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Monday, August 17, 2020

When You Can't Even Trust the Mailman...

 

Friends, just when you thought you'd heard everything, the Dems start raving about how the post office is plotting against them!  Eek.  To think that a once proud nation has been reduced to...this.


The post office imbroglio, and the lefty lunacy behind it, are the subjects of my most recent article.  Check it out:


It's Official: The Dems Have Gone Postal, and They May Never Recover


Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a malady that Republicans and conservatives often speak of these days. The obsessive, venomous quality of the Left's Trump-hatred is indeed remarkable, and for some “progressives” genuinely psychologically destabilizing, but often, let's face it, references to TDS are made in jest. Conservatives, understandably, are reluctant to admit that they are vehemently hated, just as we are reluctant to admit that the “loyal opposition” to President Trump may have lost its grip on reality and become captive to its myopia and its rancor. Recent developments, though, require us to take these notions with the utmost seriousness — otherwise we may become guilty of the same willful blindness we rightly condemn on the other side.

The liberals' and the media's current fixation on the postal service is a case in point. The Left claims that recent changes at post offices, slowing down some forms of mail delivery to achieve cost savings, are in point of fact an advanced form of Trumpian/fascist election fraud. They claim that postal delays are an intentional form of voter suppression, and that the appointment of a Trump supporter to lead the USPS validates their theory.

This is nonsense on countless levels.

First, the changes at the post office are long overdue and are necessitated by the collapse of its business model over several generations, not just in the last few months. They are also changes that began to unfold during the Obama administration, and therefore did not materialize overnight on Trump's whim. In fact, the program of reform at the USPS reflects its independence from political meddling, not its servile Trumpism.

Second, the leadership at the USPS did not try to conceal the changes to its service delivery. On the contrary, it warned various states that, in effect, they would need to change the dates by which they advised voters to mail in their ballots, to ensure that they would be delivered on time and would be duly counted. This was not an attempt by the USPS to “sabotage” anyone's vote, but to protect the democratic rights of us all.

Third, the Left's current argument flies in the face of its own master narrative about elections: that we don't need to worry about “fraud”, because it simply doesn't exist. According to Democrats, concerns about the integrity of mail-in votes are silly and baseless. But somehow it is not silly or baseless to imagine that the post office is now a vehicle for the imposition of a fascist dictatorship on the American people.

Fourth, liberals and media pundits ignore the mounting evidence of problems in the tabulation and verification of mail-in votes in previous elections held this year. In some contests, final results took weeks to materialize, and in others a shockingly high percentage of ballots were rejected. Is this not a more legitimate source of worry than slight reductions in the speed of postal delivery?

Fifth, any problems some voters experience with the voting process are anomalies, insofar as voting has never been simpler in U.S. or world history. Recent changes making it easier for people to vote by absentee ballot and/or by mail or online, expanding the availability of early voting, and streamlining the process for voter registration, have led to large increases in voting, especially among minorities. The idea that the right to vote is “under threat” flies in the face of all this clear evidence of increased voter participation.

What's most distressing about the Left's claims of postal “sabotage” are not their sheer emptiness and absurdity, however. It is the fact that leftists advance them not with a conscious sense of irony or out of disingenuous opportunism. On the contrary, they make such wild and inaccurate claims without the slightest doubt entering into their (diseased) minds that they true. They believe, implicitly, that Trump plans to “steal” the 2020 election, and that recent changes at the post office are a manifestation of his evil stratagem.

The fact is, therefore, that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” has ceased to be an amusing catchphrase. It has become, rather, the religion of the Left.

To be a member in good standing of the “progressive” movement, you now need to check your rational, critical faculties at the door and forsake them evermore. It is necessary instead for you to believe, without questioning, any smear, no matter how fanciful, directed at people on the Left's extensive enemies list. As conservatives, our guilt, after all, can be assumed, based on our ideology, our party identification, our faith, our race and/or our sex, the company we keep, or some combination of these. Any investigation into the facts is secondary, at best, and irrelevant, at worst. Just ask Brett Kavanaugh.

We conservatives need, therefore, to start grappling with these awful truths: our political opponents no longer like us, to be sure. They no longer respect us either. They no longer believe, in all too many cases, that we are entitled to the rights of American citizenship, and some don't even regard us as worthy of life itself.

All that is bad enough, but what's worse is that leftists have burrowed themselves so deeply in the black hole of their “progressive” and profoundly negative monoculture that they are not even vaguely capable of discerning fact from fiction, and nor are they able to perceive when their own beliefs are contradictory.

Non sequitur? “No problem,” says the modern leftist. “I'll have a second helping, if you please.”

There are few things more dangerous in this world than a crazy person who thinks that he is sane — or, to put it another way, an irrational person who thinks that he is rational. And yet we conservatives must come to terms with the fact that we live in a country where at least 40% of the voting population has lost its collective marbles and may, unless the media environment changes massively, never recover them.

Meanwhile, a considerable portion of the electorate, perhaps 10-15%, is caught in the middle — not ideologically committed to the full slate of leftist fantasies, but nonetheless heavily influenced by toxic and maniacal left-leaning reportage (recently shown to be 150 times harsher vis-a-vis President Trump versus Joe Biden). We had better find a way of reaching this American center, of inoculating it against the insane ramblings of the Left, or America and its democracy will be lost forever.

I realize it is beyond scary — in fact, it is horrifying — to face the harsh reality that our political opponents have hectored and self-isolated their way into collective derangement, but it is necessary all the same.

The first step to curing America of the blight of leftist lunacy is to admit that we have, as a country, contracted a mental illness. Only then can we begin to devise an effective course of treatment.


Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears weekly on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.

17 comments:

  1. That "leftist lunacy" could be a terminal disease. After all, leftists have been in charge of the media, academia, and the film industry for decades now, so that's a lot of time for some major brain-washing of the population. I suspect that a lot of this got started in the 1920s. So it's been about 100 years now that THE LEFT has been doing a major colonoscopy on the nation. Could be too late. And if Biden is elected it will be way too late for sure, short of another combined revolution and civil war. If that sounds grim, that's because it is.

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  2. Dr. Waddy: A brilliant and perceptive essay: a mental illness? I cannot judge that evaluation from any personal knowledge (except, except, I do have the commonly diagnosed neurosis of OCD). I am fully convinced at least that a perhaps desicively dominant faction of the US public has been flimm flammed by the American Taliban left to see them as an acceptable team to hitch with their wagon. How incalculably tragic it would be if they delivered our beyond precious freedoms to the stewardship of devotees of the most mistaken and sociopathic doctrine ever to plague mankind: marxism and its guaranteed products(find me a Seattle or Portland anarchic oppressor anywhere who can define Marxism.) 2016 was a watershed year for their leaders. It was then that they resolved to go to a TOTAL resistance policy and that has manifested itself in their relentless unrestrained onslaught on the one who denied them their climatic day and especially on the real America he represents.

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  3. Dr.Waddy: Of course they reaffirmed their definitive battle cry: " by ANY means necessary", that born in a time it could be reasonably justified but now embraced by the American Taliban left as an unquestionable tactic in all circumstances in which their doctrine is questioned or insolently opposed.

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  4. Dr.Waddy from Jack: The American Taliban left assumed the PO was easily manipulated ( " I mean who gives the mailman any credit for discretion? He just delivers, per address"). "So when that SOB Trump caught on to our game to steal the election we had to turn against the PO and fervently and resentfully reject the notion that we intended to use the PO in our "by any means necessary" campaign to assure the American taliban transformation of the erring US of A!

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  5. Dr.Waddy from Jack: That the PO, now rightfully discerned as a vehicle for the imposition by the fascist dictator American taliban misuse of the term imposition on it of spinelessness, should be turned from this course by Trump!? That necessitates the customary leftist reaction to any doubt: profound denunciation of the erring institution employing any vulgar >
    suggestions imagineable. These people DO mean "ANY means necessary". That is what we face now real America; NOTHING LESS!

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  6. Dr. Waddy from Jack: I remember the overseas military votes that Goretried to discredit in 2000 to his everlasting disgrace. That says it all: these people would gladly use the sewer system to advance their frantic totalitarian causes!

    These That says it all.

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    1. These people are already in the sewer, so using it is an automatic part of their system.

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  7. JUST THINK THAT "BACK IN THE DAY" WE USED TO HAVE PASSENGER TRAINS RUNNING ALL OVER THE COUNTRY (LIKE AMTRAK DOES NOW, BUT MANY MANY MORE), AND THEY USED TO HAVE THE RAILWAY POST OFFICE (STAFFED BY HIGHLY TRAINED PEOPLE). THAT IS TO SAY THAT MOST PASSENGER TRAINS HAD RPO CARS, AND THEY DELIVERED MAIL ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES QUICKLY AND ON TIME. JUST AMAZING. AND HERE WE ARE IN 2020 AND WE DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THE MAIL MIGHT TAKE. WELL ANYWAY, THAT WAS BACK IN THE OLDEN DAYS WHEN PEOPLE DID NOT SAY OR EVEN THINK THAT THEY NEEDED ONE FULL MONTHS OF PAY WITH BENEFITS OF COURSE, FOR ONE WEEK'S WORK. BUT THIS IS OUR FAULT, AND IT CANNOT BE BLAMED ON THE CHINESE OR THE RUSSIANS. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT WE ARE INDEED OUR OWN WORST ENEMIES.

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  8. Ray, you're always such a "ray" of sunshine. Ha ha. But you're right: the Left has been chiseling away at America's moral and political foundation for generations now. It's a miracle that any of it is still left.

    Jack, for sure it would be a tragedy if the Left prevailed. Give it a few years and it might be a bloodbath too. And by no means can we assume that it would be we conservatives who would face the firing squad. Leftists are pretty good at forming circular firing squads as well.

    And yes, the Dems would love to manipulate the postal service to help achieve their goal of victory in 2020 (which, they firmly believe, will usher in the demise of the GOP and permanent left-wing domination). I'm not so sure that the postal service is very likely to be a useful ally, however. Sure, it delivers the mail, but it does so reliably and professionally, and it isn't likely to "lose" all those millions of votes for Trump. To some degree, this Dem screeching about the USPS is just a ploy to get more funding for mail-in voting, plus a big bailout of the postal system, a.k.a. the postal workers' union. It may work...but it won't, in and of itself, change the outcome of the election.

    Ray, I honestly think it is a myth that the post office was ever more reliable or efficient than it is today. I suspect, if you analyzed the history of the USPS, you'd find that today it employs far fewer people, but because of automation and modern logistics does its job superbly well and at a reasonable cost. People have pointed out that merely delivering all the expected mail-in ballots to the various boards of election should be a cinch in 2020. That's true, but the question is how close to the "deadline" can you mail your ballot and feel confident that it will arrive "on time"? Even if 99% of ballots did arrive, you and I know that the Dems would scream bloody murder about the 1% that didn't, even if it's because some voters couldn't get off their duffs in time. Mark my words: if this election is even remotely close, it will be contested by teams of lawyers in the courts, and in the court of public opinion, and neither party will leave any stone unturned. Arguably, John Roberts is more likely to decide who wins in 2020 than the American people are!

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  9. Dr.Waddy and Ray from Jack: I've always thought the PO is outstanding. It's very probable the left will push any image it pleases of the PO,so long as their triumph is advanced. If fraudulent use of the PO is possible, we should be confident they WILL use it and " how dare Trump try to stop us- his insolence knows no bounds".

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  10. Quite right, Jack. The post office workers are heavily biased towards the Dems -- if they were to make mischief, it's unlikely it would be to save Trump's bacon.

    Fraud, if it is to occur, will come in one of two forms, in my opinion: a flood-tide of ballots carelessly dispersed and then dutifully submitted (not necessarily by actual voters), and/or physical intimidation of Trump voters via civil unrest. Chinese misinformation can also be assumed, but since there's so much misinformation coursing through the traditional media and social media, anything the Chinese do will be a mere drop in the bucket.

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  11. Dr. Waddy from Jack: Oh come now. Surely today's enlightened left would never revert to the purely murderous ways of their founding fathers? They wouldn't deign to TAKE the lives of perverted dissidents in gulags or what Churchill termed "the cold light of the execution yard". How very guache that would be and contrary too, to the refined ambience of the salons of the leftist elect. No,it would be more than enough simply to DESTROY lives by: a strict differentiation between the deserving and the undeserving in the ordered and correct distribution of income,property, safety, deference and opportunity according to unerringly just principles embraced and ENFORCED by the Illuminati and their fawning cadre. Those relatively few who are "more equal" will of course be exempt. If this were the Edwardian age, surely any suggestion that perhaps one hundreds of millions of those deemed unworthy of life by their own governments , would be summarily put to death BY those governments in the new century, would have yielded protest among those in command who could not fathom the depth of such depravity, to the effect of "why the duce! Preposterous! Absurd! " But it happened didn't it. The present day American taliban might not be as consummately sociopathic as all that; I mean, they will need the financial support of limousine leftists at least for a time and those swells can't stand that "icky" stuff.

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  12. Dr.Waddy and Ray from Jack: Above I should have added to "income, property etc" "protection of the laws of a condemned legality until a new code of politically correct justice is enacted and enforced".

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  13. Jack, excellent point that, if you had predicted the 20th century depredations of the Left circa 1900, no one would have believed you for a second. Even in the 50s most leftists were blissfully (willfully) ignorant of the bloody swathe their own ideology had cut through the world's population. I suppose we can thank Khrushchev for bursting that bubble once and for all. And, who knows -- maybe there are a few decent human beings within the (modern) Left who might, on principle, put the brakes on left-wing tyranny. Let's hope so! Our lives may depend on it.

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  14. Dr.Waddy from Jack: For me personally , since I probably have about ten years left it's not a threatening prospect but yes, very disheartening. Oh well, imagine being a 70 year old Russian in 1913. I'd know that I had lived under freedom most of my life.But the left has proven itself capable of the most comprehensive and penetrating of evil already. I think we could count on it to be thoroughly peremptory and vindictive should it achieve full sway and I think they see it in view! But if they lose this election, they may descend into a maelstrom of self pitying, insane madness, after their emotionally captured essence.

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  15. Jack, that's the best case scenario, I think -- that the leftists destroy themselves/each other, sparing us the onerous task. They're unlikely to beat themselves in 2020, however. We'll need to put forth a total effort. But they may have a terminal meltdown in the election's wake...

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