Postal plot delivers alarm, outrage
It says much about the president seeking reelection that he is widely assumed to be engaged in a tinpot plot to suppress the vote against him by the crudest means available. With a deadly pandemic forcing Americans to vote by mail or risk more lives, the administration’s assault on the U.S. Postal Service is finally provoking the alarm it deserves.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to call the House back into session weeks early to consider legislation to block operational changes and service reductions at the agency and shore up funding. Though the Republicancontrolled Senate could stand in the way, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled a break with the administration Monday, saying he wants to ensure that the Postal Service is ready for the election and doesn’t “share the concerns” of President Trump.
The House next week is expected to question Trump’s postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who has spearheaded an overtime crackdown and other policies that have slowed mail delivery. Seven Senate Democrats on Monday urged the Postal Service’s Board of Governors to restrain or possibly fire DeJoy, a major Trump donor and investor in the agency’s privatesector rivals.
With the president leveling a nonsensical but persistent rhetorical assault on voting by mail, DeJoy has ordered postal workers to leave more mail behind in the interests of cutting hours and planned to decommission a tenth of the agency’s sorting machines. The Postal Service last month warned 46 states that it couldn’t guarantee timely delivery of their mailed ballots, the Washington Post reported. And mailbox removals alarmed observers in Oregon and other states.
Postal officials said the latter were standard procedure but nonetheless promised to suspend scrapping mailboxes and machines ahead of the election. Even the president tried to temper the growing outrage, insisting that he was only trying make the Postal Service great again.
But Americans are likely to be puzzled by his choice of targets. They rely on the mail not just for voting but also for such crucial needs as prescription drugs and, particularly during the pandemic, a wide variety of other goods, services and communications.
With a history extending to the Second Continental Congress, which named Benjamin Franklin the first postmaster general, the Postal Service is the most visible government presence in much of the country and among the most popular. A recent Pew Research Center survey found 91% of those polled viewed the agency favorably, with no difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Trump’s true motive in going after the mail was clear enough even before he effectively admitted it last week. Having embraced Russian assistance in 2016 and tried to bully Ukraine into interfering with the current campaign, he is leveling his latest attack on our democracy from within. And he is regarding a venerable, vital public asset as mere collateral damage in his increasingly desperate effort to evade the voters’ verdict.