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Who really said it

If you can't convince them, confuse them

Not Truman's maxim — he was quoting a trick he condemned Harry S. Truman 1884–1972 · 33rd President of the United States
Disputed Free to reuse

Truman really did say these words — twice in the 1948 campaign — but never as advice. At Dexter, Iowa on 18 September 1948 he called it “an old political trick”; at Raleigh, North Carolina on 19 October 1948 he called it “the old Republican doctrine.” Both times he was accusing his opponents of using it. Quote Investigator finds the adage already in print in 1919, and treats Truman as the man who popularised it rather than the man who coined it.

Last verified 9 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“If you can't convince them, confuse them” Harry S. Truman spoke the line at Dexter, Iowa on 18 September 1948 — "It's an old political trick. 'If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.' But this time it won't work." — accusing his opponents of using it, not recommending it. He used the familiar "them" wording at Raleigh, North Carolina on 19 October 1948, calling it "the old Republican doctrine." Quote Investigator finds the adage in print by 1919. — Quotle.info

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In context

Evoking the world of Harry S. Truman — 33rd President of the United States. Theme: "If you can't convince them, confuse them". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Spoken by
Harry S. Truman, quoting an adage he pinned on his opponents
Source
Address at Dexter, Iowa, on the Occasion of the National Plowing Match
Date
18 September 1948
Earliest in print
Manchester Quarterly, 1919 — per Quote Investigator

On the one hand, the Republicans are telling industrial workers that the high cost of food in the cities is due to this Government’s farm policy. On the other hand, the Republicans are telling the farmers that the high cost of manufactured goods on the farm is due to this Government’s labor policy. That’s plain hokum. It’s an old political trick. “If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em.” But this time it won’t work. He was the prosecutor, not the author

At Dexter, Truman used the clipped “’em” form. The exact wording that circulates today appears in his address at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, North Carolina on 19 October 1948: “I don’t think you are going to be the victims this time of the old Republican doctrine: ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’” In both speeches the quotation marks are Truman’s own — he was citing somebody else’s maxim.

Address at Dexter, Iowa, on the Occasion of the National Plowing Match (18 September 1948)

How we verified this

  • The Truman Library’s public papers text of the Dexter address ↗ carries the line in full: “That’s plain hokum. It’s an old political trick. ‘If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em.’ But this time it won’t work.” The scare quotes are in the official text.
  • A month into the campaign, Truman used the familiar wording himself. The American Presidency Project’s text of his address at the State Fairgrounds, Raleigh, North Carolina, 19 October 1948 ↗ reads: “I don’t think you are going to be the victims this time of the old Republican doctrine: ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’”
  • Quote Investigator ↗ traces the maxim back well before Truman: its earliest located use in print is an article by A. C. Wilson in the Manchester Quarterly in 1919, describing the character Christopher Vance in a William De Morgan novel — “If you cannot convince them, confuse them” might have been his motto. QI notes Wilson may himself have been repeating an existing adage.
  • Barry Popik’s citation file ↗ shows how quickly it detached from Truman: the Richmond Times-Dispatch of 19 September 1948 reported the Dexter line with “them” for “’em,” and by 21 December 1950 a letter in the Pittsburgh Press was already calling it “the old adage.”
Public domain

Both documented appearances are free of copyright. The adage was already in print in 1919, and the wording quoted here comes from Truman’s 1948 presidential addresses, published in the Public Papers of the Presidents as works of the United States federal government. No individual holds a claim in a proverb of this length.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How Truman got the credit

This is not a fabricated quote — it is a real one with its meaning turned inside out. Truman spoke the words, but every time he did, he put them in quotation marks and handed them to his opponents. Strip the sentence out of the paragraph and the accuser becomes the adviser.

Harry S. Truman not his

Truman introduced the line as “an old political trick” at Dexter and as “the old Republican doctrine” at Raleigh — he was naming a tactic, not coining one. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes the adage “was in circulation by 1919” and that Truman “helped to popularize the expression… but he was not endorsing the approach outlined by the maxim. He was criticizing it.”

Laurence J. Peter codified it

Quote Investigator records that Peter’s 1977 Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time printed it as “Truman’s Law — If you can’t convince them, confuse them” credited to Truman, without providing any context ↗. Paul Dickson’s The Official Rules carries the same “Truman’s Law” heading, as Barry Popik documents ↗. That is the form most quote sites still reprint.

Will Rogers also claimed

A “Show Time” column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch of 20 July 1964 offered it as “Will Rogers’ advice: ‘If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em’” — recorded in Popik’s citation file ↗. No source ties the line to Rogers; it is the sort of drift a widely circulating proverb attracts.

Truman said it, twice, in the autumn of 1948 — both times as an accusation against his opponents. Wikiquote flags the problem directly: his mention of an “old political trick” is often quoted alone as if it were a strategy he was advising rather than one he was criticizing ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

The Dexter speech was an attack on a specific piece of two-faced messaging. Truman told the crowd that Republicans were blaming urban food prices on the administration’s farm policy while simultaneously blaming farm costs on its labour policy — a story tuned to whichever audience was listening. “That’s plain hokum,” he said, and then named the technique.

So the line was never a wink at the reader. It was an indictment, delivered with the maxim held up like an exhibit. That is precisely what makes it such an efficient misquote: the sentence is quotable on its own, sounds like worldly advice, and carries a president’s name — and the paragraph that reverses it does not fit on a poster.

It’s an old political trick. But this time it won’t work.

The wording problem

At Dexter Truman used the spoken contraction — “If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em” — and the next day’s Richmond Times-Dispatch printed it as “them.” A month later at Raleigh, Truman used “them” himself. Both forms are authentically his; neither is his invention.

The 1919 attestation Quote Investigator found is not a political one at all. A. C. Wilson was writing in the Manchester Quarterly about Christopher Vance, a character in a William De Morgan novel who baffled people to get his way — the maxim was offered as what might have been his motto. Whether Wilson coined it or was repeating something already current, QI does not settle.

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Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: If You Can't Convince Them, Confuse Themquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: traces the adage to 1919, and establishes that Truman popularised it while criticising it.
"If you can't convince them, confuse them"barrypopik.com

Barry Popik's dated citation file, 1948 to the present — including the Will Rogers misfire and the "Truman's Law" quotation-book entries.
Address at Dexter, Iowa, on the Occasion of the National Plowing Matchtrumanlibrary.gov

Primary source: the official Public Papers text of the 18 September 1948 speech, with the line in context.
Address at the State Fairgrounds, Raleigh, North Carolinapresidency.ucsb.edu

Primary source for the popular wording: Truman's 19 October 1948 address, where he calls it "the old Republican doctrine."
Harry S. Trumanen.wikiquote.org

Carries the Dexter passage with an explicit editorial warning that the line is often quoted as advice he gave.
Harry S. Trumanen.wikipedia.org

Biographical background on the 33rd president and the 1948 campaign in which both speeches were delivered.

The man who quoted it

About Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

1884–1972 · 33rd President of the United States

Truman succeeded to the presidency on Franklin Roosevelt’s death in 1945 and won a term of his own in the 1948 election, campaigning in a punishing whistle-stop tour that most observers expected him to lose. The Dexter and Raleigh speeches belong to that campaign, and both show his characteristic method: name the opponent’s tactic out loud, in the opponent’s own words, and let the audience judge it. It is a rhetorical habit that has cost him repeatedly in the quotation books — the maxims he held up for scorn read, stripped of their setting, like maxims he endorsed.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this page

Harry S. Truman, "Address at Dexter, Iowa, on the Occasion of the National Plowing Match," 18 September 1948, Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Truman was quoting an existing adage, not coining one; the earliest use in print located by Quote Investigator is A. C. Wilson in the Manchester Quarterly, 1919.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you can't convince them, confuse them’?” Last verified 9 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-cant-convince-them-confuse-them/

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