Article 1, Section 1, Clause 7

I’ve always been fond of the Magritte painting titled “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” Aside from its entertaining Surrealist street-cred, I like the phrase because I can apply it in my head to so many things that are not what they appear.

This afternoon, I formulated a new non-equivalence.

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The United States Postal Service does not equal a football. Of course not! The existence — and the impartiality — of the USPS is enshrined in the United States Constitution. This is the citation: Article I, Section 8, Clause 7. Wikipedia goes on to note: “…in the 20th century, the Court took a more assertive approach in striking down postal laws which limited free expression, particularly as it related to political materials. The First Amendment thus provided a check on the Postal Power.”

What’s in your mailbox?

In the last month, which included Washington’s primary elections, I found all this in my postal mailbox:

• Three bank statements
• Five credit card statements, plus three pitches for various credit card offers
• Four utility bills, plus a legally required mailing about a rate change
• Registration for my new car
• Loan statements for mortgage and aforementioned car
• Insurance cards for car
• The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Real Simple, two people’s subscriptions to The Atlantic, National Geographic, The Week, Dwell, Catster
• Catalogues from Baedeker Books, Alberene Royal Mail, Solutions
• Charity pitches or thanks-for-donating from easily a dozen charities my mother and I support, including both our university alumni associations
• Grocery circulars for Safeway, Fred Meyer’s, Albertson’s; a ValPack promoting local small businesses; a flyer from Target
• Campaign literature for at least a half-dozen candidates
• My primary ballot

Your results may vary. Although I pay a lot of bills online, I prefer paper statements and invoices, so I can file all the mail I look after by its owner. But please note the last two items: campaign literature and my ballot as a Washington state voter.

So what? This is not news…

Why would I even think such a strange non sequitur needed to be pointed out? Because this is also true:

President Trump has been making remote voting — absentee ballots, mail-in voting, call it what he will on any given day — a political football. He says (although he casts absentee ballots from Florida himself) that mail ballots cannot be trusted. This is a ridiculous thing to fixate on, if you believe (and don’t just give the belief lip-service) that voting is an essential cornerstone of our democracy.

I can think of plenty of people who are of an age or medical condition that might give them pause about showing up in person, in a congested in-person voting setting. Timothy would have been one of them, were he alive today. Why should our states — never mind our federal government! — be making it harder for anyone to cast such ballots in the time of coronavirus?

Yet, today, I am very sorry to say, the President of my country — the very country that made both the postal service and the ability to cast a free and unimpeded ballot cornerstones of our democracy — openly said he thought defunding the US Postal Service might help him win the election because it would prevent Democratic voters from casting ballots.

Think about that.

The President would defund a cornerstone public service in order to skew voting capabilities. And thus skew voting results. Hopefully in his favor, because he believes fewer mailed ballots will help him win reelection. And, I can only suppose, help his party partners win their races.

It is worth stating again: Actual voter fraud is vanishingly small. Both Republican and Democratic election officials will tell you about the many tools they have in place to catch it. States with mail-in-only voting have successfully managed such elections for many years. What effect will it have on our democracy if this latest unwarranted presidential accusation picks up steam among Republican elected officials?

We have seen that if the president makes a wild claim, plenty of Republican officials from senators down to local dog-catchers will echo that claim. (Remember “coronavirus is a hoax”?) We have also seen that Republican-voting and libertarian-leaning Americans are not above going armed to state capitols to see if they can intimidate officials. Will they now decide it is fair game to unjustly accuse the volunteer ballot-counters and their neighbors working at the post office of electoral fraud?

Look at all those things our USPS brought to me last month — and I don’t rely on it for prescription drug deliveries or my paycheck. Why would anyone in their right mind think it wise to agree with the president’s whim to “defund the post office”?

Is this really the America they want for their children?