Times change, and working from 'bad faith'

To the editor:

As a “liberal-Democrat,” I have tried to gain as much knowledge about the “conservative” political point of view as possible since 1980. I have come to some very disappointing conclusions, which I want to share with you.

First, the conservatives of 2020 — especially the ones who are members of the U.S. Congress — are overall significantly more conservative than the ones I knew when I was growing up in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

When compared with today’s conservatives, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, for example, seem to be almost “crazy socialists” and of the “radical left.” Eisenhower wrote a letter to his brother saying any Republican who wants to abolish Social Security is “stupid.” Ike signed Social Security disability into existence.

Nixon signed supplemental security income into existence. He also advocated in favor of a minimum guaranteed annual income federal government social program for every American.

But what I find to be the most disappointing is what 12-time award-winning and prize-winning journalist Jane Mayer points out in her award-winning book “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.” She finds that many of today’s conservatives believe that their “ends” — including winning national elections — justify their use of any and all immoral and unethical “means.”

To my knowledge, nothing in her book has ever been successfully refuted by anyone.

This is why I have yet to see anyone challenge anything in her book. I have mentioned her book in many of my letters, and no one has ever criticized it.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman makes the same overall point that she does by saying that many conservatives operate out of “bad faith.”

Stewart Epstein

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