Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose March 27, 2026 "Unsilenced and Back in the Saddle"

A Liberal Dose

Unsilenced and Back in the Saddle

Troy D. Smith

March 27, 2026

This piece represents my return to sharing political commentary -from a left perspective and with historical context -after a six-month hiatus due to numerous death threats I received in the days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination (despite the fact I had never commented on that subject). Since this is, in effect, a fresh start, and since it may appear in news outlets outside my hometown, I thought it might be appropriate to re-introduce myself before getting into the political opinion part.

My name is Troy Smith. I was born and raised in White County, in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee -a region my family has lived in for well over two hundred years. I am a history professor at Tennessee Tech University. My specialties include indigenous studies, the history of race, and the American South. I am from a rural blue-collar background and spent more than twenty years doing janitorial work before becoming an academic. I’ve lived other places -including a couple of years doing mission work with Haitian immigrants in the Miami and New York City areas, and six years getting my Ph.D. at the University of Illinois -but Tennessee is my home, and I love it. I am also an author of fiction, mostly westerns. My first published work appeared thirty years ago in Louis L’Amour Western Magazine, and I’ve won a couple of Spur awards from Western Writers of America. Finally, I am politically active -serving my district on the Tennessee Democratic Party executive committee. The words and thoughts in my column are my own, though, and in no way officially represent the TNDP or TTU.

That whole paragraph was meant to drive home the fact that, though I work at a university, my background is not one of elite privilege but as one of Tennessee’s working poor -and I have never let go of that experience. I know very well what it feels like to be from rural poverty, and to be looked down on for it on a personal level while seeing my state, especially the country and small-town parts of it, repeatedly taken advantage of, taken for granted, put down, and being flat-out cheated by con artists and fat cats looking to make a fast buck off of us. And I’m tired of it, as I bet you are. So I have spoken up, and continue speaking up, despite the efforts of those who would like to keep voices like yours and mine silent. Exercising the right to speak up is the very essence of what it means to be American, and so is the refusal to be denied that basic, natural right.

I am speaking up about the fact that voters in this state -especially in the rural counties -have been sold a bill of goods comprised of empty promises in order to get their vote. We were promised that prices would go down “on day one”, but they keep going up and up. We were promised the full release of the Epstein files, and the protection of the innocent and vulnerable -but this administration has fought tooth-and-nail every step of the way to keep that information out of our hands, and have outright admitted they are doing so to protect their billionaire friends. We were promised no wars, yet they just started one without having even the vaguest plan of how to win it. The federal government, and the Republican-controlled government in this state, keep setting us at each other’s throats to distract us from the fact they are picking our pockets. Don’t forget the governor’s private school voucher plan, that is draining money from rural school systems and hardworking teachers while benefitting his wealthy friends.

They think because we are rural we are stupid and easily controlled. But people are waking up to the fact that the longer Republicans are in charge the worse things get.

Speak up with me, neighbors.

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