I love the way Dan Shannon talks about how the Democrats don’t get anything done when they are barely clinging to power and most meaningful legislation that they propose is almost 100 percent not supported by Republicans, even if it is good for the country.

The reason for that is obvious: Republicans don’t care about doing anything that is good for the country, they only care about enriching themselves and their big money contributors. Let me give you just a few examples.

Ever since and including President Reagan, Republican administrations have given huge tax cuts to the rich — you know, that “Trickle Down Economics” theory that has never worked in 40 years and has only succeeded in making a relative few people rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Then when George W. tanked our economy and our country was in the thrown of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

President Obama got elected and rather than try to work with his administration to get our country well again, Mitch McConnell said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Then when Obama wanted to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, McConnell said he wouldn’t even bring his nominee before the Senate because it was an election year, even though the election was eight or nine months away. But when Trump was president and the election was only days away he pushed through his nominee in a successful effort to pack the court.

When Trump was president many Democrats voted for legislation that they thought was in the country’s interests but Republicans rarely support anything the Democrats put forward, even if they know it is good for the country. It doesn’t take much examination to see what Republicans are about: power, plain and simple. A lot of their policies are attempts to control the population, outlaw abortion, restrict voting and many more attempts to drag our country back to a very dark time in our history where white people are in power and discrimination and bigotry rule.

I was a young man before abortion was made legal and that was indeed a very dark time for women. While I am not pro-abortion, I don’t think what a woman does with her body is any of my business. Anti-abortion extremists want their religious beliefs to rule our country instead of reasonable laws that are meant to protect us all. More and more this is becoming a country divided and it doesn’t look like we will be coming together anytime soon. There is a large portion of our country that I refer to as the American Taliban because they want to be governed by Christianity and not the rule of law. Just sayin’.

Larry Benson

Enumclaw