SUNDAY NOTE: Save the United States Postal Service

The president is trying to steal the election, he said so himself.

sree sreenivasan

Aug 16

This newsletter is produced w/ Zach Peterson (@zachprague).

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TUNE IN: Today’s Sunday NYT Readaalong is special. My guest is Veronica Chambers, Editor of Narrative Projects at The New York Times and co-author of “Finish the Fight!” a history of the American suffrage movement for middle-grade readers. It will be an amazing show! 8:30-10:15 am ET – watch live or later.

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Right this second, the president is crippling the Postal Service (USPS) so that he will win the election on November 3rd. His goal is to make it hard-to-impossible to vote by mail across the country, severely depress turnout, and steal the election.

It’s not speculation. He said it on TV.

Abby D. Phillip @abbydphillip

Trump saying clearly on Fox why he won’t fund USPS. “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…But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting…”

In Oregon, it’s already happening.

J. Ramakrishnan @JRamakrishnanOR

Mailboxes update: A Eugene resident told me the outbound slots in his neighborhood’s mailbox have been locked shut. He said residents don’t have individual boxes, so to send mail, they either have to find a roadside dropbox or risk a trip to the PO. USPS removes mailboxes in Portland and Eugene, cites ‘declining mail volume’The removals caused concern among many residents of both cities, following remarks from the president about impeding vote-by-mailoregonlive.com

Nationwide, it’s ramping up as well. According to the Washington Post, 46 states and the District of Columbia have already received letters from the USPS saying it “cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted.”

With the Senate out of session for the month (without passing a new Covid19 relief bill, of course), recourse lies with the states — specifically state attorneys general. This feels like the 1000th time over the last 3+ years that we’ve had to rely on another branch of government to save us from the president’s corruption-laden whims and, once again, it’s on an issue absolutely fundamental to the functioning of the country.

Per the Washington Post report, 671 USPS mail sorting machines have been removed across the country since over the last two months – a reduction in national mail sorting capacity of 21.4 million pieces of mail per hour. Soon, that will include ballots for the presidential election. Right now, it means late medicine, late paychecks, late Social Security/Medicare funds, and a lot more.

Please write, call, email, text — whatever you can do — your senators and representatives and put pressure on them to get involved and stop this madness. After you do that, go to your state’s secretary of state’s office (or whatever state agency manages elections) and check out every option you have to vote.

Some tweets to note:

Manisha Sinha @ProfMSinha

Civil War historian here, the last people to interfere with the USPS were slaveholders who invaded post offices and burned abolitionist literature. #SaveTheUSPS

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen

The Postal Workers Union is done fucking around. https://t.co/MDB2e8LGU9

Taylor Swift @taylorswift13

Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly: He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president. He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.

Here’s a great thread from my friend Vanita Gupta, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, with avenues for you to reach out:

Vanita Gupta @vanitaguptaCR

Outrage about Trump’s attack on the USPS is not enough. Here are concrete steps each of us can take to protect our vote and save our democracy. Thread 1/10

Make some calls. I’m going to.

– Sree
I know many nonprofits are suffering during the pandemic, so my Digimentors colleague, VP of Education Linda Bernstein (@wordwhacker), has put together an all-star workshop on Wed, Aug 19: Nonprofits & Social Media: How to Cope When the World is on Fire. Experts Beatrice Frey (@beafrey), Head of Digital Communications at UN Peacekeeping; Dante Licona (@dante_licona), Senior Social Media Officer at International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; Tiq Milan (@themrmilan), former Social Media Strategist at GLAAD. Tix are $20-$30 (watch live or later; if you can’t afford even this price, email me).

Read Something

This spot is usually reserved for a particularly poignant piece of writing, but I’m invoking editorial privilege and sharing my recent piece for Newsday; it’s all about why Kamala Harris is an excellent choice for VP. Read it and let me know what you think!