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It’s hard not to take it a little personally. Some time ago, I wrote a short and optimistic piece for The New Republic that discussed how the venerable United States Postal Service, or USPS, shouldn’t just get fully funded to perform their normal duties but also reimagined as a vital centerpiece in reviving the federal government. I suppose the implication was that nothing of the kind could happen until President Trump was out of office since his overweening interest beyond himself is the null set. But it was a free idea of which he could have availed himself. Instead, he seems to have decided that it’s going to be knives out for this important institution.
Trump’s animosity toward the USPS is a fabric woven from many ill-tempered threads. He detests the administrative state of which the USPS is a potent part. He’s also trying to sock it to one of his political enemies, Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, by engineering postal chicanery to cut into the retail behemoth’s profits. And he’s engaged in some typical swampy wheeler-dealing: Trump appointed one of his top donors Louis DeJoy to the role of postmaster general, even though DeJoy’s only experience with the USPS is being heavily invested in its inferior private-sector counterparts.
The latest attacks on the USPS also have to do with the upcoming election and Trump’s fears that widespread mail-in voting might cost him the election. As TNR’s Matt Ford wrote this week, while Trump’s opponents within the Beltway cognoscenti game out all manner of melodramatic scenarios about the presidential transition, the real chaos is being sown right now at the local post office, where DeJoy “is sharply cutting the United States Postal Service’s operations in major cities, citing budget shortfalls”—a quick and dirty way to “undermine voting by mail and delegitimize the electoral process.” As Ford goes on to note, Pennsylvanians are “currently experiencing a widespread slowdown in mail delivery in cities like Philadelphia due to both staffing shortages from illness and policy changes.” |
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Trump’s tampering has the potential to blow back on him in some significant ways. As Politico reported this week, the president’s repeated rhetorical attacks on the USPS have had virtually the same effect as his pimping hydroxychloroquine from the bully pulpit: It’s convinced his most dedicated followers to do stupid things. Per Politico: “A potentially decisive slice of Trump’s battleground-state base—15 percent of Trump voters in Florida, 12 percent in Pennsylvania and 10 percent in Michigan—said that getting a ballot in the mail would make them less likely to vote in November.” This goes a long way to explaining why Trump has lately resorted to some tortured messaging in which he’s depicted voting by mail as something that’s only safe to do within the confines of Florida, a state that’s critical to his reelection. He’s also recently taken to begging for an earlier debate in order to get ahead of mail-in vote deadlines.
Beyond the ways Trump’s attacks may be self-sabotaging, I’m also wondering whether and when we might start hearing complaints from conservative corners that Trump’s anti-USPS broadsides are messing with people’s money.
The recent and untimely passing of Godfather’s Pizza magnate Herman Cain reminded me of how he played a transformative role in the conservative movement’s grifter game, moving much of their old-school direct-mail scams onto email platforms and online newsletters. And while these con artists have increasingly availed themselves of digital platforms, National Review’s Jim Geraghty reported last year that direct mail still played a massive role in “the right’s grifter problem”—less to peddle snake oil pills and get-rich-quick schemes than to trick “little old ladies” into opening their purses for deceitful political action committees that spend little on their declared purpose (to save America from liberal elites) and largely enrich the people that run them. The Republican National Committee needs the USPS to pull its own racket, which includes fundraising appeals designed to mimic census forms.
Of course, there are all sorts of legitimate political actors who also rely on the USPS for direct mail campaigns to get out the vote or gather signatures for referenda. I suppose one thing you can say about the Postal Service, then, is that it serves the just and the unjust equally. But in Trump’s deranged world, that’s not enough. You either serve him or no one at all.
—Jason Linkins, deputy editor |
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| One of the more significant stories of the past week was the decision by New York Attorney General Letitia James to pursue a line of legal action against the National Rifle Association that could lead to the organization’s dissolution. As Adam Winker explores at length, the venerable gun rights group has been staggering in recent years as it’s struggled to cope with big shifts in the political landscape and a leadership that’s treated its coffers like a personal expense account. The New York suit could be its undoing, but, as Matt Ford argues, be careful what you wish for: New York’s approach has a distinctly Trumpian strain. Of course, there’s plenty of Trumpian strain from the man himself: Osita Nwanevu games out the grotesque way in which Trump will attack Kamala Harris should she be selected as Joe Biden’s running mate. The president’s “petulant whims,” as Jacob Silverman writes, have recently come to fall hard on the beloved-by-the-young TikTok app specifically and our bleak industrial policy more generally. As Max Moran reports, Big Tech is something that Joe Biden needs to put his head at as well, as he’ll be responsible for leading the federal government’s future anti-trust initiatives. Elsewhere, Osita notes that the tide is turning against the filibuster, Matthew Phelan and Jesse Hicks explore Project Veritas’s latest scheme to steal an election, Kate Wagner does a thorough filleting of the Confederate Kitsch industry, and Alex Shephard sizes up Ariana Pekary’s complaint against cable news and determines them to be several hundred days late and quite a few dollars short. |
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