‘Lefty’ policies have helped this country

Mr. Jim Higgins, in his recent letter criticizing Mark Van Pernis for being out of touch with reality and history, is himself without a clue.

Apparently, anyone to the left of Fox News is a leftist so let me start by saying I’m a proud leftist. Higgins wants to know why, after eight years of a leftist president, there are still any problems. In the first two years, we got a new health care bill, crafted as a compromise based on a Republican plan implemented in Massachusetts. Hardly what the left wanted, but it was a start.

Then, for the last six years, when the right controlled Congress, nothing got done. There was a coordinated effort to obstruct and harass the executive office. By the way, the unemployment number cited (90 million), doesn’t stand up to fact check – unless you use Trump’s numbers.

More fact checking – how many of the states that are under water are “red” states? To say that we had eight years of “leftist rule” sounds like a Fox News soundbite.

Higgins asked for examples in history where leftist policies have actually succeeded. Let’s start with labor unions that created the middle class in this country with such radical ideas as an eight-hour workday, a 40-hour week and a living wage with health care. All of this was opposed by the right. Social Security and Medicare are wildly successful programs that were also opposed by the right. Civil rights legislation must have eluded Mr. Higgins. Challenging Jim Crow laws was an important part of the “lefty” agenda in the second half of the 20th century.

I now challenge Mr. Higgins to let us all know exactly what the right has done for the country, other than maintaining insane gun laws, taking away women’s health care, gerrymandering congressional districts, and electing a man who is proving to be an embarrassment even to many Republicans.

Donald Gross is a resident of Kailua-Kona