How to steal an election during a pandemic: fuck up the USPS

[lady_*nix]

It's already happening too. The USPS in Pennsylvania says they can't handle the current plan for mass voting by mail.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Will_Bunch/s ... 6208278531

Also notice how the House Democrats can't and/or won't do anything about this.

https://mobile.twitter.com/tedlieu/stat ... 5888361472

I keep telling y'all. This administration does not play by the rules. We are not going to be able to "vote him out".

[SciFiFisher]

Sadly, the House is hamstrung by the Senate. As long as the Senate is controlled by the Republicans and the WH is controlled by Trump & Co. The House is very limited in what they can do. Even if the House and Senate agree on anything they have to pass a veto proof law or Trump can just stop it.

I don't want to fan the flames but at this point unless the Republicans and et all pull back from the brink and finally check Trump in November this could wind up becoming quite violent. The real key is going to be a massive ground swell of votes that cannot be explained away or uncounted. Literally, the vote is going to have to be something like 70% Biden 30% Trump so the Republicans can't ignore it or try to jump on board the "Election Fraud" train.

I mean these are the same morons who created the Tea Party. When the Tea Party stopped being whacko enough they gravitated to the Q-Anon folks. The first of that batch is now on the glide path to being elected and seated in Congress in November.

There is a possibility that enough people will get behind stopping this push to kill the post office. Bezo's is the most obvious example of someone who will be severely harmed by the post office issue. The post office in 2019 handled something like $16 billion in marketing mail. Mail marketing works. You don't spend that kind of money on "junk mail" if you aren't selling stuff. There was $22 billion in shipping and package revenue in 2019. And that is only expected to get bigger due to E-commerce. The post office is still the most economical way to ship most things. Fedex and UPS don't want to ship to the back of beyond in rural America. They don't make money on those.

When everyone from the Direct Marketing Association to the Farmers Associations realize just what a huge BF without lube this is I expect there to be a huge backlash. It may take a couple of weeks for the momentum to get going but I have hope.

[lady_*nix]

@Fisher

Fully concur on basically all of that, except for the hope part re mail marketers and keeping the USPS running. My expectation for that is more disaster capitalism stuff. Once the election is over and Trump has decisively won, I'd assume the USPS would be parceled out to the private sector because that's "the only way to save it." (And the companies that take up the mantle would make themselves look like saviors and all, because that's The American Way.)

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump wants to gut the USPS without replacing it, and just fuck over everyone in the heartland. It would fit with the rest of the whole sadopopulism thing.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Hopefully

[lady_*nix]

@Sigma

I doubt a privatized postal system would get us clean elections again. We've already seen how companies like Facebook have Trumpist sympathies and work closely with the administration, freely breaking the law because they're Too Big To Fail and the execs are so rich they're untouchable.

[Sigma_Orionis]

@Sigma

I doubt a privatized postal system would get us clean elections again. We've already seen how companies like Facebook have Trumpist sympathies and work closely with the administration, freely breaking the law because they're Too Big To Fail and the execs are so rich they're untouchable.

My "hopefully" was in response to Fisher's comment.

[code monkey]

cleansing breath, guys. (thank you, dr Lamaze.)

the post office is a requirement. check the constitution. people like it. lots. there has been a loud, effective out-cry against recent steps and out new, totally unqualified postmaster had backed off.

really, de joy. did you think that people wouldn't notice that you were having mailboxes taken off the streets? that their medications were arriving late? that none of the postal workers would notice that you were taking sorting machines out and trashing them? or that if they did notice, that they'd keep it quiet?

btw, I heard an interesting interview with one of the founders of indivisible. their guide to effective protest is online and invaluable. among other things, they urge one to contact their congress people - whether or not one is in agreement with what those people are doing. focus efforts on those you can vote for as reelection is (almost) always on their minds. scripts are provided.

[lady_*nix]

@Sigma

Oohhhh my bad. Sorry, my brain is pretty fried these days.

@cm

I want to believe all of that, but so far "the Constitution requires it" and "people love it" has not been much of a shield against Trump and his goons. Again, it all comes down to who is loyal to him and who will defy him - we've seen over and over again that legal precedent doesn't matter, it only matters whether someone is willing to tell him "no" and actually refuse to follow his orders.

@Fisher

I think what worries me about your "junk mailers will save us" thinking is that it assumes companies sending junk mail
a) will act in rational self-interest, with a view towards longer term benefits
b) stand to benefit more from a working USPS than from another 4+ years of Trump

I think both of those are not great assumptions. The history of the oil industry knowing about and dismissing global warming is IMO pretty conclusive proof that corporations don't act in rational self-interest or think in the long term; and the second assumption seems pretty unlikely, since e.g. a fully privatized USPS could just offer huge discounts to junk mailers while raising prices for individuals.

Again, I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but this administration and the forces behind it are not reasonable, and I don't think we can count on the reasonableness of our institutions (or our private sector) to fight back. Every time so far, the victories have either been short-lived or corporate fakery designed to make a profit. Hell, the NY Times and WaPo basically made a brand of #Resist, and they never stopped publishing propaganda and even fascist editorials.

[Sigma_Orionis]

@Sigma

Oohhhh my bad. Sorry, my brain is pretty fried these days.

I see that my post was made at 7:25 AM (my time). your post answering Fisher's was made at 7:24 AM. Obviously you hit "submit" just before I did. So, that's why my "Hopefully" is under yours.

[lady_*nix]

So they suspended the USPS fuckery for now:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... y-election

but the problem is the harm done in swing states is already sufficient to sway the election.

And this is another thing people need to understand about Trump's regime: it's not a totalitarian dictatorship like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, it may never be. It's more like modern Russia or Turkey, or hell, Venezuela under Chavez - maintaining just enough semblance of a functioning democracy to keep people's normalcy bias fed. But as with Russia, or Turkey, or Venezuela, that appearance is a veneer. The true face of the regime is family separation at the border, blockading of medical supplies to blue states, and border patrol goons terrorizing downtown Portland.

TL;DR don't assume this isn't a dictatorship now just because Trump hasn't gone ahead and declared martial law. The only reason he hasn't is because he doesn't have to (and TBH it would probably be counterproductive vs. the frogs-on-a-slow-boil approach).

[lady_*nix]

If I sound like a broken record lately BTW, it's because I feel like I've been shouting at the top of my lungs for the last five fucking years and not being fully heard.

Edit: and I'm going to ask y'all again to please follow Sarah Kendzior:

https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior

She is literally a scholar on how kleptocratic dictatorships form. Listen to her, damnit. She knows what she is talking about.

[code monkey]

yes, we(ok, sigma, not you) certainly are living in a kleptocracy with a touch of whatever one calls the form of government which has the head settling scores. why is our current president(ocp) going after the post office? (something that predates all of this mail-in ballot nonsense.) well, he's certain that amazon has its packages delivered at very favorable rates by it thus making jeff bezos rich. no doubt even richer than ocp. jeff bezos owns the Washington post and ocp is incensed that the paper's editorial page and opinion columnists are critical of him. therefore …

barak Obama was and is very popular. far more so than ocp. what should one do?

a. try to be more like barak Obama
b. try to undo everything that barak Obama achieved for the country

I leave it as an exercise for the student to choose the inappropriate, or ocp action.

[lady_*nix]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8k ... eral-dejoy

Yup the bullshit is still ongoing

[lady_*nix]

And it gets even worse!

https://twitter.com/dellcam/status/1296527623699476480

Part of the deal is a giant favor for Amazon. Also they hate everyone who gets meds by mail apparently, I mean duh, they believe in eugenics and want to just let anyone die who isn't their definition of healthy.