As discussed previously, the upcoming November election will end up being one of the largest “vote by mail” elections in our nations history. If you are like me, living in Massachusetts, you will have already been mailed an application to vote by mail, and would have already been sent your ballot for the primary taking place on September 1st. I have already cast my ballot for that election and am confident that it will be counted, just as any other ballot would be (See my previous post about Voter Fraud as to why I am confident and why you should be too). The postage was even prepaid.
The main reason vote by mail works is the United States Postal Service. The USPS is going to process millions of ballots this year, as people vote by mail, rather than risk voting in person during a pandemic that is not looking like it will be better/over by November 3. Unfortunately President Trump views this as a negative for his chances of winning re-election on November 3. Because of this belief, he has recently committed actions in order to destroy the USPS, ensuring long delays in the mail.
All this was made possible by his appointment of one of his political donors, Louis DeJoy, to be the Postmaster General. This should be extremely unsettling to voters and champions of free and fair elections. Dejoy immediately put into place cost cutting measures that saw the reassignment of dozens of post office officials and have led to delays in mail. Trump and his aides have also sought to take executive actions around mail in ballots themselves by forcing some states to not send ballots to certain places or forcing poll workers not to count mail in ballots. Simply put, the President of the U.S. is using one of his rich friends to rig an election he doesn’t think he can win. (Also worth noting, DeJoy has $100 million invested in competitors of the post office like UPS, the swamp has never been swampier).
Trump is once again flexing his authoritarian muscles. If he succeeds with this endeavor, those authoritarian muscles will get much more tightly gripped around the neck of liberty. There is no scenario where anybody should waste their vote on this man, but people will. For what reason, is beyond me, especially now where he is literally trying to have your vote thrown in the trash. Not only are these policies grossly undemocratic, but they are hurting veterans, who rely on the USPS to deliver medication in a timely fashion, senior citizens, who rely on the USPS for their social security check, and small business, who rely on the USPS to run their business. Seems like a terrible electoral strategy but this is par for the course (pun intended) for Trump and republicans. They would rather suppress the vote, than do things to to gain votes. They are under the impression that they can’t win if everyone votes.
In a healthy democracy, which we are not, the politicians would be forced to bend to the will of the majority if they wanted to keep their jobs. One party, the democrats, would like you and everyone else, to vote. Mail in voting does not favor one party over the other. This should not be a partisan issue. The USPS needs to be fully funded, and made even more robust, in order to allow us to have a more secure election in November. The House democrats passed this funding as a part of the HEROES act in May, that has since been sitting in Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard in the GOP controlled Senate. Again, not sure why a public utility, that is legitimately helpful to everyone, is being made partisan, but Republicans are most known for telling you the government doesn’t work and then proving it. Before you try to “enlighten” me about how much money the USPS “wastes,” look up the military budget. USPS is a public service that tax dollars are exactly designed to be spent on. Feel free to boycott and pay UPS or FedEx 10 times the cost of a stamp to mail a letter.
Now that I have that off my chest, what can be done about or fascist president trying to steal the election by throwing away our votes.
- Vote and do it as Early as Possible. Vote as early as you can. If you are mailing a ballot, mail it at least three weeks in advance. Which means you should probably have it postmarked before Indigenous Peoples day. You can also bring it directly to your town/city clerk or election office by hand. This is probably the best option. If you are not able to vote by mail because your state is run by the Trump/fascist enablers (FL, TX, GA), bring a chair and get to the polls early because you know they are going to be closing polling locations like Wisconsin did in their primary this April and prepare for a long wait.
- Be Patient on Election Night. With as many voters voting by mail as possible, and with states allowing ballots to be postmarked, not counted, by election day, the winner may take a little longer than usual to be determined. If the election is close, and their is no winner on that night, 45 is going to do everything in his fascist playbook to call into question the results of the election. Do not give in. Do not freak out. Delays are normal when voting by mail happens. The only thing that will stop this from happening is a landslide victory for Biden (which is what should happen because the “American Exceptionalism” narrative that gets rammed down our throats would lead us to believe that Americans hate fascism).
- Call your Reps. Now, if you have a democrat member of the House and two democrat Senators, you won’t need to do much pressing on the USPS issue. Like I said, the House democrats already have passed funding as part of the HEROES act for COVID relief. The Senate democrats also support this. This is mainly for the people represented by republicans. Make them assure you that they are going to support funding for the USPS and free/fair/safe elections in the fall. If they don’t vote for someone else. Hooray for Democracy!
I’ll end with this. Frankly, I’m angry and scared of where this last 3 years (really since Nixon) has brought us. We are going to have an autocrat, supported by his cronies in government, attempt to steal an election, in the country that has been a beacon of democracy since its founding, and STILL GET 40% of the vote nationally. Last time I wrote, it was about “where is the bottom” when it comes to Trump. Folks, if we get any lower than “attempting to steal and election” we would have deserved it. I really wanted to switch gears to just talking about all the reasons you should vote for Biden, rather than just why you shouldn’t vote for Trump, but this is different. Not only is there no real reason to vote for him (unless you’re a rich white guy/corporate board member), but he is the antithesis of what America is supposed to be and what America is supposed to stand for. A vote for Trump in 2020 is a vote for the death of everything that we have worked so hard to achieve since the founding of this country.
Thanks for reading. Vote for Biden. Vote for Democracy
John
PS, Also this:
She's Worth It 