You can still send letters- this is a big deal but it’s not -quite- as bad as I first thought since my ballot is mailed in from abroad…
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Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against.
> 1. Do not obey in advance.
> Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots. That said, the fact that elections are run at the state level, and the fact that only a handful of swing states matter means it only takes a few pliant election officials to change the outcome of the election. eg. if Georgia's governor caved in 2020.
If
Talk it up. If it keeps him in the headlines, great.
Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. If he gets sued, fine, there's a decade of suits piled up in the queue, no problem. If there's an injunction, maybe ignore it and try anyway (queue full). If he's truly blocked, it's the commie judges and he'll make that better soon. OTOH if he gets away with that, more outrage and more PR for him, success.
Early stage fascism thrives on outrage fatigue to slim opposition. Do three more outrages today. Repeat tomorrow.
At most he can convince some friendly state legislatures to ban mail-in voting, but even that may not be an automatic process (e.g., maybe some states have requirements to change the constitutional or put the item up on a ballot measure).
Every Trump policy to this point has involved some kind of lever that the executive branch has had power over: tariffs, national guard deployments, and even in the case of ICE enforcement, Trump had to go to Congress to appropriate additional funding to make that viable long-term.
As an aside, I’m not personally too worried about the mail in voting as a hot button issue. I don’t think Republicans will touch it significantly because they need turnout, too, and they need it from key demographics that use absentee ballots like older voters and military members.
Some research seems to show that mail-in voting doesn’t really benefit a specific party.
https://www.dw.com/en/us-election-mail-in-voting-biden-trump...
Nevertheless, Trump has started process for all of those, and has been successful at many due to the slowness of the courts.
Trump asked Texas to redistrict that they were all for it.
So he can order people to be detained and deported, knowing that the legal system can't handle the appeals of that many people.
Furthermore, the only way he will leave office is if his disease gets bad enough to where he can't function. And then the assumption is that the crazies he has hired aren't going to basically take over the government completely. If he is able to function in 2026 and 2028, US won't have real elections.