Post Office is Democrats latest conspiracy theory

Democrats spent more than two years selling a phony conspiracy theory about the Trump campaign criminally colluding with Russia.  They could do that because the media was a major promoter of the fraudulent theory.  They got their comeuppance when Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s $30 million investigation proved that the politically advanced theory was total hogwash.  And as we learn more about the folks creating that bogus theory, we know that it was the result of a malicious partisan – and possibly criminal – strategy.  The accusers were the only conspirators – or coup plotters, as it were.

Failing that, Democrats propped up a new conspiracy theory.  That the Trump administration was conspiring with the newly elected government in Ukraine to get the goods on presidential rival Joe Biden. That one seems to be backfiring, too.  It appears from early reports that there were “goods” to be gotten on Biden and his son Hunter.  There is more to come on that one.

As in baseball, Democrats have one more swing with the conspiracy theory bat before the game ends in November.  For that, they have selected the United States Post Office.  As with every bogus conspiracy theory, it is played out by Democrats and the compliant press as an existential threat to the Republic.  We will lose our Democracy to an authoritarian regime.  We will become just another North Korea.  Okay, they do not compare us to North Korea, but their exaggerated imagery invites the comparison.

Here is how the theory goes.  President Trump – knowing that he cannot win an honest election (so THEY say) – has decided to rig the election by making it impossible for millions of mail-in ballots to be counted by failure to be processed through the Post Office.

How is Trump doing that, you ask?

According to the partisan theory, Trump cutting funds off from the Post Office so that the mail carrier cannot handle the millions and millions of new mail-in ballots that Democrats want to promote.

Actually, Trump favors INCREASED funding of the Post Office. It is in his proposal.  But it is not as much as the spend-crazy Democrats want to feed into one of their favorite bureaucracies.  That has been the evergreen friction between the party of fiscal responsibility and the party of reckless and politically motivated spending.

Trump makes the point that the funding for the Post Office is being held up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stubborn insistence that no money will go out unless it includes the bailout of states that have been in a deep financial crisis for years due to gross mismanagement.  And every state with such a crisis has been run by Democrats for eons.  To get that funding, Pelosi is not only holding up the money for the Post Office, but additional unemployment compensations, stimulus payments to every American taxpayer, aid to small business and more money to fight the Covid-19 Pandemic.

AS further evidence of Democrats’ claim that the Trump administration is literally sabotaging the Post Office, the liberal media has come up with stories of how mail processing machines have been taken offline – and how a lot of public drop-boxes have been removed from street corners.  In one photo they show a lot of those boxes in storage – sheepishly admitting that they may have been there for a long time and not recently removed.  A propaganda photo.

They specifically mentioned the removal of some of those drop-boxes in Portland, Oregon.  Actually, the removal of drop-boxes has been a protective measure against terrorist bombs.  The Post Office has been removing them for decades.  It is virtually impossible to find one in our major cities, such as Chicago and New York.  In view of the ongoing threats and violence in Portland, it is a prudent policy.  But conspiracy theories and propaganda depend on making things seem like what they are not.

Even if the Post Office cannot handle the expansion of mail-in balloting, it does not mean the vote is suppressed.  Absentee balloting is still available in every state – and can be, and has been, handled flawlessly by the Post Office for generations.

It does not prevent people from participating in early voting – giving them weeks before Election Day to cast a ballot.  They can also show up on Election Day – as has been the custom for more than 200 years.

Even people who can vote absentee or by no-excuse mail-in balloting can mail their ballots at the EARLIEST possible opportunity – virtually assuring that they will be received in time.  It is a bit like Christmas mail.  If you wait to send those cards or gift packages out until December 23, they will not get there in time.

The Democrat narrative goes into hyperbolic outer space with fearmongering screeds of how Trump will be killing Americans who will be unable to obtain their mail-delivered prescriptions.  The people will not get their bills on time – or have their payment checks delivered on time.  It is yet another of the left’s apocalyptic narratives design to make the Trump Administration seem like the most cataclysmic event since the extinction of the dinosaurs.  In fact, the normal service of the Post Office – the good and the bad – will continue as we have come to accept it.

We have known for some time that there is no way for the Post Office to make the changes necessary to accommodate tens of millions of last-minute ballots.  It is physically impossible.  There is insufficient time to make all the necessary changes – and no amount of money can change that reality.  That is why the Post Office issued letters to the states to advise that some of the mailing deadlines are too late to guarantee mail-in ballots can be processed in a timely fashion.  (Incidentally, that is not the kind of warning they would issue if they were conniving to suppress the vote.)

Then there is the long ongoing issue of the cost and efficiency of the Post Office.  It was spun off as a department of the federal government and made a quasi-private institution.  The noble idea was to make it profitable – or at least revenue neutral.  That never happened.  The Post Office remains a heavily taxpayer subsidized operation.

In modern times, the Post Office has consistently lost an enormous amount of its core business to email and online banking.  In my own case, I put a stamp on an envelope less than 10 times a year.  I receive and pay bills electronically.  Competitive package delivery services – such as FedEx, UPS and now Amazon  — have taken another chunk of business from the Post Office.

The Post Office MUST restructure to compete.  That means scaling down its operations.  There are proposals to end Saturday delivery.  More automation.  Cuts in personnel.  These are all necessary actions to make the Post Office operate more efficiently.  These are issues that have nothing to do with the upcoming election.

Democrats, however, see the Post Office as one of their bureaucratic constituencies that need to be funded … and funded … and funded.  In return, the Postal Unions are bedrock supporters of the Democratic Party – with endorsements and money.

In an ironic sense, however, it is the Democrats who are hoping to crash the Post Office during the election by overloading the system — much like computer terrorists overload websites. Their main concern is that Trump just might win the election – and they are preparing to question the legitimacy of the election just as they have done in the past.

It is also ironic that Democrats continue to proffer the nonsensical narrative that Trump will somehow not accept the results of the election – and will attempt to remain in office by some sort of coup.  And at the same time, they, themselves, are preparing not to accept the outcome of the election.

As Americans, we can rest assured that on January 20, 2021, we will see the inauguration of a President of the United States – mostly likely either Trump or Biden.  Oh, there may be some ginned up political controversy.  Maybe some court cases.  Possible debates over the Electoral College.  But thanks to our system of government – and especially the Electoral College – the election will be settled, and our Republic will stand.  Despite all the Democrat political hyperbole and the reports from the hysterical news media, nothing the Trump administration is doing is a threat to the core of the American form of participatory government.

FOOTNOTE: In an earlier commentary, I urged Americans to NOT vote by mail unless absolutely necessary.  That advice is even more relevant today.

So, there ‘tis.