It would have been hard for any successor to Franklin D. Roosevelt to have gained the nation’s approval. But the contrast between the patrician, regal Roosevelt and the bespectacled, unimposing Missourian was particularly stark. Moreover, the years immediately following the end of World War II were unsettling: A wave of strikes by labor unions determined to make up for the wartime wage freeze, rampant inflation, the first signs of an emerging Cold War with the Soviet Union that shattered the hopes of a post-war tranquility. The discontent was clear when the 1946 midterms brought Republicans into control of the Congress for the first time in 16 years. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Democratic coalition was beginning to come apart on both ends. On the left, former Vice President Henry Wallace — whom Truman fired as commerce secretary for his sympathetic views toward Russia — was mounting a presidential bid under the banner of the Progressive Party. On the right, Southerners were chafing at Truman’s civil rights agenda, which included federal laws to crack down on lynchings and poll taxes, and a bigger federal role combating employment discrimination. Mississippi Gov. Fielding Wright, in his inaugural address, warned his fellow Democrats that they could not rely on the South’s electoral votes.