Mail of the Specious

Trump’s latest attempt to distract from the Epstein files is him saying he is going to sign an Executive Order and wants to put together a national effort to get rid of mail-in voting.  And like so many of his attempted distractions, the cure is worse than the disease. 

Mail-in voting is a way of American life now.  Polls show that most people love it by wide margins.  Just trying to take it away will massively backfire.  More to the point, his Executive Order will have absolutely zero impact, because it’s states that control their own election rules.  So, as far as “distractions” go, this is really incredibly a pathetic one that’s risks even more people outraged at Trump than now.

But it’s much more than that.

For one thing, the basis of Trump’s angst about mail-in voting stems from him trying to insist the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, and that mail-in voting was at the heart of that.  The problem is that after five years of this, pretty much the only people who believe the election was rigged are the most base of Trump’s base.  To everyone else, it’s annoying, whiney noise.  Worse, to Independents in the middle, on whom most national elections depend, are going to see this is more infantile, divisive crying by Trump, rehashing very old, disproven claims.

But also, the United States has had mail-in voting ever since the Civil War, 160 years ago.  So, it’s got a pretty good track record.

And more to the point – and worse – is that this has all come about since Trump met with Vladimir in Alaska, and Putin told Trump how bad mail-in voting for elections. 

So, yeah, Vladmir Putin is everyone’s go-to guy on how to run elections in a democratic society...

In his rants, Trump has kept making a very Trumpian claim that the United States is the only country in the world that has mail-in voting.  This is only true if you consider such democratic allies as Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Japan and New Zealand as not being “countries” and “in the world.” 

All of whom have mail-in voting, or “postal voting,” as many refer to it.

And while we’re at it, also Greece, India, Iceland, Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Malaysia, Fiji and even Trump’s favorite Greenland.  In fact, 34 countries or territories in all.

Oh, and take a guess about another of those countries that also does have mail-in voting.  Yes, it’s – wait for it… -- Russia!

But overriding everything is that main, pesky point.  States control their own elections.  It’s in the U.S. Constitution.  And as much as we know, from what he’s said, that Trump would be fine tearing it up, since it’s just a piece of paper, states are pretty much against that.

The best that Trump can do is whine and stamp his feet and put and try to strong-arm states to change their mail-in voting rules.  Either by getting rid of it or, more likely, make conditions to vote by mail more restrictive.  But here’s the problem with that –

Blue states are perfectly happy with mail-in voting.  It is improbable that they will change their mail voting in the slightest – other than making it easier. 

So, it’s likely that if Trump is able to bully any states into reducing or eliminating their mail-in voting, it will be Red states.  Which Trump is going to win anyway.  It might impact Congressional districts in these Red states where Democrats have a chance of occasionally winning, but as long as mail-in voting still exists in those states (even if restricted), it’s MAGAs who follow the word of Trump and think there’s a problem with mail-in voting who will avoid it at all costs, not Democratic and Independent voters.  They are much more likely to deal with the restrictions for what would still be the convenience of mail-in voting. 

And therein lies another big problem for Trump.  Because in all the Blue states that will keep mail-in voting as expansive as it is now, it’s the MAGAs in those states, convinced by Trump that mail-in voting is a bad, who will be the only voters who avoid the stay-at-home ease of voting by mail, requiring them to go to the polls.  And that risks bad weather, or being sick, or being tired after work, or just not wanting to bother.

And this – and this, lunatic as it is – this is what Trump considers a distraction from the Epstein files.  And in the end, it’s not going to work:  MAGA conspiratorialists are not going to be distracted because conspiratorialists are never distracted, and for everyone else, wanting to get rid of mail-in voting is a Really Bad Thing. 

And risks backfiring.