A Firehose of Falsehoods?

Media reportage about the Trump administration's possible deliberate slowdowns in the mail to discourage vote-by-mail have dominated the press for the last several weeks. The Postmaster General insists that any changes will now be put on hold until after the election, but considerable press coverage has shown that appears to be false.

Now a report has surfaced (details here) that some so-called blue areas of the country with a high percentage of Democratic voters have been specifically targeted for slowdowns. If this is true, it's unconscionable if being done to discourage voting.

Conflicting stories are coming out of the administration. The media is awash with reporting, and some of it is not always correct. The administration keeps denying anything is wrong.

And maybe this is what the White House really wants: confusion and fear. People fearful their completed ballot won't make it in the mail in time to be counted. Fearful that if they vote in person they'll be infected with Covid-19.

So they don't vote at all, suppressing the turnout. That's exactly what Donald Trump wants. And to achieve this, he may very well be using a Russian propaganda model called the "Firehose of Falsehoods" (details here). In that scenario, the government releases so much conflicting information that people just give up.

Trump is desperate to win at all cost. If he loses, he may end up in prison. So if he has to disrupt democracy to save his own neck, he will do it. We've seen countless times he puts self before country.

So let's thwart his goal. If you choose not to vote in person, then absolutely vote by mail and do it as early as you can. Don't give up. Giving up may give Trump a second term and continue this nightmare for another four years.