President Donald Trump’s political ally Louis DeJoy, who’s currently in charge at the Postal Service, has been implementing changes to Postal Service policy that have slowed down the mail. These changes have included the cancellation of overtime opportunities for large swathes of the workforce and the reported removal of mail-sorting machines from some facilities, and anecdotes have already been piling up across the web of folks who have been negatively impacted — some residents in D.C. were recently reported to have gone weeks without mail delivery. This Monday afternoon, Trump tweeted a message of support for the Postal Service in all caps as if it’s not his own team that has been undercutting the agency’s operations!
GASLIGHTING: "Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes." https://t.co/fXVsoQasVC
— D. Earl Stephens (@EarlOfEnough) August 17, 2020
Besides DeJoy’s own work, just days ago, an interview aired on Fox with host Maria Bartiromo in which Trump floated the possibility of refusing to sign emergency funding for the Postal Service, which he explicitly pointed out would impede effective mail-in voting in the upcoming presidential election, which many observers expect him to lose. But now, Trump tweeted:
‘SAVE THE POST OFFICE!’
SAVE THE POST OFFICE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2020
Trump seems to be trying to cast his own team’s affronts against the Postal Service as some kind of valiant effort meant to make the Post Office “great again” or whatever. That’s not what’s happening, however. In reality, in the name of some vague concepts of efficiency or whatever, Trump’s political ally at the Postal Service is sabotaging the effective delivery of the mail to large portions of America, and Trump is refusing to acknowledge the reality of the negative consequences. In an era in which the Coronavirus pandemic has meant an increased reliance on mail-in ballots, slowed down mail service is set up to pose yet another major problem.
This Monday, Trump also suggested that the timing of a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Postal Service crisis was somehow conspiratorially meant to interfere with the Republican National Convention. Check out that and more below:
NEW RECORD FOR NASDAQ!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2020
Why is Congress scheduled to meet (on Post Office) next Monday, during the Republican Convention, rather than now, while the Dems are having their Convention. They are always playing games. GET TOUGH REPUBLICANS!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2020
Great division between the Bernie Sanders crowd and the other Radical Lefties. Our Country would be destroyed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to the president below:
