Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, Feb. 14, 2025 "This Is Not a Time to Hide in the Shadows"

A Liberal Dose

Troy D. Smith

“This Is Not a Time to Hide in the Shadows”

For the last few weeks I’ve been repeating a message about robber barons, on the national and state level. It has been a message aimed at the political middle, and at the working-class voters who have felt left behind. But this week, I am going to share some words of encouragement for those of you out there who already feel as I do on these topics, and have been feeling discouraged.

This is the social media post I made on Inauguration Day, which also happened to be MLK Day. Although a few weeks have passed, I thought I would share it with you, as well. Here it is:

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, 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