Show-Me State Times

When the head of the Missouri Republican Party took a peek at the Twitter page of the new Missouri Democratic Chairman, she was immediately disappointed. Jean Evans alleges that an image posted of a scorched automobile is a cop car.

“This is not your parents' Democratic party,” said Evans, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party. “It seems there's a radical left-wing that has taken over and they haven't communicated that to the rank and file Democrat voters.”

Evans was reacting to a photo of a burnt vehicle that was posted on @ClemSmith’s twitter header page. 

Clem Smith, a former State Representative for the 85th District in St. Louis County, replaced Jean Peters Baker as the chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party on July 2, 2020. 

“The Missouri Democratic Party has long embraced inclusion and diversity as well as the need to address racial injustices in our state and nation,” Baker told KCTV-5 in a statement online. “Clem will rise to the challenge and recognizes the need for leadership at this time of great unrest.”

Smith did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the burnt car on his Twitter page is a police automobile.

Regardless, Evans fears for police officers.

“Every time they turn around, the police get smacked with a lack of respect and support,” Evans told the Show-Me State Times. “Nicole Galloway, as the highest-ranking Democrat in the state, had to have approved Clem Smith’s new job as party chair."

Galloway currently serves as state auditor for Missouri, while Smith, who endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, previously served as vice-chair of the Missouri Democratic Party before becoming chairman last week. 

Smith, who is African-American, graduated from the Columbia College of Missouri, a private school with ties to the Disciples of Christ Christian Church dating back to 1851.

"The Democrats are headed farther to the left in the direction of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other radicals," Evans said. 

Smith also signed a petition to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black man convicted in the 1980s of killing a police officer in Philadelphia who claims he was framed on false charges. Abu-Jamal is currently serving a life sentence.

“Most of us feel that if someone kills a police officer, then they should stay in jail,” Evans said in an interview. “They shouldn't be freed. I don't know all the facts of his [Abu-Jamal] case but the man was convicted.”

Further, Smith is listed on the Worker’s Education Society (WES) website as someone who provides institutional support to train and educate people of color, women and youth locally.

“It's an arm of the communist party,” Evans alleges of the WES. "We need an explanation from Clem Smith and from state auditor Nicole Galloway, who is the highest-ranking leader of their party."

The WES website makes no claims to be part of the Communist Party, and says the following in its mission statement:

"The St. Louis Workers’ Education Society (WES) educates and trains St. Louis residents, especially people of color, women and youth, to become community leaders. Our focus is on the intersection of workers’ rights, racial justice, sexual and gender-minority rights and disabilities empowerment. Additionally, WES acts as a small business and grassroots organization incubator. We facilitate on-going worker-education campaigns, partnering and advising union and community groups, to build a permanent culture of worker-education in St. Louis."