Susan Smith is not afraid to speak her mind, ever. As a staunch ally for the LGBTcommunity (via her longtime work with the Democratic LGBTQA caucus, or whatever acronym you prefer) and as president of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, she’s been pounding the pavement for human rights issues for years, talking political ears off until those ears can’t hear anymore. Why? Because a lot of the political process doesn’t make much sense, she says.
“The party itself is very progressive, the activists, but I think we don’t have that platform, so that really is a problem,” she says. “The biggest fight – and I think we’re seeing them on the national stage, too – is pushing back against an establishment that we think is ineffective: the establishment within the Democratic Party. And I don’t even know how it’s grown or where the dysfunction has come from. I get in trouble for calling it the donor class, the people who pull the strings, whoever they are. And I think we’re seeing that pushback from both sides.”
She should know. Since 2003, Smith has been raising hell within her own party to keep voters motivated. That’s no small task, she says.
“I don’t think we’re ready for revolution, but sometimes I think that’s what it’s going to take for us to get things to move on the ground. Well, not so much on the ground, because that’s already happening,” she says. “It takes all kind of voices. When we started the caucus, we felt the party needed an extra push to the left. There’s the saying that voters would rather take strong and wrong than weak and right, and the Democrats are weak.”
But, given Florida’s generally uncomfortable reaction to leftward lurches, Smith, who spends a lot of time in Tallahassee when not residing on the Gulf Coast, is a realist who is willing to keep up the fight, even if that means waiting it out for a bit.
“I think [workplace discrimination] is one of the issues that we have to wait for the rest of the nation to carry us through, because we will not get to that point as this state,” she says. “I’m hoping there are other issues that get carried through that way, too, like Medicaid expansion and guns [control] and medical marijuana. I’m just hoping that the national trends take over. I think that’s what happened with the marriage issue.”
