Five facts, ignored

Sue Lani Madsen writes that anyone concerned about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s aborted effort to ban postal service overtime pay, freeze hiring and dismantle mail-sorting machines is being “cynically political” (Aug. 20). Claims of a GOP conspiracy to hamper 2020 mail-in voting are “trumped-up,” she says with an unintentional pun, and you’re more likely to believe them if you think Trump is “a horrible person.”

Madsen would like us to ignore these five facts: (1) DeJoy is a major GOP donor who owns, with his wife, a $30 to $75 million stake in companies that compete with USPS; (2) Trump admits wanting to starve the postal service of needed funds; (3) His 2019 postal service task force called for privatizing big chunks of the agency, a long-held Republican goal; (4) The president routinely sends foxes to run government hen houses – the EPA, Interior, Education, Treasury, Justice – subverting the agencies’ purposes and serving his political interests; (5) Trump is hammering away daily at his latest Big Lie, that mail-in voting is rife with fraud, creating doubt about the validity of the 2020 election if he loses.

The real voter fraud has been underway for years in GOP-controlled states that use gerrymandering, voter roll purges, voter ID laws and closing polling places to make voting harder. You don’t have to be cynical to suspect that this messing with the postal service under the guise of “efficiency” is another stealth attack on voting rights.

Robert Nein

Chewelah, Wash.