Dear MoveOn member,

Donald Trump admitted this week that he's trying to sabotage the Postal
Service in order to limit how many Americans can vote by mail during the
pandemic.^1

We need to combat these attacks by making sure everyone knows how to cast
their ballots and that every vote is counted.

The headlines throughout the week were increasingly alarming: slowed
processing times, collection boxes unbolted and removed from city streets,
sorting machines removed from postal warehouses, 46 states and the
District of Columbia told that the Postal Service cannot guarantee that
all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to
be counted ....^2,3 What is happening?!

As Rachel Maddow said on her show last night, "The post office is an
earnest, beloved, all-American, nonpartisan, practical part of our lives.
You mess with it, and you're messing with a lot of Americans—who
apparently are in the mood to push back."^4

And the pushback is working. Last night, Trump's hand-picked crony now in
charge of the U.S. Postal Service was forced to back down on his plans to
remove a large number of collection boxes across the country. Amid a
firestorm of outrage, a spokesman told NBC News, "We are not going to be
removing any boxes."^5

It's a first step, and we have to keep the pressure on. And,
simultaneously, we need to ramp up efforts to educate voters—especially
young voters, voters of color, and first-time voters in battleground
states—on how to vote by mail this fall to ensure their votes are counted.



John, will you chip in $3 a week to help stop Trump from
dismantling the U.S. Postal Service for as long as it takes and help
ensure that people can safely vote by mail this fall? (MoveOn will bill
your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and
will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify
or cancel your weekly donation.)

[ [link removed] ]Count me in.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.



On Thursday, Trump vowed to continue blocking coronavirus relief aid for
the Postal Service.^6

But it's not just that Trump is starving the Postal Service of resources.
It's been nine weeks since Trump installed Louis DeJoy, a Trump and GOP
political donor with no postal experience, as the head of the Postal
Service, and this week the impacts of changes DeJoy has started to
institute became more clear—and more outrageous.^7

DeJoy has overhauled the Postal Service’s management structure,
reassigning 33 top officials with hundreds of years of experience among
them to other positions.^8

He’s banned postal workers from making extra trips to ensure on-time mail
delivery, leading to long delays across the country, and he informed 46
states and the District of Columbia this week that voters in their states
could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots.^9,10

Then we learned that DeJoy plans to deactivate and remove 671 high-speed
mail-sorting machines in the coming month from facilities in dense urban
areas—which will cause further delays on everything from lifesaving
medications to ballots.^11

And, on top of it all, USPS collection boxes started disappearing from
city streets in New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Montana—until the
firestorm of public outrage forced DeJoy to back down last night.^12

As Rachel Maddow commented, "The important thing here is that pushback
works ... Hoping for the best doesn't work. Shame doesn't work. But noise
does."^13

We need to keep up the noise—locally and nationally. And we also need to
ramp up our efforts to educate voters, especially young people, voters of
color, and first-time voters in battleground states, about how to properly
and safely vote this year.



Please, will you chip in $3 a week? Your donation will help keep the
pressure on Trump and DeJoy for as long as it takes and help sustain a
public education campaign to ensure each and every vote is counted.
(MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month
starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if
you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)

[ [link removed] ]Count me in.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.



The U.S. Postal Service is integrated into the fabric of our lives in a
multitude of ways—including being a literal lifeline for many in the midst
of the pandemic. And now millions more Americans need to rely on it to
safely cast their ballot this fall.

We're not going to let Donald Trump and his political lackeys destroy a
centuries-old institution and undermine our democracy. We can't, and we
won't. But it's going to take all of us coming together to make noise and
fight back.



Join us in the fight by chipping in $3 a week. (MoveOn will bill your
weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will
contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or
cancel your weekly donation.) 

[ [link removed] ]Count me in.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.



Thanks for all you do.

–Jenn, Mohammad, Michael, Melissa, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by
mail," The Guardian, August 13, 2020
[link removed]

2. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post,
August 14, 2020
[link removed]

3. "Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised
by delayed mail-in ballots," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
[link removed]

4. "The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC, August 14, 2020
[link removed]

5. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post,
August 14, 2020
[link removed]

6. "Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by
mail," The Guardian, August 13, 2020
[link removed]

7. "New Postmaster General Is Top GOP Fundraiser," NPR, May 7, 2020
[link removed]

8. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post,
August 14, 2020
[link removed]

9. Ibid.

10. "Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised
by delayed mail-in ballots," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
[link removed]

11. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post,
August 14, 2020
[link removed]

12. Ibid.

13. "The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC, August 14, 2020
[link removed]




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