That headline is one of Rachel Maddow’s signature phrases when she becomes alarmed at the direction of events, worrying that her worst political nightmare might come true.
However, as each day passes, there is an increasing dread inside me about the upcoming election. Yes, we have one of the strongest Democratic tickets that we could have asked for in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Yes, we have more unity among Democrats than we’ve seen in a long time due to the behavior of the Conman-In-Chief in the White House. Yes, Democrats have large advantages going into the election, including, but not limited to strong polling with less than three months until the election, lots of enthusiasm, grassroots financial support, not to mention a whole lot of people trying to keep us focused on the nuts-and-bolts ground game of doing what needs to be done, nationally and state-by-state for Democrats to win an Electoral College majority (thanks Yosef 52, by the way, for being one of our leading proponents of that on this site).
Under normal circumstances, all of that would make me reasonably confident in our chances of winning a free and fair election. But there’s the rub. It increasingly looks to me like the chances of having a “free and fair” election this year are getting worse and worse with each day.
And one of the biggest concerns right now is Trump’s shameless efforts to subvert the ability of the Post Office to deliver ballots by mail in a timely way.
www.npr.org/…
Democrats in the House, Senate and throughout the country are trying to raise holy heck about this, but as long as Republicans control the Senate, there is literally nothing that can be done about Trump’s subverting the mail except to loudly complain, educate Americans and try to mitigate the success of these efforts by having people vote early and/or in person. (There is talk about taking judicial action, but it’s unclear to me what we are asking judges to do to fix this and whether that can even work in time for the election).
But while deliberately undermining the Post Office’s ability to deliver ballots in a timely manner is a top concern, it’s not the only one.
There’s Putin and the Russian Government, including the GRE (their military) which are expected to not only engage in the same types of shenanigans as in 2016, but to build on those efforts even further (and engage in who knows what else).
There are deliberate efforts by Republican election officials to make it difficult for people to vote in “certain” polling stations (i.e. where there are a lot of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Democratic voters) by reducing the number of polling stations to ridiculous levels where people will need to stand in line for many hours just to vote.
Not to mention a nationwide posse that Republicans are assembling to serve as “poll watchers” to try to intimidate as many people as they possibly can at “certain” polling stations.
Not to mention voter ID laws and modern-day equivalents of poll taxes (forcing former felons to pay fines before they are able to vote again).
The list goes on and on.
Of course, there are ways to help circumvent Trump’s sabotage of the Post Office, like encouraging people to vote early and drop off their ballots instead of mailing them. But will that really enable us to overcome the sabotage of the mail as far as its impact on the final election results?
We absolutely need to continue to work diligently to fight each and every one of these voter suppression tactics. And we need to do as most folks on this site advocate and try to win this election in such a landslide, a blue tsunami, that the results can’t be disputed.
However, when you add up all of the above Republican efforts, it still makes me wonder if we will be able to withstand all of those efforts to snuff out democracy in this country this year, especially with the latest efforts to corrupt our mail system.
www.npr.org/...
www.independent.co.uk/…
www.rollingstone.com/…
Earlier today, a news story popped up on my computer about a documentary scheduled to debut on August 20, titled “Dress Rehearsal” by Director David Modigliani. It’s about the digital campaign implemented by Democrats in Wisconsin earlier this year, in the face of all kinds of Republican efforts to suppress the vote, and how Democrats overcame that to defeat an incumbent Republican State Supreme Court justice in a landslide. A trailer for the documentary is included in the below article.
www.yahoo.com/…
The documentary demonstrates a truly inspiring story about how Democrats can, with sheer determination and creative new approaches overcome these filthy Republican efforts to prevent people from voting. However, as inspiring as that is, those efforts in Wisconsin were before Trump began deliberately subverting vote-by-mail by undermining the Post Office’s ability to deliver mail in a timely manner. The question now is, can we Democrats rise to the occasion nationally, like we did in Wisconsin earlier this year, to overcome not only all of those challenges faced by Wisconsin voters, but the new one involving the Post Office, too?
It seems to me that if Democrats could overcome all of those challenges in Wisconsin, there’s a chance that with a lot of organizing nationwide, and creativity, we might be able to circumvent the the deliberate slow-down of mail throughout the country, as well. But that will be a major challenge, no matter how you slice it. We do have some time to do something about it, unlike many of the other Republican voter-suppression tactics (such as last-minute changes and reductions in polling stations). That at least gives us an opportunity to come up with an organized effort to overcome these tactics.
But there’s still a big question in my mind as to whether we will be able to overcome the deliberate corruption of the Post Office by Trump. It could make a huge difference in key swing states like Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where polls already show the race to be much tighter than elsewhere in the country.
Can someone talk me down off the ledge as far as whether Trump will be able to flip the election to his advantage using this tactic?
(P.S. For anyone taking me literally who might be worried about the possibility of me standing on the ledge of a tall building ready to jump, please don’t worry. The ledge under my feet right now is actually only about one inch from the ground.)
(P.P.S. For those who may be hoping for me to jump off of the ledge of a tall building...sorry to disappoint.)
