A Liberal Dose, August 1, 2025 "Superman and the Meaning of Truth, Justice, and the American Way"

 

A Liberal Dose

“Superman and the Meaning of Truth, Justice, and the American Way”

Troy D. Smith

 

This week I’m going to talk about something near and dear to my heart -comic books and comic book heroes. Anyone who know me knows I have been a comics nerd my whole life. I teach a class at Tech on the history of comics, and last year Mississippi University Press published my book on race and the history of comics, “Shaolin Brew”. So, of course, I am excited about the new Superman movie.

One of my fondest childhood memories is seeing the 1978 Christopher Reeves Superman movie at the Sparta Drive-In. Reeves was the quintessential Man of Steel. Like a lot of fans, I was not impressed with Zack Snyder’s more recent film versions, starring Henry Cavill, because it didn’t FEEL like Superman. It was darker, more pessimistic, and Superman himself killed people and paid little attention to the damage and danger to civilians his fights caused. The Superman most of us grew up with was nicknamed The Big Blue Boy Scout, and STOOD for something: Truth, Justice, and the American Way (which we all understood to mean equality and fair play). He was aspirational. Although their powers are different, DC’s Superman and Marvel’s Captain America have one thing in common (besides their color scheme): their real power was their intrinsic goodness, their kindness, their inspirational attitude, their strict code of ethics. James Gunn’s new Superman has captured this once more, and made it the heart of the film.

And… Superman is an immigrant (and not a legal one). Gunn has referenced this in interviews… and the MAGAsphere has (predictably) gone nuts. “When did Superman go woke!” some are saying (just as some say “when did Star Trek go woke!”) And the answer, of course -in both cases -is FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. Superman debuted in 1938, and in those early years he did not fight aliens or supervillains. He fought corrupt politicians, organized crime, slumlords, and evil industrialists who cheated their workers. So did most of those earliest superheroes. In 1946, in a sixteen-part storyline of his radio show, Superman took on the Ku Klux Klan (at the time trying to make a comeback from their decline 20 years earlier), exposing their methods and evil to a national audience (and curtailing their attempt at a resurgence).

Starting in the 1950s, DC ran house ads in their books that were public service announcements, often made by Superman. Here is the text of one:

“And remember, boys and girls, your school -like our country -is made up of Americans of MANY different races, religions, and national origins, so… if YOU hear anyone talk against a schoolmate or anyone else because of his religion, race, or national origin -don’t wait: tell him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN.”

THAT is the Superman we grew up with. A character created by two young men who were the sons of Jewish immigrants. As, in fact, most of the early 1930s/1940s superheroes were, including Batman and Captain America. As was Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit and one of the greatest comics artists of all time, a title for which he is rivaled by Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzburg to Jewish immigrant parents). As was Max Gaines, who created the comic book as an art form. And have you ever heard of Stan Lee? Real name: Stanley Lieber, son of Romanian Jewish immigrants.

These Jewish writers and artists knew about oppression. Their parents had fled it in Europe, and suffered it anew from the KKK in the 1920s when these guys were young kids. They understood the appeal of an aspirational hero who stands up for the little guy, for the oppressed, for the victimized. Who stood against oppression, even when the laws allowed it. Who stood AGAINST corruption in high places, not in SUPPORT of it. Think about the origin story of Superman, then think of Moses… saved as an infant from destruction by being sent forth by his parents in a small vessel, found by people of another race who raised him as their own, but who eventually realized he had to stand up for what is right and embrace his true identity, not the one provided to him… think on that, and realize just how Jewish the story of Superman actually is.

But many on the far right want to erase that version of Superman, and instead make him a cold agent of the establishment with no “wokeness” about him. The same way they want to change how history is learned and taught, to make it align with their own radical and racist agenda (try denying that, and then explain why every picture and exhibit in our military museums that does not show white males was taken down after Trump took office and why books about Rosa Parks and Jackie Robinson are being removed from school libraries). And they are now defining “wokeness” not just as positive attention given to women and minorities… but to the very concepts of KINDNESS and FAIRNESS.

In other words, they have declared war on truth, justice, and the (true) American Way.

I’ll quote another of those 1950s Superman ads, in which a white man assumed the white kid had acted heroically when it was actually his black friend who had, to which Superman said: “Because of his color?...You just jumped to a conclusion because of a common prejudice!”, a mistake people make “mostly because they have forgotten an elementary truth! That people are people, and should be judged as such, regardless of color or beliefs!”

I stand with the Man of Steel… not the un-American Man of Steal.

P.S. -a chapter of Young Democrats has formed in White County. If you are under 36 and interested, give me a holler and I’ll hook you up with them.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE 

A Liberal Dose, July 25, 2025 "A Historic Downfall May Be Echoed Today with Donald Trump"

 

A Liberal Dose

“A Historic Downfall May Be Echoed Today with Donald Trump”

Troy D. Smith

 

During a wave of racism and anti-immigrant hysteria, this man and his movement gained enormous power and support all around the country, but especially in the rural South and Midwest. It all came crashing down, though, when his true nature (never really that hidden) was revealed to them in the form of a lurid scandal connected to sexual abuse. He was toppled from power -many of his politician friends going down with him -and his movement was crippled as his own followers, not able to rationalize or justify this outrage, abandoned him, and it spread like falling dominoes around the country.

Of whom do I speak?

Of course, I am referencing David Curtis (D.C.) Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan and one of the most powerful Klansmen in America in the 1920s, which was the high point of KKK membership.

The KKK was started in Pulaski, TN, right after the end of the Civil War (with Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest their first major leader). Fighting  against Reconstruction and civil rights, they targeted former slaves and Republicans (the Party of Lincoln) for violence, to suppress their votes. In 1871, at the request of President U.S. Grant, Congress passed the Force Act, also called the Ku Klux Klan Act. In modern terminology, it identified organized attempts to deprive people of their civil rights by violence to be an act of terrorism, and authorized the use of federal troops to root it out. This was done, and the KKK faded into the history books -for a while.

In the early 1900s, a writer from North Carolina (whose father and uncle had been prominent local Klan leaders in the 1860s) named Thomas Dixon wrote a series of popular novels set during Reconstruction, culminating in “The Clansman” (1905). That novel was popular and compelling enough that visionary filmmaker D.W. Griffith made it the basis of the first full-length motion picture in 1915, “Birth of a Nation.” This is considered a very historically important film, because it established what would become norms for historical epics and movies in general afterwards, especially in filming techniques.

 The movie, and the book that inspired it, celebrated the “Lost Cause” ideology, whose tenets include claims that the Civil War was not about slavery at all, that slaves were generally happy and well-treated and slavery was actually not that bad. The plot revolved around a Confederate officer returning home to SC from the war, only to discover that the evil Yankee carpetbaggers -using the evil ex-slaves as dupes and thugs -have cheated and elected a bunch of black guys to public office, and they have done horrible things such as legalize interracial marriage. The black men are also ravishing white women left and right. The hero responds by forming a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, and the story revolves around the heroic Klan members chasing out the carpetbaggers and ex-slaves.

The movie was unbelievably popular -and it led to a major resurgence of the KKK, stronger than it had been in the 1860s because it was not confined to the South. It was all over the country. It is estimated that one out of every seven white men in America were Klan members by the 1920s. The strongest enclave was in Indiana, where one out of every THREE white men was a member. It became socially acceptable all over the country- many major universities had official Klan student groups. It was in this time period, 1915-1925, that statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest started going up all over the country, including the north and the west.

This version of the Klan hated immigrants, Jews, and Catholics as much as they hated African Americans. They didn’t use the Confederate flag at their actions, they used the U.S. flag. And D.C. Stephenson rose to the top in their stronghold state, Indiana, and was in charge of recruiting in seven other states. Many politicians in Indiana (and elsewhere) were either members or contributed money to the cause. Their stated purpose was protecting the purity of America -and especially the purity and safety of white women.

Then Stephenson was arrested in 1925 for the kidnapping and rape of Madge Oberholtzer, a young state employee and educator. She attempted suicide while in his captivity, but it was the staph infection caused by the many savage bite marks Stephenson left that killed her and led to his murder charge. During his trial it was revealed that many in the top ranks of the Klan, who preached moral purity and the sacred status of white women, were doing similar things… and Stephenson’s connections to major politicians, including the Indiana governor, were revealed.    

People quit the Klan in droves. They had not minded the hatred of and violence toward immigrants and religious and racial minorities… but they had framed their very identities, and their sense of heroism, on the protection of white women, and their own leaders violated that ideal in huge ways. The rank-and-file members could not justify the contradiction, and felt betrayed. The Klan did not start coming back until the 1950s and the Civil Rights movement.

Which brings me to Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and MAGA. Absolutely nothing has shaken MAGA’s faith in Trump -until now, with strong indications he was part of Epstein’s underage girl sex trafficking. MAGA has framed THEIR identity and sense of heroism on the protection of CHILDREN (specifically white children, they never seem too concerned about others), and in fact have used that as the justification for many of Trump’s actions. Ban trans people to protect our young girls, in the bathroom and on the playing field. Ban immigrants because they are champing at the bit to rape our children. Attack Democrats from Hillary Clinton to Tom Hanks because they are allegedly part of a child sex ring. They were foaming at the mouth to get at the Epstein documents, because they were convinced all the libs they hated were on it.

But now it looks like their hero is. And for the first time, they are questioning him, some even abandoning him. Because he seems guilty of the one thing they framed, and justified, their whole identity on, and for some it is a bridge too far. Just like D.C. Stephenson.

Stay tuned.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, July 11, 2025 "You're All About to Lose a Lot of Valuable Services"

 

A Liberal Dose

“You’re All About to Lose a Lot of Valuable Services”

Troy D. Smith

 

Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” has been passed and signed into law. Surveys show it to be an extremely unpopular bill -except, I guess, among the roughly 800 billionaires in America, of whom 33 make a billion or more a year- because of the massive tax breaks in it for them. Those are the folks Donald Trump works for, and respects… not the working class and middle class in America, including his own followers. The “bottom” sixty percent of Americans will wind up paying roughly the same amount, or -the lower you get in that group -significantly more. Meanwhile, the deficit -which Republicans claim must be brought down every time a Democrat is in the White House -will go up by over three trillion dollars. (By the way, over the last half-century, the deficit has always gone UP under Republican presidents, and DOWN under Democrats. Look it up.)

However, the Trump administration has brought down some expenses. Through all the mass firings of government workers Elon’s college-aged DOGE wonder boys have made, for starters. And we’ve seen the effects. In addition to killing Meals on Wheels, Americorps, and Head Start, we have seen the gutting of PUBLIC parks (which Trump now wants to charge admission to enter), the Federal Aviation Administration, leading to skeleton crews of air traffic controllers and to a huge upsurge in delays and crashes, and medical research (by the way, Trump has ordered a halt on all research into sickle cell anemia, a disease that is closely associated with the African American community, because of “DEI”).

Oh… and the cuts have severely hamstrung  NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which oversees the National Weather Service. When they started doing that, right after the inauguration, I warned in this column that there were about to be a lot more weather-related fatalities once the government’s ability to track storms and floods has been hampered, as well as their ability to issue timely warnings and coordinate responses. Trump supporters have been crying out loudly that those cuts had nothing to do with the results of the terrible Texas flood that killed over a hundred people last week. But here are some facts about the region that flooded: the National Weather Services in San Angelo was missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster, and a meteorologist. The San Antonio office was also missing a meteorologist, with a warning coordination specialty (theirs took Elon’s early retirement offer) as well as a science offer. All told, twice as many unfilled positions as they normally have. Did that cause the flood? No. But it sure as heck didn’t help in efforts to mitigate the damage and save lives.

Remember how, on the campaign trail, Trump promised up and down that he would never touch Medicaid? Well, his new Big Beautiful Bill, which I guess they’ll now rename the Large Lovely Law, cuts ONE TRILLION DOLLARS from Medicaid, which will result in eleven million people losing their health insurance (and a lot of them dying). Well, after all, as Republican  Joni Ernst said, “We are all going to die”. And as Mitch McConnell said, “They’ll get over it.” “To heck with those lazy poor people,” you might say. Except… eleven million people unable to go to the hospital will have dire consequences for hospitals, especially rural ones, who get a large percentage of their money from Medicaid. Already, the only hospitals in Sparta and Smithville are on the list of about a dozen statewide that are expected to have to close down as a result of this law. Fact is, in the past few years several rural hospitals have closed, including a couple in our region… because our state’s Republican politicians refused to accept the federal government’s offer to expand Medicaid, because they think Medicaid is “socialist”. (Side note: remember that viral clip of the elderly Republican lady in 2008 saying “That socialist Obama… better keeps his hands off my Medicaid!”)

Well, you may say, “I always go to the Cookeville hospital anyway.” Guess what -everyone in Sparta and Smithville will be going to Cookeville now, which will overwhelm them… can you imagine the wait times? Or you might say “I’m not on Medicaid, I’m on Tenncare (or my mom is, or my nana).” Guess what. TENNCARE IS MEDICAID.

But I guess it’s okay, because under this new law billionaires can count the entire cost of their private jets off on their taxes now. And Trump can hire 10,000 more ICE agents (they probably get their masks in bulk), and maybe toss in a few alligators to eat immigrants.

Remember when Project 2025 leaked and Trump claimed he had never even heard of it, and had no intention of doing the things in it? And every time I brought it up, people accused me of spreading fake news, because Trump said he wasn’t going to do it? And how I kept saying “Trump lies constantly”? Everything that has been done the last six months is from the Project 2025 playbook.

Donald Trump is not a salesman, he is a con artist, and always has been. He has no respect, compassion, or even interest in the middle and working class, whom he views only as rubes to be cheated. He led you on, he lied to you, he conned you, into voting him into office… and now he has no use for you, and he is going to fleece you like a three-legged sheep. And I haven’t even mentioned (this week!) the havoc he is wreaking on the economy.

By the way, the very WORST parts of the new law are designed not to go into effect until after the midterm elections, so voters won’t notice they’ve been conned. Look into it.

No one should be embarrassed over being conned by a master. But you should not fall for the same tricks over and over again. Get out there in the midterm elections and make your vote count.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, July 4, 2025 "A Country Founded on Resistance to Violent Oppression"

 

A Liberal Dose

A Country Founded on Resistance to Violent Oppression

Troy D. Smith

 

Four-and-a-half years ago, at their idol’s behest and encouragement, MAGA extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol and assaulted police officers, then desecrated the building, among other actions smearing the walls with feces. Scores of police were injured. People died. Vice-President Pence ran for his life, as the mob had erected a scaffold and said they were going to hang him. All while Donald Trump watched on TV and delayed action to stop them. The footage of those attacks is chilling. Hundreds of the rioters were eventually arrested, and some were convicted of conspiracy and sedition. It was one of the lowest days in our national history.

And one of the first things Trump did when he got back in office was pardon them all.

The month after that January 6, I began writing this column. From the outset, I have been warning readers about the dangers of violent rhetoric, a tactic that Trump uses constantly to motivate his followers. Such incendiary language can cause unstable people to act on it, or -as on January 6 -cause ordinarily stable people to be swept along in a violent mob.

Since then, in addition to the many violent racially-motivated hate crimes (which have skyrocketed since Trump went into politics), there has been a steady drumbeat of violence by MAGA extremists. A guy broke into Nancy Pelosi’s house and almost beat her husband to death with a hammer. A guy in Minnesota went on a fatal shooting spree targeting Democratic legislators. While there have also been violent episodes on the other side, they are dwarfed in comparison -despite the fact that conservative media always immediately tries to paint the attackers (as in both the above cases) as liberals. Heck, two people have tried to assassinate Trump, and both of them were his former supporters, not left-wingers. Meanwhile. anti-Trump protesters causing property damage is painted as the very height of violence -which shows that some people value their property over lives.

This has been Trump’s tactic from the beginning. In his first campaign, he encouraged people at his rallies to beat up protesters, for police to rough them up, and tried to get his military to shoot protesters in the legs. Those latter two examples represent something beyond incendiary rhetoric aimed at his supporters -it is the literal use of force by the government to suppress or punish dissent.

And what have we seen, six months into his term? Every time you turn on the television, you see Democrats or other anti-Trump activists being arrested, usually very roughly, for the flimsiest of reasons. Often just for asking questions or for speaking aloud. Democratic Congress members have been arrested for trespassing when they exercised their right as lawmakers to inspect ICE detention facilities. Members of Congress have been arrested at a Homeland Security press briefing for asking questions, and charged with assault. The New York City Comptroller (and mayoral candidate) was arrested while escorting a defendant out of a court hearing, for demanding to see the ID of the masked ICE agents, also accused of assault (the whole thing is on video). Around the country, ordinary citizens have been zip-tied and carried out of town hall meetings for asking questions or directing statements at Republican politicians.

This is not even accounting for ICE agents hiding their identities behind masks and bearing no identifying insignia grabbing people off the street -in several cases, U.S. citizens who committed no crime other than being Latino. Or for Trump mobilizing the National Guard and the Marines for a “riot” in a tiny section of one neighborhood of Los Angeles, or for the many cases (on video!) of local police there deliberately and with no provocation shooting rubber bullets at reporters just standing there on camera doing their job. Or for the many immigrants being grabbed off the street, thrown into jail, and deported, with no hearing or due process whatsoever.

In Cookeville this past Monday, members of the local chapter of Young Democrats attended a county commission meeting to address their concerns about the county sheriff there coordinating with ICE when he has stated publicly that he is not. After the meeting concluded, the VP of Putnam County Young Democrats approached one of the county commissioners to ask a question -and he was grabbed by deputies, wrestled into another room, and then sent to jail. His crime? According to deputies, “walking too fast” when he approached the commissioner.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL. At least not in the United States. It is very, very normal in authoritarian, fascist countries, which we are in danger of rapidly turning into.

Many of y’all are going to be grilling in the backyard this weekend, wearing Uncle Sam hats and singing along to that 1980s song that goes “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.” Just two months after doing the same thing on Memorial Day, which is supposed to be a day for honoring those who have given their lives to preserve that freedom. Well, don’t forget what our county was founded on -249 years ago TODAY. Opposition to a tyrannical, despotic king, whose soldiers regularly arrested people without due process, imprisoned them in foreign countries, and shot at protesters.

I AM proud to be an American. While I openly and readily recognize all my country’s flaws and failings, in the past and today, I am proud of what it is MEANT to be, what it SHOULD be, what it COULD be.

And people, this ain’t it. Y’all need to wake up and look around. It is slipping away from us.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, June 27, 2025 "Trump Supporters -Is This What You Voted For?"

 

A Liberal Dose

“Trump Supporters -Is This What You Voted For?”

Troy D. Smith

 

I know that many of those who read this weekly column are aligned with me politically -but not everyone. Some might be more in the middle, or significantly right of center. Others, of course, are way right of center, and some of those folks read my thoughts to give themselves something to cuss about. Wherever you fit on that spectrum, I am aiming this week’s column on those who voted for Donald Trump -especially those who are conservative but not necessarily full-tilt MAGA.

Now, if you’ve ever read my column at all, you know how I feel about Donald Trump. I think he is a racist, sexist, immoral, corrupt, greedy, dishonest, not-too-bright, lazy, self-centered, elitist, criminal, serial sexual abuser who is sliding into dementia. If you voted for him, you probably either believe none of that is true, or you believe some of it is kind of true but mostly exaggerated, or you believe it is probably mostly true but you don’t care because you like other things about him. In any of those cases, it does me no good to hammer home to you why I believe those things. So instead I’m going to talk about some other things, many of them related to his “one big beautiful bill.”

This bill is going to add three trillion dollars to the national debt. Is that what you voted for?

It is going to give massive tax breaks to billionaires, who already pay far less than their share. In fact, the bill has been described as the biggest transfer of wealth upward in American history… it will result in the top 10% making (even more) of a killing, while the bottom 10% will have even less than now- while those in the middle will have only negligible gains at best, and may end up paying more.

Is that what you voted for?

It will cut a TRILLION DOLLARS from Medicaid and SNAP (what we used to call food stamps). And STILL leave us three trillion in the hole, due to the tax cuts to the wealthy. And many conservative legislators want to see cuts to Medicare and Social Security added to it. Is that what you voted for?

It will result in almost eight million Americans losing their health insurance, and almost six million losing their SNAP benefits completely. As I continue to point out, you may not be poor and therefore don’t think you have to worry about this, but your mama or your nana probably do. Is that what you voted for?

It has provisions empowering the president to lay off federal workers hired by Congress without consulting Congress, and preventing judges from interfering with any of his actions in any way -thereby crippling two of the three CO-EQUAL branches of government. Is that what you voted for?

Meanwhile, millions of people have lost their jobs, and vital services have been lost, due to chainsaw-like cuts by DOGE. Veterans are either going to lose their healthcare or find it ten times harder to access, parks are closing, airplanes are flying into each other in the sky, Meals on Wheels, Headstart, Americorps, and many other valuable programs have been killed off, military capabilities have been crippled, and as a result the markets have fluctuated wildly. Is that what you voted for?

Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs are already raising prices, and will raise them a lot more. As a result, America’s credit rating and the value of the dollar have been downgraded. Is that what you voted for?

A lot of you wanted a president who would be tougher on immigration, because of your perception of an immigrant crime wave, and you responded to Trump’s promise to deport the ones who are dangerous criminals. Now law enforcement and the military have been pulled from their regular (important) jobs to help ICE, who are running around WEARING MASKS, with no badges or insignia to indicate they even are who they say they are, grabbing people seemingly randomly off the street. Steven Miller (who has no actual elected or congressionally-appointed position) has given them a blanket order to arrest three thousand people per day. Actual criminals, it turns out, are hard to catch -but it’s easy to catch children at school, legally present immigrants who lawfully show up at their court hearings, soccer players, beloved community members, families of U.S. military personnel, or people who are actually U.S. citizens -and imprison them long enough to load them on a plane and send them, for life, to hellish prisons in countries they’ve never even been to.

Is that what you voted for?

Some of you supported Trump because he presented himself as the anti-war president, criticizing interventionist “global policing” “forever wars” in the Middle East… and he just blundered us into one, over theoretical “weapons of mass destruction” (doesn’t that sound familiar?). Oh, he immediately declared “victory” (also familiar) and a “ceasefire” that didn’t even last a full day. Your loved ones in military service may well end up being shot over it in a foreign desert. Iran is certainly going to retaliate by sponsoring more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil… which will work, because the entire FBI and Homeland Security are at Home Depot looking for Mexicans. Oh, side note: this is going to make the price of gas go through the roof this summer.

Is that what you voted for?

Now, maybe you voted for owning the libs, and provoking “liberal tears”, or because you relish the suffering of people not just like you. If that’s the case, congratulations. But most of you voted to improve the economy and bring down prices.

And all THIS is most certainly not what you voted for. Everything you were told would improve “on day one” has gotten worse, and we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. Everything you were promised has proven to be empty.

Aren’t you even just a little bit mad about that?

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, June 20, 2025 "Some of Y'all Need to Calm Down and Take a Breath"

 

A Liberal Dose

“Some of Y’all Need to Calm Down and Take a Breath”

Troy D. Smith

About ten years ago, one of the African American fraternities on the Tennessee Tech campus -if I remember correctly, in partnership with the NAACP -organized a Black Lives Matter event on Centennial Plaza. I knew the young men who organized it, several were my students, and they were all stellar community role models. However, on social media (especially Facebook), a large number of local citizens freaked out about it and many said they were going to grab their guns and show up to contain these “rioters.” The police actually had to close down Dixie Avenue and cordon the area to protect the protesters from enraged, paranoid, gun-wielding conservatives. One (white) student asked if I was going to cancel class, because they had heard the black protesters had said they were going to shoot every white male and rape every white female they saw. I let class out just a few minutes early, right before the event started (right outside our building), so that scared people could go out the back door and leave campus and anyone who wanted to could walk out the front door and attend the rally (which I did).

And the rally… was a joyous event, with a huge number of non-black allies present, and ended in a moving group hug.

Five years later almost the same thing happened on the square in Cookeville, at the rally after the murder of George Floyd. Local conservatives were painting an apocalyptic picture of insane rioters all set to burn down the city, and encouraged one another to grab their guns and go stop it, and the police had to protect the protesters (even the FBI was present for that one)… who had a peaceful protest.

Last Saturday, a rally was held on the Cookeville square as part of the national “No Kings” protest on the day of Trump’s birthday military parade. I was one of the speakers. In the days before the event, social media was on fire with paranoid people freaking out. I saw individuals I knew saying things like “The rioters are coming!” and “Please God protect us!” I saw people threatening to come shoot the “rioters.” Despite that, there was a huge turnout- the largest I have ever seen for a protest of any kind in Cookeville. They trickled in slowly at first, perhaps waiting to see if it was going to rain, but before long they were pouring in. 600 of them altogether over the course of the three-hour event, which was one of 2,200 such events across the country that day involving seven million people. That’s roughly two percent of the population of the entire United States.

Other than what was going on in Los Angeles (more on that in a minute) and one or two isolated incidents around the country, these were non-destructive and peaceful protests. Any aggression that showed up in these 2,200 events tended to be from counter-protesters. In Cookeville a truckload of boys in their late teens/early twenties drove around the square spraying protesters with an unknown liquid from an industrial paint sprayer, laughing and calling people names. Other protesters reported being cussed out (with their children present) and I’ve heard more than one describe a motorist threatening them with pepper spray.

And yet… it was an incredibly joyous event. Hundreds of people laughing and smiling together, bonding, as they shouted out their complaints about this administration. So… why were so many local conservatives reacting with paranoia and in some cases aggression?

Because the news media, as well as social media, were fanning the flames with their exaggerated reports. Even in L.A., the rallies were peaceful until Trump mobilized the National Guard and the Marines (over the objections of local government, who saw no serious threat taking place). And even with that, the news reports -especially on certain channels, but really across the board -focused on the violence taking place in one small neighborhood and made it look and sound like Los Angeles was in chaos and being burned to the ground, stoking the fears of conservative viewers -some of whom were compelled to at least threaten violence and death to people peacefully practicing their First Amendment right to assemble in protest (yes, it is a right guaranteed in the Constitution -and is in fact how our country was started). The irony is unbelievable- people up in arms (literally) over their friends and neighbors marching with signs -with their children! -as if it were some kind of enemy invasion, while a far-right lunatic was going around Minnesota shooting Democratic politicians and their families (even the dog).

I have been preaching in this column for years about how people need to tone down their aggression and look at facts they can see with their own eyes instead of being swept along by narratives of fear and hate. Here in our region, if you are conservative, at least one out of every three people you encounter every day -friends, neighbors, coworkers, family -DO NOT BELIEVE LIKE YOU DO. That does not mean they want to burn down the square or kill you in your sleep. They are STILL your friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family, not some alien other. Stop letting yourselves be manipulated into paranoia. And while you’re at it, maybe go back and re-watch the Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, June 13, 2025 "A Brief History of Democracy, Part 2"

 

A Liberal Dose

A Brief History of Democracy part 2

Troy D. Smith

 

Last week I wrote a little about how the Revolutionary generation viewed the word “democracy.” They equated it with “mob rule,” such as ran rampant in the French Revolution, and so worked to keep the common people from having too much power -primarily by having property requirements to vote. This meant that even free white men aged twenty-one or over could not vote unless they were worth a certain amount of money. That was the norm at the time, and is no doubt what the Framers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution. Of course, they also had in mind women and people of color not voting.

A handful of states removed property requirements in the 1790s and early 1800s. Vermont, at #14 the first new state, gave the vote to all adult males regardless of wealth or race. The majority, though, still had those requirements in place by 1820. But when the Panic of 1819 collapsed the economy, working class men started agitating for their voting rights. By the end of the 1820s, almost all states had removed wealth as a qualification to vote… which led to the election of Andrew Jackson, a populist who had grown up poor and presented as a man of the people. It also led to a reconfiguring of the word “democracy”, which started to carry a positive connotation, associated with social equality of the working class. In fact, by the 1820s the Federalist Party had collapsed, leaving the Democratic-Republican party of Jefferson and Madison as the only remaining political party… and during the Jackson era, they started being called simply “Democrats,” which they made official by changing their name in 1844.    

In the 1830s, a French traveler named Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a book (originally in French) called Democracy in America, which examined the character of Americans and sought to determine why their experiment with democracy had gone so much better than that of France. One thing he noted was that Americans love money, and generally hope to make more of it; that they don’t mind when an individual gets rich, but that they hate the idea of a handful of families, via generational wealth, becoming an aristocracy. He also noted that, unlike in Europe, you could not determine someone’s social status by how they dressed -in America poor people often dress well, so as not to appear poor, and rich people often dress like slobs so as not to be viewed as hoity-toity (not his exact words, of course). In other words, a social expectation of equality.

He did warn of two dangers to American democracy. First, the “tyranny of the majority” in which a majority group, having the most votes, can impinge on the rights of minorities. This danger was countermanded by things like the Bill of Rights, which protect individual liberties. Second, he warned of “soft despotism”, in which the government finagles a series of regulations to make voters FEEL LIKE they are participating, but which actually blind them to how they are being controlled and led to authoritarianism.

And that brings us to today, June 13. Tomorrow is Flag Day… and it is also Trump’s birthday, and the day of his massive military parade in his honor… and the date of over 1,800 planned “No King” demonstrations around the country. It also happens to be my wife’s and my anniversary (married on Flag Day!). There could be no better events to demonstrate the dangers facing democracy in America today from a militaristic authoritarian bully, and the American tradition -going back to the Boston Tea Party -of massive protest against tyranny. We are also seeing how, by ignoring the Constitution (and being allowed to get away with it), the current administration is imposing the tyranny of the majority -many of whom they have taken control of via soft despotism (which seems to be getting harder by the day).

The Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Those are our defense against tyranny. That is why military personnel and politicians pledge an oath to defend the Constitution, not to obey a president (or a king). The whole of U.S. history has revolved around trying “to make a more perfect union” by expanding rights, especially voting rights, to more and more people, not fewer and fewer.

This weekend, let our mantra be -not MAGA -but TAFA: Take American Forward Again.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE