Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Aug. 17, 2020
By Joni Ashbrook
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” has stopped postal workers from delivering the mail for 245 years, but now that agency is facing the greatest obstacle to its mission: President Donald Trump.
With polls showing Trump’s approval rating consistently sinking, he’s doing what any narcissistic leader with authoritarian tendencies would do. He’s using the levers of the U.S. government, specifically the U.S. Postal Service, to help win reelection.
Trump has spewed nonsense for months that voting by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to fraud. Experts disagree.
In May, Trump installed Louis DeJoy as our new postmaster general. DeJoy is a Trump mega-donor and former fundraiser for the 2020 Republican National Convention.
DeJoy has no experience with the USPS except maybe eyeing it and hoping it will fail since he and his wife claim up to $75 million in assets from USPS competitors.
DeJoy has admitted to implementing sweeping changes that can slow mail delivery during the pandemic. That mail includes Social Security checks and prescriptions. The Veterans Administration fills 80 percent of its prescriptions by mail.
Those changes included banning overtime, leaving mail behind in distribution centers and replacing dozens of top executives.
In several states, mailboxes were being removed from streets until Montana’s Republican and Democratic senators protested. Now, the USPS says it will stop removing them until after the election.
It would be great to hear protests from Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz about Trump using the Post Office as an arm of his reelection campaign, but as usual, they’re silent on Trump’s misdeeds. Maybe they think kneecapping the USPS can help all Republicans win?
Some of DeJoy’s changes are aimed directly at the election. Recently, the Postal Service informed states that they’ll need to pay first-class 55-cent postage to mail ballots to voters rather than the normal 20-cent bulk rate.
Trump defended DeJoy’s actions, calling him an “efficient operator.” It’s hard to see how DeJoy’s removing sorting machines that can process 35,000 pieces of mail per hour could be considered “efficient.”
Responding to the pandemic, the House in May passed the Heroes Act that funded state and local governments, testing, essential workers, unemployment benefits and an eviction moratorium. It also contained $25 billion for the USPS.
Trump admitted he was intentionally blocking federal funding to the Post Office to discourage the use of mail-in ballots in November’s election, and it seems his plan may be working.
Last week, a top USPS official warned 46 states that it couldn’t guarantee all mail ballots cast in November would arrive in time to be counted even if they followed state guidelines for mail-in voting. I’m assuming that includes our military’s ballots?
Trump’s obsession with blocking mail-in-ballots can be explained by looking at polls showing who’s planning on voting by mail this November.
A recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll found 62 percent of Joe Biden’s supporters say they’ll use ballot by mail, while 72 percent of Trump supporters say they’ll vote in person.
DeJoy says he wants to improve the Post Office’s business model, and Republicans have long wanted to privatize the Post Office.
Our Postal Service is older than the Constitution and was created not as a “business” but a “service” to the American people. The Constitution speaks to a system of post roads to “bind the nation together.”
Trump has called the Post Office a joke, but a Pew Research Center survey found 91 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Post Office.
Americans are also fond of free and fair elections, but Trump is undermining both.
