Why Is The USPS And Mail-In Voting Being Ruined?
Yesterday, it was reported that Donald Trump kind of admitted to dismantling the United States Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting. It's the type of thing you'd expect to be the winning square in dictator bingo rather than a function of American politics, but here it is out of Trump's weirdly big, yet weirdly tiny mouth:
"They need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting, because they're not equipped to have it."
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We've already talked about how Trump appointed Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General, an apparent conflict of interest considering DeJoy has significant UPS investments, but this is a step into another realm of corruption. According to an Emerson College poll, "Trump leads 65% to 32% among those who plan to vote in person, while Biden leads with those who intend to vote by mail, 76% to 20%." Meanwhile, Trump is still down more than eight percentage points in national polls. He's losing, and rather than create policies that will benefit the American people and help him win, he's doubling down on dictatorship. It appears to be fairly simple: 1) Suppress the mail-in vote by any means necessary. 2) Sow doubt in the results of the mail-in vote by any means necessary.
Imagine this story coming from another country. It would be an example of "third-world" politics. Your Crazy Uncle (TM) would share the story on Facebook and caption it "the Republic of Whatever run by evil dictator whosewhatsit can't even get their mail straight. FREEEEEDOM!!!"
So what can we do? Well, here are four ways to safely cast your ballot without relying on the USPS or exposing yourself to COVID-19. I'm not sure what else other than to make sure we vote and double and triple and quadruple check that our vote has been counted. I'd say call a congressperson, but if congress needs to be told to ensure safe elections, then we might just need a whole new congress altogether.
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