Republicans voted to make America great again. They were conned.

They thought dismantling government, busting unions, deporting immigrants, and cutting taxes on their boss would help, but instead got plutocracy, nepotism, racism, nativism, theocracy, misogyny, homophobia, isolationism, corporatism, mercantilism, xenophobia, militarism, authoritarianism, and President Trump, a conflicted, unprepared, strong-man head of state.

GOP billionaires despise democracy, so they attack media, undermine elections, pack the courts, empower corporations, expand the military, pass harsher laws, bust unions, make education expensive, and dodge taxes. Yale professor Timothy Snyder writes: “We have a year to defend American democracy, perhaps less.”

Republicans attempt to privatize Social Security, Medicare, schools, prisons, public land and infrastructure. Did you know that eight men own the same wealth as half the world?

To extract as much money from people as possible for tax gifts to the wealthy, including elimination of the inheritance tax, Republicans cut health care, Medicaid, Meals on Wheels and social supports; block consumer protections; oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB); scrap the fiduciary rule; ignore anti-trust; make student loans more expensive; weaken privacy; cancel net neutrality. They even put the planet at risk by denying climate damage.

To appreciate where this leads, see "Democracy in Chains" by Nancy MacLean.

Robert Vogel

East Lyme