Donald Trump is trying to fix the November 3 election in advance by making it impossible for people to vote by mail. He knows full well that he's halfway out the White House door, and if lots of people who are fed up with him vote, the door will slam shut -- right behind his derriere.
So, he's trying to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service, already struggling for money by installing a big time donor as Postmaster General and refusing to approve emergency funding the agency needs to stay afloat.
Trump admitted as much when he told Fox News palsy-walsy reporter Marie Bartiromo that he can kill mail-in voting by withholding those funds.
"Now, they need that money in order to make the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump told Bartiromo. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”
So, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 166,000 people in the U.S. and continues unabated, Trump wants to force people to go to the polls in person and cast their ballots -- when he knows full well that millions of voters are afraid to do so.
And now, with Sen. Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket with former vice president Joe Biden, increasing numbers of female and African American voters can be expected to vote and further damage Trump's chances of re-election. But many of them will be among the millions who want to vote by mail and not risk going to the polls.
The numbers show that more Trump supporters than Biden supporters want to vote in person.
A new Pew Research poll shows that more voters than ever are highly engaged and that it "really matters" who wins in November. But, 49 percent expect to have difficulties casting a ballot -- compared to 2018 when 85 percent of registered voters said voting would be easy.
The poll also showed that 80 percent of registered voters who support or lean toward Trump prefer to vote in person, either on election day or earlier, while only 17 percent want to vote by mail.
However, 58 percent of voters who support or lean toward Biden want to vote by mail.
“There’s nothing wrong with getting out and voting. . . . They voted during World War I and World War II,” Trump told Bartiromo.
Well, voting during those wars was not a danger to one's health.
Thus, Trump is refusing to approve that $25 billion in emergency funding as well as $3.5 billion for election resources. He could care less if people get sick, including his mindless supporters who will vote in person, refuse to wear masks, or practice any form of social distancing. Just hit the Trump button. That's all he cares about.
Already, the mails are slowing down, apparently because of actions being implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, causing problems for millions of Americans.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pointed out that among other things, the Postal Service delivers many prescriptions, especially important today.
“So they’re hurting seniors," she said. "It’s a health issue. . . . So, when the president goes after the Postal Service, he’s going after an all-American, highly approved-by-the-public institution,” she said.
Obviously, it's not just seniors. America relies on the mail for everything from paychecks to bill and mortgage payments to other important business and personal mail. America's military, including those serving overseas, relies on the mail. On and on. The implications of Trump's self-serving politically inspired sabotaging of the U.S.P.S. are sweeping and severe.
Biden's campaign had this to say today:
"The president of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies and for delivery of medicines, because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in over 100 years — a crisis so devastatingly worsened by his own failed leadership that we are now the hardest hit country in the world by the coronavirus pandemic," Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said.
The bottom line is this. Trump is trying to fix the election by sabotaging the Postal Service so mail-in voting is virtually impossible.
November 3.