Playing Post Office

It makes sense that, in the wake of a pandemic, Donald Trump would conspire to get his own choice for Postmaster General - a prerogative no U.S. President has had since 1969, when Nixon appointed Winton Blount before the Post Office Department became the Postal Service - into office, and then Louis DeJoy, said Postmaster General, would start making "reforms" to slow the mail down and make mail-in voting more precarious as Trump keeps shouting out loud how ripe for fraud it is.

The idea is that if DeJoy slows the mail down enough, the ballots mailed in for the 2020 presidential election won't arrive in time to be counted and that some ballots sent out for filling in won't make it back at all.  So now we have to worry if the Postal Service leadership is in cahoots to get Trump returned to office in a sham election.  I'm as worried about this as I am about the tropical storm due in my area tomorrow, not to mention catching COVID-19.

I've already seen the mail slow down.  I seem to get magazines I subscribe to a little bit later than usual, and, as I'm paid by mail for my job, I'm getting those much later.  My boss mailed my most recent check a week before it was postmarked.  This is the challenge anyone who votes by mail this year due to of COVID-19 faces.    

I went third party for President in 2016, my first time ever, and now in 2020, I hope to again do something for the first time ever by voting by mail.  I haven't ruled out voting in person, because COVID-19 is pretty much under control in my state and my town, but if I do vote by mail, I want to get my ballot as quickly as possible and I want to mail it as quickly as possible so it gets to its intended destination - I assume that would be my county court house - before November 3.  If it takes ten days to get there, I'll mail it twenty days before Election Day. DeJoy is smart.  Voters supporting Joe Biden have to be smarter.

There is a silver lining to Trump's war on mail-in voting: Republicans are likely to be at a disadvantage given that his supporters tend to be older and whiter and likely more afraid to vote in person due to a pandemic.  And there are a lot of young people in the Democrats' rainbow coalition who are ready to vote in person even if they have to camp out at the polling places to do so.  But with three months to go, anything can still happen.  Like maybe another late-October superstorm like Sandy.  Don't think meteorological history can't repeat itself.

I'm worn down by Trump fatigue.  A lot of us are.  I think people are ready to do the heavy lifting to send him packing.