To the editor:

As the 2018 national election season is now upon us, I want to try to inform as many of my fellow Americans as possible about how the 2018 national Republican Party is different from the one that I grew up knowing in the 1950s and 1960s. The major difference is that back then, “conservative” Republicans wanted the federal government to spend less than it was on social programs intended to help people including Social Security.

Today, however, there are a larger number of “conservative” Republicans (especially in the U.S. Congress, in the conservative media and in “conservative think tanks”) who go far beyond this and who are, in effect, modern-day, cold-hearted, “survival-of-the-fittest” social Darwinists whose goal and plan is to eliminate and abolish all federal government social programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and college student loans. However, they do not want to admit this to the public. Eventually, they will set their sights on unemployment insurance benefits as well.

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester