman is the one that probably baffles me the most. If you wanted to choose a single political figure to stand in for your worldview, you would not pick Truman unless you had no other choice. Harry Truman left office with one of the worst approval ratings on record, and the public’s dissatisfaction was well-earned. It’s true that some important institutions began during Truman’s presidency with his support, but when we consider Truman’s foreign policy record overall it is not all that impressive or worthy of emulation. Many of the worst policies of the Cold War have their origin in the Truman Doctrine that made containment into the global, militarized policy that it became. Of all the bad foreign policy presidents one could choose to defend for ideological reasons, Truman is one of the strangest choices available.