Before voters pull that lever, let’s review the history of the party that supports the wealthy 1 percent, who were against: child labor laws (“they will ruin industry”); fair labor standards (minimum wage and work week) (ditto); 19th Amendment (women’s right to vote) (“it will ruin the nation”); Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid; Civil Rights Act of 1964; Voting Rights Act of 1965; Equal Rights Amendment; Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; health care for everyone (“Obamacare”).

Once acceptance becomes inescapable, many in Congress will hold their noses and vote for measures “to be on the right side of history.” But their cynicism is exposed by their prior efforts against the measure.

Think they have changed their spots? The nostalgia for those “good old days” is frequently evident in those oligarchs of the South in Congress and the corporate autocrats that Republicans support.

The Republican Party is fine with one of every five citizens without health care, and with those of us with health insurance paying a 20 percent premium to cover emergency room treatment costs, and with “revamping” Social Security and Medicare, ultimately out of existence.

And it would give Medicaid to the tender mercies of individual states (what could go wrong?).

Newt Gingrich has called child labor laws “stupid”. And there is “Right to Work,” so popular in the South, that is, in effect, the right to low wages without benefits. As for women, Mitt knows that women are meant to be “helpmates,” not independent equals, and have no right to plan their families.

Why any working person would vote for this party is a mystery. Maybe it’s their ridiculous claims, never fulfilled, to be the party of morals and family values. Trust in Republican Party policies, including their totally discredited “trickle-down economics,” displays a curious lack of discernment.

Paul W. Dutram

Waterville