# Our democracy is sliding into oblivion (as Trump wants to close USPS)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [April 20, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227 "2020-04-20T22:24:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@contradancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/contradancer)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/1 "2020-04-20T22:24:31Z")
Now Trump wants to close the post office. Social Security recipients who don’t have a bank account get checks by mail as an exception. they have to go to one of those check cashing places. I found this out when I lived in TN for a year.
Everything I can I get by email, but I live in a rural area and still get my property tax bill, propane bill by paper. What about all those businesses who count on paper advertising to get business? If you go past a certain age, they dont even have computers or cell phones.
My ex was a Naval officer and is wigging out because the only thing he can do on a computer is send and receive email. My son had to teach him to order pick up groceries. He also writes checks for everything. Never sent or received a bill in his email in his life. he has lung problems so if he got the virus it would be a death sentence. almost 80. does he just get left out?
What about people in rural areas? It won’t be profitable to deliver and pick up mail in all those thousands of small towns in the U.S. And I will miss knowing my mailman who always helps me.
I can’t wait until Trump is 80 and has to live in the world he created.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2020, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/2 "2020-04-20T22:45:45Z")
If it makes you feel any better, we don’t really have a democracy anyway. Trump got fewer votes than his opponent. He lost the election, if you believe that an election is about votes. I guess we live in, instead of a democracy, a fucking dumpster fire shit show of clowns.
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### Author:  [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2020, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/3 "2020-04-20T23:28:11Z")
> [@contradancer](#):
>
> Now Trump wants to close the post office.
Cite, please.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2020, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/4 "2020-04-20T23:58:00Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> Cite, please.
[You been under a rock for the past week?](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-postal-service-drop-dead-982458/)
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/5 "2020-04-21T00:18:17Z")
Of course the reason he’s doing this is because Amazon relies heavily on the Post office and Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. So he will gladly shut down an institution going back 245 years, that is a life line to millions of people and the most popular government agency, just out of spite because someone told the truth about him.
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### Author:  [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/6 "2020-04-21T00:31:29Z")
> [@bobot](#):
>
> If it makes you feel any better, we don’t really have a democracy anyway. Trump got fewer votes than his opponent. He lost the election, if you believe that an election is about votes. I guess we live in, instead of a democracy, a fucking dumpster fire shit show of clowns.
In fact we have never been a democracy, we are a republic.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/7 "2020-04-21T00:37:10Z")
> [@contradancer](#):
>
> I can’t wait until Trump is 80 and has to live in the world he created.
There’s only one place I want to see him when he’s 80: **prison**.
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### Author:  [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/8 "2020-04-21T00:45:35Z")
Well, if the Postal Service goes away, you can just do your paper mailing with all those handy private companies that Trump and is ilk will start. Then, everything will be sunshine and roses!
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/9 "2020-04-21T01:20:23Z")
> [@contradancer](#):
>
> I can’t wait until Trump is 80 and has to live in the world he created.
Given that he has negligible comprehension of anything else even now, by age 75 he will be totally oblivious to the world he has to live in, so there will be no regret for him to feel. And if he could understand what will be going on, he will be angry because it is that guy’s fault, certainly not his.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/10 "2020-04-21T03:42:28Z")
> [@bobot](#):
>
> If it makes you feel any better, we don’t really have a democracy anyway. Trump got fewer votes than his opponent. He lost the election, if you believe that an election is about votes. I guess we live in, instead of a democracy, a fucking dumpster fire shit show of clowns.
The fact that a president wins by virtue of an electoral college outcome that was still a process largely influenced by democratic action isn’t by itself a problem. It reveals a potential flaw in the system that can be gamed but the outcome is still regarded as legitimate because the process itself can be regarded as having allowed a fair and unimpeded voting process.
But Trump is now declaring essentially all-out war on the institutions that not only protect democracy but actually help the country function in a way that is free and fair: free and fair participation in economic opportunity, not just political systems. By undermining the post office, he’s threatening one of the most important institutions this country has. It’s like trying to block networks of highways or cut telephone lines. It’s like the TVA inverted.
In short, as I’ve been saying, this is what oligarchy looks like. A government that collects taxes from people and then uses it to reward friends and punish enemies.
It’s not an accident that Republicans aren’t interested in helping states in this stimulus bill. That’s right: since state and municipal governments are going to start running out of money, that concentrates more power of the purse in the hands of the federal government. States will reward states that are loyal and punish ones that aren’t, just like he will do with businesses, and ultimately, individual people - including us.
Welcome to the new American century.
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### Author:  [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/11 "2020-04-21T03:52:29Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#):
>
> [You been under a rock for the past week?](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-postal-service-drop-dead-982458/)
Your alleged cite is hardly unbiased.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/12 "2020-04-21T04:26:31Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> Your alleged cite is hardly unbiased.
So what? It is an actual cite, from a reputable source, there is nothing “alleged” about it. Perhaps you perceive it as unfavorably biased. That does not make the substance inaccurate. Demonstrate wherein lies the flaw.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/13 "2020-04-21T04:40:53Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> Your alleged cite is hardly unbiased.
Oh, just Google it. Tons of major news sources have reported on this, including ABC News, MSNBC, and Business Insider. Unless you consider them to be “Fake News.”
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/14 "2020-04-21T04:49:45Z")
Register, register your family, friends and strangers, then get out the vote.
trump has to be voted out by a landslide to overcome all the shenanigan’s in the system.
I will say it again, trump is putin’s bitch. I remember when the Republican Party was hardcore about countering Russia. Most of trumpy’s moves, and don’t forgit Moscow Mitch, have done more to further the Kremlin’s aims than anything in the post WW2 history. And let’s not try to deflect by being hard on commie china. Ripping up our institutions including the USPS is putin’s wet dream.
I only wish Nancy had put USPS lifeline in the coronavirus bill and let trump veto the whole damn thing. Don’t make that mis-calculation twice.
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### Author:  [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/15 "2020-04-21T05:47:08Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> Your alleged cite is hardly unbiased.
> **[White House rejects bailout for U.S. Postal Service battered by coronavirus](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/11/post-office-bailout-trump/)**
>
> USPS is projected to lose $2 billion a month through the coronavirus recession.
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### Author:  [@Deltree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deltree)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/16 "2020-04-21T06:27:59Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> Of course the reason he’s doing this is because Amazon relies heavily on the Post office and Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. So he will gladly shut down an institution going back 245 years, that is a life line to millions of people and the most popular government agency, just out of spite because someone told the truth about him.
In fact, the government itself relies heavily on the USPS to deliver official stuff to citizens. How they gonna send a tax bill to someone living in Reduce Speed, Montana without the USPS? Just like everything he does, it’s poorly thought out, but in this case smashing the post office is about the best way he has to get congressional Reps to revolt and join the Dems in a bipartisan veto-proof majority on a separate Post Office funding bill. They may be highly reluctant to cross him, but when their constituents start howling because the Post Office is shut down, that’ll go right out the window.
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### Author:  [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/17 "2020-04-21T07:22:44Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#):
>
> In fact we have never been a democracy, we are a republic.
A republic is a form of government whose representatives may be chosen by force, divine will, inheritance… or by voting. Democracy (voting) is a method to install leaders in theocratic, monarchic, oligarchic… or republican forms of government. The form is not the method.
Read the US Constitution. Count the number of occurrences of the word “right”. Note how many are voting rights. You want voting but not democracy? Fine; your vote needn’t be counted. You want a republic without democracy? The People’s Republic of China awaits you. Join the throngs crowding their borders for entry.
A candidate can win the White House with 23% of the popular vote. (Count state populations and electors to see.) So much with ruling with consent of the governed. But votes don’t matter, do they? This isn’t a democracy, is it? Your vote doesn’t matter, **rsat3acr** , and neither do anyone’s but the unelected electors… whose numbers are twisted by gerrymandering and voter suppression by politicians who DO think votes matter.
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### Author:  [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/18 "2020-04-21T07:49:49Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#):
>
> In fact we have never been a democracy, we are a republic.
Wrong. And this tired line is exhausting. We’re **both**. The two are not mutually exclusive descriptors, and in fact describe two different aspects of government. Democracy does not refer only to Athenian style direct democracy and trying to shoehorn the word in there for Internet points gets old fast.
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people” is democracy. The fact that we vote for our representatives, and that the voting population is generally spread amongst “the people” (even if universal suffrage wasn’t remotely on the founding father’s roadmap) as opposed to, say, a landed nobility ala the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (which was a republic that was not a democracy), means we’re in fact a democracy.
Democracy also isn’t a binary proposition. Things exist on a spectrum. The Roman Republic had votes for, say, the people’s tribune and even elections for senate seats and therefore existed on the spectrum of Democracy, but then again not just any pleb could become tribune let alone have a seat above that in the senate. I don’t know how suffrage worked, but almost no one in the Empire was actually a Roman citizen and you certainly didn’t vote from the provinces. You’d also **never** have an AOC in Rome.
A republic really just means “rule by representatives.” Democracy describes how much power “the people” (which is a loose term, because historically it almost never meant _all_ people) have over their government. The PLC was not a democracy because titles were directly inherited and “the people” had no say (even another noble couldn’t dispute the inheritance of another). It _was_ a republic, because the equivalent of parliament was a bunch of nobles each representing a swath of land gathering together, choosing laws, backstabbing their country with the liberum veto, and choosing their kings.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/19 "2020-04-21T10:29:43Z")
> [@etasyde](#):
>
> I don’t know how suffrage worked, but almost no one in the Empire was actually a Roman citizen and you certainly didn’t vote from the provinces.
While the latter part of the sentence is true – you certainly didn’t vote from the provinces – in the _Empire_ per se citizenship was gradually extended beyond Rome to more parts of the Empire. Whereas almost no one in the _Republic_ was actually a Roman citizen.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-democracy-is-sliding-into-oblivion-as-trump-wants-to-close-usps/852227/20 "2020-04-21T15:16:22Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> Your alleged cite is hardly unbiased.
:fweeet:
Moving the goalposts! Fifteen yard penalty!
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