"First, they came for the mailboxes."

[Demovictory9]

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/trump-mailboxes-sorters-usps-2020-election-louis-dejoy-20200816.html

Trump’s coup-by-mail is underway. America can’t wait until November to fight back | Will Bunch

First, they came for the mailboxes.

The once-fantastical notion of a political or military coup in the United States has long lingered in the American imagination. Older Boomers might remember, for example, the book and movie Seven Days in May. It’s a riveting plot line because, in a nation with a 231-year tradition of peacefully transferring power, a coup was always something that Can’t Happen Here. Americans’ knowledge of how coups even work comes mostly from stories on NPR from faraway lands where soldiers seize a nation’s key choke points, as tanks roll onto the tarmac of the international airport and camouflaged men appear at the state TV station.

Now ... It’s Happening Here.


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This is a nine-alarm fire for American democracy, and so I’m doing something here that I usually work hard to avoid — writing about the same topic twice in one week. Because it’s that damn important. The Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan (buy her book) wrote this weekend “if journalists don’t keep the pressure on Postal Service problems, they will be abdicating their duty” — and she’s right.

One reason to keep hammering on the issue is that the idea of politicians so brazenly hijacking USPS is such an alien notion to most Americans that people aren’t thinking clearly, proposing normal-democracy solutions to a problem created by authoritarianism. It was only a few months ago that many folks — myself included — pleaded for the Trump administration to listen to Democrats in Congress and agree to a multibillion-dollar bailout of financially troubled USPS. Now, that makes no sense. It seems that we could give DeJoy $1 trillion and he’d still be throwing letter sorters in the trash. Likewise, what’s up with folks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or the perpetually “concerned” Sen. Susan Collins sending sternly worded letters to DeJoy, calmly making sure he’s aware of the premeditated crimes he’s committing in broad daylight?

Trump may be a narcissistic buffoon who’s wrong about nearly everything, but unfortunately there is method to the madness of slowing down the mail. As of right now, even after a week of bold, negative headlines about what’s happening at USPS, a staggeringly high number of Americans plan to vote by mail in November — nearly half, according to some recent polls.

[SheltieLover]

1. Lock them up!

[crickets]

2. K&R for visibility.