A Liberal Dose, April 25, 2024 "Biden vs. Trump- By the Numbers"

 

A Liberal Dose

April 25, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“Biden versus Trump -by the numbers”

 

Each week for the last month, I’ve had progressive friends in White County tell me, “you need to respond to what Marsha Blackburn said last week, it’s outrageous.” So far, I have held off -for fear it would be all I ever wound up doing. It would probably take two or three columns to fact-check each one coming from that quarter. However, I’ve decided to take a stab at it.

First off, she’s been talking a lot about the border, walls, and impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas (for not securing the border). That effort was tossed out of the Senate, justifiably, as it did not come anywhere close to approaching the impeachment requirement of high crimes or misdemeanors. The fact is, Blackburn and just about the entire Republican Party have abdicated any authority they have to complain about the border. A bipartisan, Republican-led bill from the Senate offered to give conservatives everything they ever dreamed of regarding border security, and it looked set to breeze through the House… until Donald Trump demanded that his Congressional supporters not pass it, because then the problem would have been solved under Biden’s watch and Trump would not have it as a campaign issue. That is not conjecture, it is established fact. So, at the command of their self-centered orange potentate, they undercut their own measure when it was otherwise assured of success. This proves that most Republican politicians don’t really want to solve that issue, they want to have it perpetually unsolved so they can blame Democrats for it. Well, they’re the ones holding that particular bag now, and sudden cries of concern and outrage over a problem they chose to allow only proves their hypocrisy.

She has spent the balance of her time lately talking about the economy, claiming it would be far better under Trump than Biden. Let’s look at some facts (easily verifiable by a quick google search), and compare how Trump did in his four years versus what Biden has done so far (through January, 2024).

America lost 2.9 million jobs under Trump. So far, they have gained 14.3 million under Biden. Unemployment rose 6.3% under Trump, but has fallen 3.7% under Biden. The economic growth rate fell 3.4% under Trump, but has risen 2.5% under Biden. America lost 154,000 manufacturing jobs under Trump, and has gained 790,000 under Biden. The trade deficit went up 40.5% under Trump (despite that being a main focus of his policies), and has gone up an additional 20.9% under Biden. The budget deficit is currently just a little more than half what it was in Trump’s last year. In Trump’s final year, the murder rate was the highest it had been in 25 years, but it has fallen year-by-year under Biden (this surprises people, as conservative media makes it sound like we are living through an “American carnage” level crime wave).

A few things haven’t changed much. The poverty rate has stayed roughly the same for the past decade, and the number of people on food assistance has gone down tiny bit by tiny bit in that same timeframe.

The one area where Biden is not doing so well is inflation. Prices on everything went way up during and immediately after Covid. The inflation rate has slowed way down since then… but the problem is that, once prices go UP, they can STOP going up as fast, but they almost never go back DOWN. As a result, “real wages” -adjusted for inflation -are lower than they were under Trump. This despite the fact that the stock market has surged and the economy has grown by leaps and bounds… but the average person doesn’t feel that, they are feeling the squeeze.

Here’s something important to take into consideration. It is not just the U.S. that experienced that inflation surge -it was the WHOLE WORLD. Supply chain shortages during Covid got the ball rolling, but price gouging by businesses increased the effects. Here’s how we know that’s true: corporate profits rose by 8.5% under Trump, but have risen 38% since Covid under Biden. That’s what has been causing the squeeze you feel, not Biden’s policies. Ask yourself this: do you really believe that Donald Trump would take any steps to correct for businesses maximizing their profits on your back? You know as well as I do that he’d find ways to help them do it more. In fact, those corporate leaders are hoping you’ll vote for him so they can get even more of your money.

--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, April 18, 2024 "Your Voice Doesn't Matter to Them"

 

A Liberal Dose

April 18, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“Your Voice Doesn’t Matter to Them”

 

Last month, for the first time in several years, I accompanied several of my United Campus Workers colleagues from across Tennessee to the state capital for “lobby day.” It happens every March; UCW members and various allies converge on Nashville to spend the day meeting with legislators and encouraging them to support a handful of bills that our union has decided we can get behind. In recent years, the action has always taken place during UT’s spring break, and that has not coincided with Tech’s, meaning I was teaching that day. This year, though, the stars aligned.

About ten years ago, UCW had a sustained campaign to try to get the Tennessee General Assembly to protect the Tennessee jobs threatened when our previous governor wanted to outsource all state building facilities jobs to a company in Chicago. For an entire semester, I went to Nashville every Tuesday (which I had off) with one or two fellow UCW members to talk to lawmakers one-on-one. A couple of folks I talked to last month remembered me from those days (and, by the way, the General Assembly came through for us back then, with a majority of them signing a letter to the governor opposing his plan).

We had several bills to promote this year, most of them things I would think most anybody would find worthwhile. There was a proposal (offered by Gloria Johnson) to significantly raise the minimum wage; there was one for free breakfast and lunch for public school students; there was one to establish six weeks of leave for employees who have taken on a new foster child. I talked with about a dozen legislators that day, all Republicans. Most of them (with one glaring -and rude -exception) were gracious and gave us a hearing, and a couple said they could support our initiatives if they made it out of committee and to the floor. I’d like to point out that this experience, and our union’s victory on the facilities workers issue, shows that you CAN still reach across the divide and find common ground on things if you try.

But then, at the end of the afternoon, I saw something that I found very disheartening -and a significant change from how things were just ten years ago.

Several of us sat in on the committee meeting where Johnson offered her minimum wage bill. She was near the end of the agenda, so we were there for the whole thing and saw several bills being presented, most of them from Democratic lawmakers (who have been a relatively small minority there for years, after having been the majority for decades before that). In each of these brief discussions, the single Democrat sitting on the committee in question asked relevant questions of the presenters about details.

Most of the rest of the committee, though, were sitting up there laughing and joking among themselves, or engaging in unrelated side conversations, talking over the presenter. The only time they turned their attention to the matter at hand was when the vote was called for and they said “no.” It was incredibly arrogant. The lawmaker who had been so rude to us in his office was on that committee; I had tried to tell him that there were studies which backed up our assertion that raising the minimum wage did not hurt the economy, and he’d said he had never heard of such studies. Johnson had one of my colleagues, a political economics professor from UT, testify about exactly such a study that day, and this guy and his colleagues talked over and ignored him the whole time.

Now, that guy didn’t surprise me. But as I have thought about that day since, and how respectful everyone else was to us, their constituents, on an individual level and yet how rude they were as a group, I’ve come to think it is reflective of a larger trend.

It’s hard to be rude to someone looking you right in the eye -in part because you see their humanity. But many Republicans in our legislature have gotten so used to thinking they have all the power, they no longer even acknowledge, much less listen to, voices from the other side. It no longer matters what you say, or what you want or need. If you are not in lockstep with them, you don’t matter.

Let’s all get to the ballot box in November and show them that theirs is not the only voice in this state.

--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, April 11, 2024 "Stop the Death-March of Education in This State"

A Liberal Dose

April 11, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“Stop the death march of education in this state”

 

This weekend I spoke with Matthew Hawn (for reasons I will explain below). When comparing notes, we realized we both graduated from Tennessee Tech twenty years ago next month, and that we had many of the same professors and were even in some of the same classes, so we must have crossed paths. I was a History and English major and he was an Education major, so we may not have traveled the same social orbits… but we are aware of each other now, and the fact we have so much in common makes that even more noteworthy.

Matthew spent sixteen years teaching at the Sullivan County High School, including a class he taught for over ten years called “Contemporary Topics.” He was beloved by his students, and had never given anyone cause for complaint. Until the Tennessee General Assembly passed the so-called “critical race theory” and “divisive concepts” laws, and he actually discussed race (and assigned a reading by noted African American author Ta-Nehisi Coates) to his high school students. He became the first Tennessee educator to be fired under those laws (making national news -as is usual for Tennessee lately, not in a good way).

Tennessee is not the only state with such laws (but all the ones who do can accurately be described as red states). There are several. Other legislation has been put forward all around the country seeking to muzzle public educators, both in K12 and higher ed, and control what they teach and how they teach it where race, gender, or really almost any kind of minority status, are concerned.

Several concerned individuals and groups in Tennessee -including the Tennessee Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Tennessee chapter of the American Indian Movement-Indian Territory -have come together in recent months to create an informal organization called the Tennessee Coalition for Truth in Education (TCTE) with the goal of educating Tennesseans about these laws and their consequences. One of their first actions was a webinar (which was recorded and can be found on youtube by searching the organization’s name) featuring a couple of legal experts.

A larger, nationwide group has also formed recently -with members including AAUP chapters, higher ed unions, and student organizations from across the country -with the goal of organizing a “National Day of Action for Higher Ed for the Public Good” on April 17. Campuses in multiple states will be involved, directing interested parties to view a national live “teach-in” at 4pm Central that day, and/or other events geared toward local needs.

That’s where Matthew Hawn comes in.

The TCTE (check above if you get your acronyms confused, I’m slinging around a lot of them!) is sponsoring, at 6pm Central on April 17, a live educational webinar that will be promoted by participating organizations across Tennessee. The webinar will feature Hawn, telling his story, giving context, and answering a couple of questions. Really interested parties could watch both the 4pm national event and (or) the 6pm state one. You can learn more about the national teach-in at www.dayofactionforhighered.org , and about the Matthew Hawn presentation at www.facebook.com/TN.Coalition.4Truth .

Here is a quote from the Day of Action group: “Institutions of higher education serve to educate the public and to help generate the reliable information, broad-ranging knowledge, and reasoned analysis that a democratic society requires. Colleges and universities are spaces where research and ideas—including challenging ones—are subject to rigorous study and critical evaluation. In the interest of democracy, our educational institutions must be allowed to function free from interference by politicians, CEOs, and lobbyists seeking to repress inquiry.”

 

The folks who cry the loudest about so-called “cancel culture” want to cancel any educational, intellectual, or philosophical discourse that makes them uncomfortable -when making people uncomfortable is what education is FOR. If all it does is make you comfortable, it is not education, it is indoctrination.

 

I’ll close with a quote from the TCTE: “We are the only people who can stop the death march of education in this state.”

 

Get involved. Ask questions. Pressure your politicians. Be prepared to CHANGE your politicians if they continue to hamstring the education of our young people.

 

--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