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August 22, 2020

Today’s righteous action by weary citizens, in protest of yet another one of trump’s egregious, unethical, democracy-undermining presidential overreaches, took place at Davis’ main post office at the corner of 5th and Poleline.

MoveOn nationally, and IndivisibleYolo locally, sponsored this day of action at post offices nationwide. In spite of heat (low 80s, not too bad) and smoke from fires (in the unhealthy range for sensitive people), about 150 people showed up and hoisted signs and chanted. As we do.

And of course we showed up, because, jeez.. that effing president*…

Realizing that millions of people will rely on mail-in ballots in order to cast safe votes in November’s election (there’s a pandemic, you know), trump has decided — in fact, stated openly on national tv — that the greater voter turnout that would surely result from mail-in voting, jeopardizes his re-election (in fact, he accuses democrats of forcing vote-by-mail as a partisan ploy to gain advantage). So, a few months ago, he began a campaign to discredit vote-by-mail. He has since further claimed that, since mail ballots are so obviously subject to fraud (says he, lyingly), that any election outcome that results in his loss (only his loss, by the way), shall be rejected. He has said he’ll only accept the results of an election if he considers it fair, and has said that any election that relies on mailed in ballots is inherently fraudulent and unfair. Words to that effect.

So, last spring, he abruptly removed the then postmaster general, replaced him with a crony donor, a guy named Louis DeJoy, and subsequently met with him to discuss strategy (Dejoy denies this). trump needed to make sure his new guy understood his re-election strategies.. namely to disenfranchise as many voters as possible by throwing up as many roadblocks in the mail delivery system as they could quickly implement before November (of course targeting areas dense with low income, democratic leaning populations). DeJoy immediately fired a whole bunch of high level USPS managerial staff and got to work. He decommissioned numerous gargantuan mail sorters, he removed mailboxes from locations they’d been in for decades, he changed postal rates for ballots from bulk to first class (stressing state budgets at a time they are maxed due to the pandemic), he messed with worker overtime pay… and on and on. He then let twenty (or thirty?) Secretaries of State all over the country know that he could not guarantee timely delivery of ballots from the SoS to voters, or, once completed, from the voters back to those SoS for counting.

Oh, and in addition to DeJoy being a trump supporter and donor, he also owns stock in mailing and delivery services that are in direct competition with the United States Postal Service. I don’t even know how this obvious conflict of interest doesn’t automatically disqualify him from the job. I’ve already used the words egregious and unethical.. I’m running out of ways to describe these people.. and trump.. who just does all of this in plain sight. Just one hail mary after another, so desperate is he to hang on…

If the Senate hearings of the last few days are any indication, DeJoy is also quite an asshole. So there’s that, too.

And, at the same time trump and DeJoy are sowing as much chaos in the ballot delivery system as possible, and creating anxiety and uncertainty on the part of voters about the reliability now of voting by mail, corrupt republican voting officials in red districts everywhere are changing the rules about voting deadlines, signature matching requirements.. and so on. Again, all part of a concerted effort to discredit the election results (which everyone knows — especially the president* — will not be in trump’s favor if the election is fairly held). And again, all in plain sight.

Cheating is the only way he has any hopes of hanging on for a second term. Most detested, deceitful, dishonorable president in history.

So.. neither heat, nor smoke, nor tired arms will keep folks in Davis from protesting this insulting excuse for a leader and his stupid, never-ending swindles.

A couple of favorite signs:

fascism