If you had any thought that this would be a clean and fair election, that ought to be out the window now. Trump has so bolloxed his chances by creating doubts about mail voting that he feels compelled to fuck up the election completely to have any chance.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s mail service, displacing the two top executives overseeing day-to-day operations, according to a reorganization memo released Friday. The shake-up came as congressional Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy and the cost-cutting measures that have slowed mail delivery and ensnared ballots in recent primary elections.
So, a Friday night coup at the postal service was one part of the plan. Here’s the other part:
The Postal Service has 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. That nearly triples the per-ballot cost at a time when tens of millions more will be delivered. The rate change would have to go through the Postal Regulatory Commission and, undoubtedly, litigation. But the time frame for that is incredibly short, as ballots go out very soon.
A side benefit of this money grab is that states and cities may decide they don’t have the money to mail absentee ballots, and will make them harder to get. Which is exactly the worst-case scenario everyone fears.
First, slow down the mail so that it takes forever to count the ballots, and some are invalidated for being late. Second, try to dissuade the states from conducting vote-by-mail by making it arbitrarily and needlessly expensive.
The Democrats now have a huge advantage with mail voting because conservatives believed the president when he said it was rife with fraud. So, fucking up mail voting is now synonymous with cheating. Trump can win by denying Biden votes rather than getting them for himself.
It’s brazen and shameless, and absolutely desperate. This election is going to be dirtier than anything we’ve seen in modern times, and a lot of it is happening in plain sight.
Sincerely hope that Pelosi has a plan for this. Anyway, the news is that there were a record number of votes cast in the Michigan primary. I think it’s going to be a wave. It’s going to be immense , and the incumbents better watch out. Very very different from four years ago. I live in Trump country. Only one Trump sign in my neighborhood, and much fewer Trump bumper stickers than four years ago.
The more they do to deny the vote, the more determined we become. Haven’t they learned that yet?
Perhaps, but what’s the plan when trump orders ballot seizures?
Is that right? Trump just cancelled the constitution and no one said a word.
Can states set up systems where donations to help defray the cost of sending ballots are possible?
Don’t mess with charitable deductions
More like state go fund the vote
In some states it would probably need to be city based
Thanks for stating the case so starkly. It’s the first necessary step for dealing successfully with Trump’s regime should he attempt—as seems increasingly likely—a de facto coup (by preventing or attempting to overturn the result of a free and fair election).
I’d encourage you (and your colleagues at WM, and other democratic—small and large “d”—thinkers/writers) to start educating all of us on *how* to resist such an attempted coup. Successful resistance requires advance planning and organizing, preferably led by a broad and unified coalition of democratic institutions and leaders.
Here’s what Gene Sharp suggests in a short section titled “Blocking Coups” from his influential essay, “From Dictatorship to Democracy”:
“There are ways in which coups against newly liberated societies can be defeated. Advance knowledge of that defense capacity may at times be sufficient to deter the attempt. Preparation can produce prevention.
Immediately after a coup is started, the putschists require legitimacy, that is, acceptance of their moral and political right to rule. The first basic principle of anti-coup defense is therefore to deny legitimacy to the putschists.
The putschists also require that the civilian leaders and population be supportive, confused, or just passive. The putschists require the cooperation of specialists and advisors, bureaucrats and civil servants, administrators and judges in order to consolidate their control over the affected society. The putschists also require that the multitude of people who operate the political system, the society’s institutions, the economy, the police, and the military forces will passively submit and carry out their usual functions as modified by the putschists’ orders and policies.
The second basic principle of anti-coup defense is to resist the putschists with noncooperation and defiance. The needed cooperation and assistance must be denied. Essentially the same means of struggle that was used against the dictatorship can be used against the new threat, but applied immediately. If both legitimacy and cooperation are denied, the coup may die of political starvation and the chance to build a democratic society restored.”