A Liberal Dose, January 31, 2025 "With School Vouchers, Follow the Money"

 

A Liberal Dose

Troy D. Smith

“With School Vouchers, Follow the Money”

 

This column is going to be challenging for the next four years. I don’t even know what to say. Every time I think I have a topic something even crazier happens- though that is, no doubt, by design. So this week I am going to start with the local, and expand it to the national.

As I write this the General Assembly is in special session, taking up (LONG overdue) hurricane relief for East Tennessee, and tying it to Governor Bill Lee’s favorite chew toy, school vouchers. He tried to push it through last year, and failed, so this time he is tying it to something else that people actually do need, hurricane relief, and something they think they need, a statewide immigration agency, and I fear his odds of winning this time are better than before due to the current political climate. But they shouldn’t be.

To be specific: Lee is calling for a $424 million dollar voucher program that would, in the first year, give awards of $7,000 each to 20,000 students, half of whom must be low-income. But that last part is misleading. First, because their definition of low-income is under $170,000 per year. In what universe is someone making $169k low income? Second, the average cost of private schools in Tennessee is about $12,000 a year, higher for high schools. Now, I was low income for most of my life, and at no time did I ever have an extra five thousand dollars to send my kid to private school, which is what these truly low-income families are going to be stuck with. There ARE cheaper schools, of course, but with that you get what you pay for, which is not much. This is why, on average in this state, public school kids score higher on assessment tests than private schools do. In other words, unless you have the money to pay for an expensive school -even with the $7,000 -your child will actually be getting an inferior education compared to public school students. So what is the point?

Follow the money. In politics -especially Republican politics -always follow the money. Since this isn’t really going to help working class families much, because they still won’t be able to afford the quality schools, who will it help financially? In other states that have adopted such programs, 75% of the people who take advantage of them are folks who already have the money to be sending their kids to private schools. Meanwhile, it is going to be taking money from public schools and therefore from YOUR kids. First, this money could be spent on public schools instead so your overworked teachers wouldn’t be having to pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, and your kids could take music and art classes like we all did. Second, public schools get their funding according to how many students they have, so draining away students will cause an even greater financial burden on the public school system. This plan is only going to help those who already can afford expensive private schools, and those few who want their kids in a religious school, and make things harder on public school teachers AND their students. And the benefits will mostly be in the counties where the money already is.

In other words: the rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer.

By the time this reaches print, the decision may already be made. But you all know who your representatives are, and do not forget how they vote on this issue come election time. If it hasn’t been decided yet, as soon as you read this reach out to Paul Bailey and Paul Sherrell and tell them what you think, and remind them who keeps them in office. It isn’t Bill Lee and his fat cat buddies, many of whom reap financial benefits via their companies from all the tampering Lee (and his predecessor) have done with our school systems.

Haven’t you had enough of this? If your representatives won’t protect our public schools, next time vote in somebody who will.

 

--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, January 24, 2025 "Americans Overwhelmingly Want Change"

A Liberal Dose January 24, 2025

Troy D. Smith

“Americans Overwhelmingly Want Change”

I’ve been talking a lot the past month or so about robber barons, past and present, and the need to push back against them. In doing so, I must point out, I have very explicitly stated that it is not merely being wealthy that makes a robber baron, it is how that wealth is used. There are some extremely wealthy people who make a very positive difference in the world, and who have empathy, compassion, and sincere concern for the community. I know many such people personally, and appreciate them. And then there are those who use their wealth and power primarily to gain more wealth and power, taking FROM the community instead of giving TO it. They are “robbers” because they take their wealth at the expense of everyone else; they are “barons” because they act like they think they are some entitled nobility class that is better than everyone else. To visualize the difference between the two types, just picture Ebenezer Scrooge… before and after. The “new” Scrooge was a positive benefit to society… though it DID take supernatural action to get him there.

So what I have been saying is not communism, and it is not socialism. It is progressivism, the kind practiced by Republican president Teddy Roosevelt and, since the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932, by the Democratic Party… though in recent decades, that party has largely forgotten how to articulate it, and how to speak to regular, working class people.

Some folks have told me I’ve been way too negative lately, and even come across as mean. Well, I’m going to be honest with you. I, and others like me, have spent most of the last four years talking about the importance of inclusion and diversity (which I still believe in passionately). We have appealed to the public’s sense of decency, morality, justice, fair play, and belief in democracy and all the other things our country was founded on. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is the very personification of “negative” and “mean”… and now he is back in the White House, and has brought a cabal of billionaires with him, already laying plans to restructure America to benefit their personal bank accounts. He did this by dividing the country while claiming to unite it, and by appealing to voters’ sense of dissatisfaction with how their lives are going and promising them the moon. Most people really do think more about grocery prices and providing for their family than they do about grand ideals or the future.

Now, I’m not recommending sinking to his level. What I AM saying is that, for me, the gloves have come off. And the Democratic Party needs to do the same thing. And we need to do that by pointing out to regular people that the “us and them” in this country is not (as Trump claims) defined by race, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality, education level, region, citizenship status, or even strictly by class. It is a tiny percentage of grasping robber barons versus the rest of us, dividing us by all those categories in order to get even richer, as has been the case since the aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. They want all the cookies. When you point that out, they call it “class warfare”… when that term should really apply to what they’ve been doing to the middle and working classes. To YOU.

Democrats used to know how to tell you that. But, for too long, we have instead run to the center in fear, anxious to maintain the status quo, when the majority of Americans are sick to death of the status quo and want CHANGE. That is the biggest draw among voters for Donald Trump. It was also a big draw for Bernie Sanders, and for the same reasons. Robert Reich, who was Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, has recently pointed out that it could have been a big draw for Kamala Harris: she came out of the gate with a strong populist message that appealed to a lot of people, but halfway through her campaign she listened to her advisers who urged her to stop bashing Wall Street or she might alienate big money… and her momentum stalled.

I am committed to doing my part to move the needle. There are a lot of other people in the party who are determined to do the same. I think it all comes down to two ideas. First, we really are all in this together.

Second… let’s stop handing over our cookies.

--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

My Thoughts on Today, January 20, 2025

 

Two Very Different Options

Troy D. Smith

To my fellow Dems, liberals, progressives, lefties, etc.:

This is a strange day- commemorating two very different men, Dr. King and that other guy. I really don't see how it is possible to TRULY honor and respect both of them, as they cancel each other out. You'd have to twist yourselves into a strange pretzel indeed to even try. But be that as it may.

It is easy today, and since the day of the election, really, for folks like us to feel despondent and want to fade into the shadows until it is all over (if it ever is), to pull the covers over our heads and withdraw in fear and despair. And right now is the most important time in our lives not to.

I believe that right now, today, January 20, 2025, is the real day that tests our character and determines what happens going forward. More so than the January of 2017, or even of 2021. TODAY is the day we have to reach down into ourselves and find the courage of MLK, the courage to march into hell for a heavenly cause. To have the courage to stand on the mountaintop knowing we may not ourselves see the promised land, but that how we face today will help ensure that those who come after us will.

Today is the day to remember the words of Thomas Paine, written during the seemingly hopeless days of Valley Forge:

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

Today is not a day to take off work, today is a day to take ON work.

This week is a week to take on work. This year is a year to take on work.

Today is not a day to be demoralized, today is a day to be RE-moralized.

Today is not a day to hide in the shadows, it is a day to stand in the sunlight.

In a time of monsters, you can be the rabbit that hides in the brush and is beneath their notice, or you can be the lion they come for first because they fear you... and the taller you stand, the more people will be inspired to come out of the brush and stand with you, and they can't come for us all.

Stand up for what is right BECAUSE it is right, not because you have calculated that it is safe to do so.

All around us, these past few months, we have seen celebrities, politicians, news media, and businesses that once spoke up for what is right now cowed and currying for favor. That may seem like a strategy for survival to them, but it is not: it a strategy for submission and defeat. Bullies cannot be trusted.

We once believed that our ideals had become the norm in this country, but clearly they had not. Our ideals are not the status quo so they must become a movement (again), and movements have to MOVE, not play dead or bow down.

The Civil Rights Movement is NOW. TODAY.

So stand tall, friends.

Whatever happens over the next four years, never forget that Donald Trump was inaugurated on Martin Luther King Day, and that Dr. King was never so dedicated to peace and harmony that he stood silent in the face of oppression. Yes, he had a dream... but he took action to make that dream a reality, and he did not back down.

All the power to all the people.

Right on? Right on.

--TROY D. SMITH

Note: This was originally a Facebook post that I thought might be shared. I signed my name in all caps for the same reason John Hancock wrote his name so big.

P.S.- Today, Leonard Peltier was finally allowed to go home. A Civil Rights victory.

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, January 16, 2025 "Monopoly But with Your Money"

 

A Liberal Dose

January 16, 2025

Troy D. Smith

“Monopoly but with Your Money”

 

In my last couple of columns, I have discussed, in some detail, the Gilded Age and the “robber barons” associated with it. I briefly mentioned the Populist Movement and the Progressive Age. This week I’ll give a little more detail on those.

As previously noted, middle-and-working-class people pushed back against the robber barons by forming farmers’ alliances and unions. Those groups joined forces and began to move from protests to political action that appealed to regular people -hence the term “populist.” The Populist Party was formed in the early 1890s, and in the 1892 election took several western states in the presidential elections, as well as several governorships and seats in Congress. They only grew in popularity (pun intended) after that, though they were not popular enough to win the White House. What did they want? Put simply, government regulation of big businesses like banks and railroads, safety regulations in factories, an eight-hour workday, an end of child labor, and direct election of senators (until the 17^th Amendment in 1913, each state’s two U.S. Senators were appointed by the state legislature, not elected by the people).

When a third party has some measure of success, one or both of the two main parties make some adjustment to get those voters back. In this case, both Democrats and Republicans moved somewhat to the left in an effort to get those Populist voters. This led to the beginning of the Progressive Era, when Republican Teddy Roosevelt (initially VP) became president after the recently re-elected William McKinley was assassinated. For the next twenty years, presidents from both parties would follow the Progressive agenda.

What was that agenda? More regulation of businesses, more focus on the good of the general public, more reliance on experts rather than ideologues (especially in the fields of technology and science), and more conservation of natural resources. Roosevelt also called for “social insurance,” or social security, and nationalized health care. The interests of corporations, paramount in the Gilded Age, were reined in. Teddy Roosevelt became known as the great trust-buster (in this context, trust is another word for monopoly). He broke up an effort by J.P. Morgan to consolidate all the midwestern railroads under his control. He promised workers a “square deal” in which the deck was not stacked against them. Safety regulations began to be implemented (especially after the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York in 1911), underage children were no longer allowed to be used as workers (women also got the vote in this era). The FDA was established under Roosevelt. His Republican successor William Howard Taft broke up Rockefellers’ Standard Oil into 30 smaller companies, and the American Tobacco Company into four.

Roosevelt divided corporations into the “good ones” and the “bad ones.” The good ones, to Teddy, were those that offered a valuable good to the public at a reasonable price, and who showed some concern for the good of the public and of their workers. The “bad ones” were motivated solely by profit to the exclusion of all other concerns, and these were the ones he sought to restrict. He very much wanted to get big business out of government. He said that “to destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”

The third Progressive president, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, ushered in the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Trade Commission, and laws protecting striking unions. Twenty years later, Teddy’s Democratic cousin Franklin Roosevelt would usher in many more Progressive programs and laws, including the social security Teddy had worked for.

All those corrective measures to the Gilded Age mindset of unfettered, unrestrained big business, income inequality, and virtually royal powers of the super-rich… all those laws and programs to protect the rights of regular, working people… are all now in danger of being rolled back by the new robber barons. Republicans are champing at the bit to put social security and Medicare on the chopping block, to cut taxes on themselves at the expense of the rest of the country, and some are even calling for the end of child labor laws. They’ve already admitted they can’t bring prices back down, and in fact most of them are clueless about what grocery prices even are, because they don’t live like you and me. They’re running the biggest scam in the history of this country, and they think we are the easy mark they’ve been dreaming of.

They’re monopolists -they have a get-out-of-jail-free card, and have no intention of letting you and me pass go and collect our $200. They want it all.

 

--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, January 9, 2025 "Working Class Resistance in the Gilded Age"

 

A Liberal Dose

January 9, 2025

Troy D. Smith

“Working Class Resistance in the Gilded Age”

 

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s), a time dominated by robber barons (super-wealthy industrialists). This was an age when there were practically no regulations on businesses, and no protections for workers. It was during this time that the term “social Darwinism” started being used, which was an effort to use the (increasingly popular) works of Darwin about evolution, especially “survival of the fittest,” to justify the economic realities of the day. People who become rich, this theory explained, did so because they were exceptional, and the best examples of the human species. People who were poor, the theory went, were the worst examples of the human species -due either to their own inferiority or their own laziness. In other words, rich people are rich because they deserve to be, and poor people are poor because they deserve to be. Elevating (or sustaining) poor people, then, would be a disservice to the human species, because only the “fittest” should survive. Another common theory of that age was called the “horse-and-sparrow” theory: it is wasteful to feed seeds and grain to birds, one should feed it to the horses instead. Then, when the horses poop, the birds can peck out what they need from that. The obvious metaphor was that government should not give aid to the poor, they should use that money to help business and the poor will get their living that way. Will Rogers would later rename that idea the “trickle-down” theory.

Social Darwinism was a new term in that time, but it was not a new idea. Half-a-century earlier, Charles Dickens had Ebenezer Scrooge say of the needy, “Let them die, then, and decrease the surplus population.” Half-a-century after the Gilded Age, at the beginning of the Great Depression, banking magnate (and Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury, and who also used the term trickle-down) Andrew Mellon said that depressions are good things, because “enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

Social Darwinism was a way that the wealthiest individuals could counter the accusation that they were “robber barons” -they were only following the dictates of nature. They also pointed to the good works they did with some of their wealth -the names Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt are still connected with a lot of things which those men and their families initially paid for (maybe you’ve heard of Carnegie Mellon University- I know you’ve heard of Vandy).

Most working people of the time, though, were not content with being told to pick through the poop and be grateful. The Gilded Age saw the birth of the modern labor movement, and decades of struggle to secure better wages and working conditions rather than count on the robber barons deciding to just GIVE them such things (which they almost never did). The Gilded Age was also the time when Wild West outlaws and bank robbers started to be celebrated by many in the country, especially in the Midwest, and viewed as Robin-Hood-like social heroes. In reality, Jesse James, the Dalton Gang, and others like them did not really rob from the rich and give to the poor -they robbed from the rich and went home. But for many farmers in the Midwest, who felt oppressed by banks and railroad companies, that was enough. Stick it to the man. Fifty years later, there would be another wave of dubious “social bandit” bank robbers who would be popular in rural America -people like John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, and others. I speak, of course, of the Great Depression. When income inequality reaches a tipping point, working class people throughout history have tended to celebrate the outlaws working against the system, misplaced or not. I see some of that in the wave of support for Luigi Mangione.

By the way, in 1904 Elizabeth Magie invented “The Landlord’s Game,” later known as “Monopoly.” The original point of the game was not to show how much fun establishing monopolies can be, but rather to show how unfair and frustrating the system was for everyone involved except the one winner. Side note: I absolutely hate playing Monopoly. It’s hard enough just trying to pay the bills without being bankrupted for entertainment.

Eventually, as enough working-class people got tired of the robber barons’ control, farmers and industrial workers started organizing, which led to the Populist Movement of the 1890s, and to a fairly successful third political party (The People’s Party, better known as the Populist Party), which had a profound influence and led to the Progressive Era (starting with Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican).

Standing by and cheering on outlaws may have felt good to a lot of people, but it didn’t change anything. Organizing and turning the tide of public opinion, especially among the middle and working classes, did.

Don’t be content to be trickled down on. Don’t be content to live on the poop that is cast your way. Make a REAL change.

 

--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, Jan. 2, 2025 "The Days of the Modern Robber Barons"

 

A Liberal Dose

January 2, 2025

Troy D. Smith

“The Days of the Modern Robber Barons”

 

What we are already seeing from the next Trump administration, before it has even started, is reminiscent of an earlier time (way before the first Trump administration). Let’s take an inventory so far.

Trump has packed his cabinet with billionaires. He is giving enormous power and influence, in fact, to the richest man in the world (Elon Musk), despite Musk holding no elected or (as of yet) appointed office. Musk seems to have supplanted J.D. Vance (himself a former vulture capitalist and the protégé of a billionaire, who financed his senate campaign) as de facto vice-president. Musk and Trump derailed the budget plan negotiated by their own party, and expressed a desire to shut the government down until the inauguration (almost a month away) -which would not only bring government services to a virtual halt, it would leave three million federal employees without a paycheck. At Christmas time. In other words, one of their first acts was to try to cancel Christmas. And don’t kid yourself -it is not just “lazy government employees” who would be affected by such a shutdown. YOU would be affected, in many ways.

Meanwhile, as part of the budget arguments, Trump wants to end the debt ceiling. Which, as it sounds like, is a limit on how high the government’s debt is allowed to go, or how much into the red the budget is allowed to be. Why is Trump concerned about that? Because he wants to vastly decrease (again) the amount of money IN the budget, by slashing taxes on billionaires like himself (like he did last time). This is why so many corporate leaders lined up behind him this past election season: tax cuts and less regulation of their businesses. This does not mean YOUR taxes would go down. Your taxes would probably go up. Plus many of the government programs that you depend on would be gone. Musk, whom Trump is tasking with cutting government expenses, has made it clear more than once (as have many Republican politicians) that social security and Medicare are at the top of the list to be cut. Also meanwhile… Trump promised to roll back higher prices on day one, which got him a lot of votes, and he is already backpedaling on that and saying it is beyond his control. However, his fat cat buddies are already benefiting. By most accounts, Musk’s personal wealth has soared just since election day.

So, to recap: The very wealthiest elites are going to be benefiting hand-over-fist, at the expense of the middle and working class, AND they are going to be running things politically with little-to-nothing standing in their way. Fewer regulations will save them more money, at the expense of the things protected by those regulations, such as public safety and the public benefit.

We are hip-deep in a new Gilded Age. A brief history lesson: the Gilded Age was that period, from the 1870s to the 1890s and coinciding with the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914), when huge fortunes were being made by a handful of individuals with names like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie, while the middle and working class suffered from low wages, unsafe labor conditions, frequent unemployment, and general poverty. The rich got much richer and the poor got much poorer. The very term “gilded age”, coined by Mark Twain in the 1870s, indicates that it LOOKED like a golden age on the surface, but that was only a patina and was not solid. The Gilded Age is also known for being the most politically corrupt era of U.S. history (which is really saying something). I sometimes challenge students to see how many presidents they can name between Ulysses Grant and Teddy Roosevelt (1877-1901). They usually can’t name any at all- because none of them really stand out, because none of them really did much. Nor were they really in charge. They were the puppets of the business tycoons. Those tycoons were often called “robber barons” -implying they acted like they thought they were nobility (some actually built castles or huge mansions), but they had gained their fortunes at the expense of other people. “Get rich,” Twain described their attitude: “dishonestly if you can, honestly if you must.”

By the way, it was during that time period that, in this region, railroads and coal companies did everything they could (including force) to take land away from farmers, leaving those farmers no longer self-sufficient and, instead, forced to live on whatever low wages those businesses offered. It was the beginning of the perennial impoverishment of the Upper Cumberland.

The robber barons never really left- but now they are more firmly and openly in control, of the economy and of your life -than they have been in over a century.

How did people resist them then? 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