How radical are Democrats, really?

I'd like to point out how confused we Americans appear to be. We think that Bernie Sanders and The Squad are extreme lefties. What do they want? Free college? Seventeen states have programs that make college free. California universities were free until the mid-70s. In the 1970s U of I tuition was around $500 and the state offered full-ride scholarships for promising students.

Yes, we've been there already and I'm pretty sure it's a better investment of dollars than throwing them away in a tax cut that will cost $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

Universal health care coverage? Teddy Roosevelt had it in his platform in 1912. Truman proposed it in 1945 and 1949. And as every Democrat and no right-wingers appear to know, the conservative Heritage Organization in its heyday proposed health care coverage for every American by mandating insurance.

A $15 minimum wage? The federal minimum wage has been decreasing in purchasing power since 1984. The society has a little issue trying to sell the dignity of work message to full time workers taking home about $500 per month.

The right wing (self-proclaimed conservatives who are anything but conservative) are the real extremists. What is being done and said today is so far from the values I attributed to people in the United States that it's hard to believe that these self-serving hypocrites ever got into power.

David Troland

Arlington Heights