To the editor:

The rich are getting richer, the working poor can no longer feed their children or keep a roof over their heads, and the middle class is disappearing. And yet, many of these trusting souls are voting for Republicans. The Republicans have convinced the American people that if you give the money to the rich it will trickle down. When will we learn that the money given to the rich trickles into their pockets and the offshore free bank accounts.

The Republicans also have convinced the gullible public that if you vote for them you will be patriotic. Somewhere along the way we forgot where the term “patriot” came from. The first American patriots were poor immigrants who escaped from nations in Europe and the British Isles where the rich kept all the money and the poor couldn’t feed their babies.

When they got to this great land they discovered that the English were promoting the same sick system here. But this time these simple people picked up pitch forks and rusty guns and chased these money-grubbing slugs back to England. These brave souls were the real patriots. How ironic is it that the party that promotes the notion that the rich should get richer and the common worker should get poorer are calling themselves patriots?

E. Kent Hayes,

Lawrence