According to President Trump and the national conservative news media, someone who simply supports a federal government social program that helps people, like Social Security and Medicare, is a “crazy socialist.” If we go by that definition, then that would make Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon “crazy socialists” because they both signed into law new federal government social programs that help people. I doubt any Republican president of today would ever do such a thing.

In fact, Ike wrote a letter to his brother in which he said that any Republican who wants to abolish Social Security is “stupid.” It appears that conservative Republicans have become a lot more conservative and “stupid” since around 1980, because we sure do have a lot of them nowadays who want to abolish Social Security and move our country toward “survival of the fittest” social Darwinism.

When Trump’s acting chief of staff and budget director Mick Mulvaney was a congressman, he was a favorite of the Tea Party and was well known for stating that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme,” that it is “unconstitutional” and that it should be abolished.

Very few Americans know that today’s national Republican Party, more and more, uses stealth tactics and is part of a secret conspiracy to implement a creeping, crazy and cold-hearted social Darwinism where there will no longer be any federal government social programs to help the lower and middle classes.

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester, N.Y.

The writer is a former Squirrel Hill resident who taught at West Virginia and Slippery Rock universities.

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