Tag: Trump willing to dismantle the post office to suppress votes

As the Postal Service is attacked by Trump, workers lament what’s been lost

Austin musician and concerned citizen Mike Hidalgo filed a Change.org petition to save the United States Postal Service in April, assuming he’d rack up about a thousand signatures or so. He wound up with about 300 times that. “I said to myself, ‘Whoa, I guess a lot of people care about this,’” Hidalgo tells Mic. “Then I asked myself: What can I do with this?” He decided to post updates directly on the petition, reasoning that arming its signatories with information about the dual financial and operational crises currently haunting the USPS was the best way to capitalize on the unanticipated response.

Presently, that response includes 1.5 million signatures and counting, which speaks to how strongly Americans feel about the Postal Service — and by extension how strongly they feel about the Trump administration’s stubborn-verging-on-impressive attempts at dismantling it.

The appointment in June of Louis DeJoy, erstwhile logistics career man and proud Trump ally, to the position of postmaster general sent the already hurting agency into urgent disarray after the announcement of new guidelines that essentially forbid employees from doing their jobs properly, including slashing overtime as well as branch hours. Crucially, if mail came into the office late, postal workers, who typically never leave letters behind and take as many tours as needed to make sure every parcel is delivered in a day, were ordered to leave it where it sits, leading to mail delays that stack up over time. Continue reading.

Postmaster general agrees to testify before House panel

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Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee about recently implemented cost-cutting measures at the U.S. Postal Service that have sparked fears that some ballots might not be delivered in time for Election Day.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Monday that DeJoy and Robert Duncan, the chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, had agreed to testify next Monday in response to her request.

“The American people want their mail, medicines, and mail-in ballots delivered in a timely way, and they certainly do not want drastic changes and delays in the midst of a global pandemic just months before the election,” Maloney said. Continue reading.

Trump is actively working to undermine the Postal Service — and every major U.S. institution

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William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral, was commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014.

In the 1997 film “The Postman,” set in post-apocalyptic America, Kevin Costner plays a drifter trying to restore order to the United States by providing one essential service, mail delivery. In the story, hate crimes, racially motivated attacks and a plague have caused the breakdown of society as we know it. In his quest to restore order and dignity to the nation, the Postman tries to recruit other postal workers to help rebuild the U.S. government. But Costner’s character is opposed by the evil General Bethlehem, who is fighting to suppress the postal carriers so he can establish a totalitarian government. Fortunately, our hero, gaining inspiration from the motto, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” fights on against Bethlehem and saves the country.

Not surprisingly, the movie was panned by critics and was a financial disaster. I mean really, racial strife and a plague so bad that it threatened our society? And even if that happened, who would try to destroy the Postal Service? Where do they come up with these crazy plots?

In retrospect, maybe we should give the movie another look. Today, as we struggle with social upheaval, soaring debt, record unemployment, a runaway pandemic, and rising threats from China and Russia, President Trump is actively working to undermine every major institution in this country. He has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of many Americans that our institutions aren’t functioning properly. And, if the president doesn’t trust the intelligence community, law enforcement, the press, the military, the Supreme Court, the medical professionals, election officials and the postal workers, then why should we? And if Americans stop believing in the system of institutions, then what is left but chaos and who can bring order out of chaos: only Trump. It is the theme of every autocrat who ever seized power or tried to hold onto it. Continue reading.