
Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up - AndrewBissell
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/usps-tracking-in-transit-late-mail-delivery-philadelphia-packages-postal-service-20200802.html
======
nemothekid
Incredibly frustrating to get mail by USPS over the past couple months and
even more frustrating to know this is an intentional kneecapping of the USPS
by the administration in order "prove" government services are inefficient to
privatize the USPS

~~~
throwaway5752
Its not a point about government effectiveness or efficiency. They kneecapped
the USPS when they forced prefunding of pension liabilities
([https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-
off...](https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-offices-
financial-mess.html)).

They had more legislative leverage prior to 2018, so they could have done all
this much earlier.

It is not possible to honestly discuss this in a meaningful way without
acknowledging it's 3 months out from a presidential election. It the closest
thing they can legally do to suppress voting turnout, and it's a deliberate
strategy to win the election by reducing the franchise.

This isn't in a vacuum either, it's a coordinated part of a national
legislative strategy
([https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposin...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposing-
alec-how-conservative-backed-state-laws-are-all-connected/255869/)). It is
coordinated across at the state and federal levels, and across branches. You
can see here with the intentional degrading of the USPS immediately prior to a
national election, at a state level with polling place closures
([https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-
locations/so...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-
locations/southern-us-states-have-closed-1200-polling-places-in-recent-years-
rights-group-idUSKCN1VV09J)) and photo id laws
([https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-
fact-...](https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet)),
and constellation of Republican judicial appointments coordinated with
specially prepared and crafted legal challenges by Republican AGs and private
parties at state and circuit levels.

This is how it's being done:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-
leo-federalists-society-courts)

~~~
lotsofpulp
Retirement benefits should be funded as they are accrued. That is not the
problem. The problem is the USPS doesn’t have the power to price their
products appropriately in order to pay for their expenses (including payroll
which includes retirement benefits).

If anything, all entities promising retirement benefits should be forced to do
it the way USPS does. In fact, non government entities were forced to via the
Pension Protection Act of 2006, which is why non government employers stopped
offering defined benefit pensions and other post employment benefits (OPEB) as
they are simply not affordable.

Too bad it didn’t apply to governments, because if it did, then my kids and I
wouldn’t be stuck paying for labor performed 30+ years ago because all the
city and state governments decided they can just promise to pay people with
future taxpayers’ money by underfunding defined benefit pension plans and
retiree healthcare benefits.

~~~
throwaway5752
I wish I hadn't mentioned the pension, because it takes away from the
immediate and much worse problem that the governing party is trying to stay in
power by preventing members of the other party from voting.

~~~
phkahler
How are dems more likely to vote by mail? And what are the percentages for
each party?

~~~
throwaway5752
Short answer is the effect should be even overall, but what matters happens at
state and district levels, so you could even disenfranchise more people of
your own party on the net and still end up with an improved electoral outcome.

You could steal the vote from 500k Republicans in just Alabama and 150k
Democrats spread across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and have a net
swing of 0 EC votes lost and 50 EC votes gained for Republicans.

You just have to create policies (like closing polling place, making vote by
mail difficult, create voter id rules that exclude college students) that have
small partisan differentials in a few swing states, which is why the greatest
effort and impact is in urban centers in the midwest (followed by Latinx
populations in the southwest like AZ and NM, and African American populations
in the southeast like FL and GA).

------
skuhn
The underlying motivation here is to accomplish two things:

1\. Destroy the viability of the post office as a business (a long running
campaign)

2\. Disenfranchise voters (a relatively recent campaign)

Tens of thousands of people were disenfranchised during the primaries because
their ballots were received too late, even if they were postmarked on time.
[1]

Tax returns are considered to be submitted on the date of their postmark, but
ballots are not. There seems to be an important disconnect here tied to the
different incentives for the state.

Dropping ballots off at dropbox makes a lot of sense, but it won't work for
everyone. The rules also vary and availability is often poorly communicated.
Plus, most people won't expect to have a problem with their ballot being
counted until they find out that it wasn't counted.

But the problem doesn't start with submitting your ballot. First you have to
successfully register to vote-by-mail (some states require a form to be mailed
in), and most importantly you have to actually receive your ballot in time.
This also happened during the primaries, and so people had to go vote in
person after all (or be disenfranchised). [2]

Lots of things we take for granted will stop working with a failed postal
service, but voting is particularly key right now. It is the only path towards
attempting to fix the issue at hand.

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/889751095/signed-sealed-
undel...](https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/889751095/signed-sealed-undelivered-
thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness)

[2] [https://time.com/5874571/new-york-state-general-
election/](https://time.com/5874571/new-york-state-general-election/)

~~~
augustt
> 2\. Disenfranchise voters (a relatively recent campaign)

Recent as in it started the instant the 15th amendment was passed.

~~~
skuhn
I'm referring to disenfranchisement by way of disrupting the operation of the
mail, which I don't think has been a major focus for quite that long.

Jim Crow laws were much more effective means of disenfranchisement during
Reconstruction.

~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
Jim Crow laws were after Reconstruction.

------
alextheparrot
This is problematic to voting in the same way closing polling sites is, framed
as cost cutting or inefficiency reduction with the intention of reducing
access to a subset of the population.

This is just frustration, but the fact that we could pass a massive defense
bill (again, I know), but are unable to fund basic services shows the
integrity of our government. Moreover, it shows the culpability of most of the
elected officials, from both parties.

We don’t need a labor movement, we need a people’s movement.

~~~
xhkkffbf
Voting in person the old fashioned way for all but those with a good physical
excuse seems to be the best way to maintain the integrity of our voting
process. Yes, in-person voting has the potential for fraud, but mail-in voting
has all of the same problems and more. It's hard to find a mechanism for fraud
that applies to in-person but not mail in.

Furthermore, the issues with COVID seem overblown. I've waited in line to
vote, but the lines were never longer than the lines at my local supermarket
on Saturday morning. If we can shop for food in person, we can vote.

If you want to understand the fears over mail-in voting, just imagine what you
could do if you control the mail sorting for a large apartment building or
nursing home. It is just much harder to cheat when you require a physical body
to be present at the polls. Not impossible but harder.

~~~
srj
I voted by mail in Seattle for years and never had an issue or even heard of
one. The ballot goes in a tamper-evident envelope, sealed within the mailing
envelope. You also get online tracking to know your ballot was received and
processed.

~~~
specialist
You're welcome.

Me and my peeps did the yeoman work to both protect the secret ballot and
ensure end-to-end auditability.

If every jurisdiction nationwide adopted the rules, procedures, and operations
used by King County Elections, we'd be in good shape.

But they won't.

~~~
spenczar5
Why not? I am curious to know more - is it expensive or difficult to
implement? Couldn’t other jurisdictions copy King County’s system?

~~~
specialist
Election administration is chronically underfunded.

A lot of people have some very funny ideas about how to conduct elections.

For examples:

Should ballots be required to be received or postmarked by Election Day to be
accepted? (Correct answer is postmarked.)

If a voter makes a mistake, how does it get corrected? Some jurisdictions just
toss any ballot with any mistake.

What are the standards for signature verification? What happens if the admins
identify a mismatch?

Sadly, the minutia goes on and on.

------
xzlzx
Among other reasons, this is in big part happening due to a large push toward
mail-in voting come the next Presidential election. It seems that certain
political entities think they will suffer at the poles due to the fact that
it’ll be easier to vote.

easier voting -> more votes -> undesirable outcomes

~~~
ethanbond
Republicans. It is Republicans who think more people voting means they will
lose.

Now is a time to be absolutely frank and direct with our words and our
actions. Our democracy is not invincible. It is not inevitable. It is
teetering on the brink and if it falls, there is absolutely no guarantee that
it will recover.

There is exactly one party who is trying to undermine the most basic principle
of our democracy, and that is the Republican Party.

Every fallen democracy had an election that was unexpectedly their last.

Vote, donate, discuss accordingly.

~~~
refurb
Hate to break it to you, but it’s more complicated than that. You may want to
do some reading from the other side, you sound like you’re parroting
Democratic talking points.

NYTimes disagrees with you that higher turnout always helps the Democrats.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/upshot/2020-election-
turn...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/upshot/2020-election-turnout-
analysis.html)

Typically increased turnout helps the Democrats, but that’s not necessarily
true now.

~~~
ethanbond
Edited to remove the 3 words, “because it’s true,” that projected from past
elections into this election.

You’re right that the Republicans may very well be hurting themselves by
disrupting Americans’ right to vote. They _might_ be hurting themselves. They
are _definitely_ hurting our democracy.

------
jrobn
Fascist strategies plain and simple. This is corruption folks. This is how
seemingly functioning democracies slip into tyranny. Greed, lust for power,
hatred.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
Real fascist government, like Russian, would DREAM to have a vote by mail
procedure, because it would make frauding the vote extremely easy.

The only thing stopping them is a complete wreck known as Russian Post.

------
mike_h
This is a critical threat to democracy given the circumstances of the upcoming
election.

~~~
maxerickson
So get the word out that mail in ballots can be dropped off in person ahead of
time.

This is likely the sensible thing to do within a few weeks of the election
anyway.

Even without the problems at the post office, dropping it off directly really
reduces the chances of it getting lost.

~~~
Simulacra
Or stolen or discarded. To vote by mail is to trust the letter carriers, a
union that has typically heavily favored one party over the other. The
solution is to open more voting locations - which is a state responsibility,
not to trust it to some third party.

~~~
justSayin000001
That makes no sense. The people at the usps are federal employees (aka not a
third party) and know the ramifications for tampering with the mail. I trust
them to handle people’s votes over a volunteer everyday of the week. Opening
more voting locations is a state responsibility, but when one party has a
history of shirking their responsibilities and disenfranchising minorities
then states ran by that party are hard to trust.

------
addicted
Whatever USPS’s long term issues may be, is the middle of a pandemic the right
time to “resolve” it?

Is depriving people of medicines and mail and making them wait weeks so they
receive urgent communications and packages the right solution right now?

Wouldn’t it make far more sense to put in the short term Money during an
emergency and try and figure out the long term solution afterwards?

Unless, of course, your goal Is a Hail Mary to cause chaos and confusion so
you might win an otherwise increasingly unwinnable Election.

------
specialist
Table stakes for a civil society:

Clean water, fighting fires, drivable roads, edible food, reliable
electricity, safety net for the poor elderly and infirm...

And delivering the mail.

And running the elections.

How did we get to this point in history where any of this is up for
discussion?

------
jayd16
Just as we start to receive vote by mail forms (at least here in California).

~~~
floatingatoll
You can return your mail-in ballot to a drop slot / drop box at your local
election office, which saves them postage fees and gives you more certainty it
arrived. If you can’t spare the time then the mail still works, but for those
that are worried, it’s allowed.

~~~
jypepin
I can't vote, but i can drive. Is it legal to drop someone else's ballot to
the local election office? I'll drop it for people who can't go.

~~~
evan_
That’s derisively known as ballot harvesting and the legality varies.
Republicans generally say it’s cheating and try to pass laws to ban it, except
when they do it themselves.
[https://twitter.com/libsinamerica/status/1261069338427211782...](https://twitter.com/libsinamerica/status/1261069338427211782?s=21)

------
bluedino
It’s terrible. It’s due to Coronavirus. People are calling in and not going to
work at the processing centers, which are mainly in urban areas. Trucks aren’t
taking the mail to or from post offices. Carriers are understaffed.

There definitely is overtime going on, I’m not sure where the article gets
that confused. You can have all the hours you want if you work for the post
office right now.

We went party invitations to my mom brother who lives downstate four weeks
ago. We just got it back the other day, he never received it. My mother still
pays her bills with a check and she got an overdue notice from the power
company. When she called a few days later they finally got the payment and
applied it to her bill.

~~~
jonathankoren
I don’t know why you think overtime is continuing to be authorized when there
are multiple reports of it being eliminated, including the release of the
internal memo explicitly eliminating extra and late delivery trips, and
directing staff to leave undelivered mail on the floor.

[https://federalnewsnetwork.com/management/2020/07/usps-
warns...](https://federalnewsnetwork.com/management/2020/07/usps-warns-staff-
of-temporary-mail-delays-as-it-cuts-soaring-delivery-costs/)

~~~
bluedino
Father in law is a carrier and still working overtime

~~~
jonathankoren
Fair enough

------
Bombthecat
You need to check out who is in charge of usps..

~~~
olliej
You mean the trump appointed anti-usps sycophant? That is significantly
invested in private usps competitors right?

:-/

~~~
scrollbar
Not sure why this comment is downvoted, seems pretty accurate
[https://www.salon.com/2020/05/07/top-trump-donor-who-gave-
mo...](https://www.salon.com/2020/05/07/top-trump-donor-who-gave-more-
than-2-million-to-the-gop-picked-to-run-postal-service/)

~~~
throwaway2048
Because any suggestion that its the republicans behind political malfeasance
on HN quickly gets down voted, you are only permitted to talk about "congress"
or "the administration" in abstract.

------
morpheuskafka
Would have appreciated some transparency on this before a shipped a $1K
ecommerce package by Priority Mail last week. I read the official notice on
the website and it just said PM was gonna be extended by one day. Then after
it arrived in the destination ZIP they bumped it out another day, and now it
is showing Alert status with no scans. Really unprofessional.

------
ericmay
Are they de-prioritizing all the spam and useless pre-sort stuff? That would
be the first order of business for me.

~~~
salusinarduis
I think it's the opposite, by design. This administration installed a loyalist
(with extreme conflicts of interest) to de-legitimize the postal service prior
to the election, which will largely be held by mail.

~~~
Simulacra
Every administration does this, to advance their own agenda. Are you
surprised?

~~~
salusinarduis
The injustices of the past should not be considered license for the future. We
must call out corruption while we still have the freedom to do so.

------
cft
I was in Guatemala and learned to my surprise that its national post has been
disbanded. There's no functioning postal service of any kind, only private
couriers.

~~~
elliekelly
How does that even work? By private couriers do you mean companies similar to
UPS and FedEx? Or private couriers like the bike couriers in US cities? If I
needed to mail documents to the other side of the country, for example, could
I just drop it off at a storefront or would I have to hire one person to take
the envelope the whole length of the journey?

~~~
cft
Not even FedEx, you literally hire a guy to deliver an envelope say from
Guatemala City to Xela.

------
exabrial
The USPS has degraded into a spam delivery service at a great cost to the
environment. Prices for mail need to go up drastically to discourage use for
advertising.

~~~
castratikron
If it's any consolation the spam you're talking about is considered "third
class" mail and is delivered in lower priority than most other mail.

[https://www.shipstation.com/blog/usps-first-class-mail-vs-
pr...](https://www.shipstation.com/blog/usps-first-class-mail-vs-priority-
mail/)

------
gray_-_wolf
Are there some actual studies stating that privatized mail office would be
cheaper/more efficient/better service? Or is this just attempt at money grab?

~~~
cenal
How can it not be less expensive? The private companies don’t have to
offer/fund the insane pension benefits that public sector employees get.

The public sector pension scandal is insane.

~~~
epistasis
Suppose you were right, and a private service could outcompete USPS. Why
haven't they already? There's many delivery services that go to residential
homes now, and tons of spam mailers that would love to save a few dollars in
those areas where a private service could do it more cheaply. I'd be shocked
that if UPS or FedEx thought they could be more profitable than USPS they
wouldn't start competing.

~~~
bboston7
It's illegal to compete with USPS on normal letter delivery:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes)

~~~
epistasis
Thank you, I did not know this! Also did not know that postal service was
envisioned in the constitution.

I would think that if such services were thought to be of federal powers, that
many more bedrock services that are essential provide to all of society, such
as internet service, would also be written in today if the founders had
started in 2000.

------
tyingq
International shipping delays are pretty interesting right now. Because a fair
amount of that was handled by now drastically reduced passenger flights, it's
a crazy guessing game as to when a cross country shipment will arrive.

~~~
SuperPaintMan
Tell me about it. I run a keyboard shop out of Canada and just trying to get
parcels around is a nightmare near the Can/US border. It's getting to the
point where packages heading to the EU/UK are actually arriving before the US
counterparts.

Add in the extra shenanigans that is the state of air cargo and different
routes opening/closing and it's a very strange time to be trying to manage
worldwide shipments.

[1] [https://www.gboards.ca/](https://www.gboards.ca/)

------
riffic
Buy stamps, as if they were toilet paper or war bonds. If the American public
buys stamps they can have a collective action of helping to save one of its
finest institutions.

~~~
missedthecue
Asking people to perform charity in order to save socialised letter delivery
is going to be a hard sell.

~~~
happytoexplain
You phrased that like it's a contradiction, by it seems like the opposite. I'd
expect that to naturally follow, ideologically.

~~~
missedthecue
I guess we'll see who was right by and by

------
annoyingnoob
Even the Pony Express failed financially and as far as I can tell those guys
were the definition of grit. But technology and the dangers of the times got
the best of them.

~~~
faizshah
If the USPS fails financially it just means we pay for it through taxes like
every other government service. But in this case the USPS isn’t falling victim
to technology it’s falling victim to political sabotage: [https://ips-
dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis...](https://ips-dc.org/how-
congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/)

~~~
annoyingnoob
While what you are saying is true, the USPS has very tall requirements. I
wouldn't be so fast to discount the effects of technology.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/320234/mail-volume-of-
th...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/320234/mail-volume-of-the-usps/)

------
bkor
> Amid this increase, sudden policy changes instituted to cut costs by new
> Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump donor who was appointed in May,

Interesting how that's possible. Corona delayed things in Netherlands, but
seems they dealt with it smartly. Those delays didn't last that long as well.

It does align with the suggestion that voting by mail is problematic, though
seems like a created problem.

~~~
graeme
It would appear to be the goal: scuttle the post system to disrupt voting by
mail.

------
foobarbazetc
It took 7 days to get a letter from LA to SF.

I’ve had a package _in_ SF for 4 days now and it still hasn’t been delivered.

------
skybrian
Here's a story about a smaller incident in Berkeley:

[https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-us-post-
off...](https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-us-post-office-
closed-berkeley-ca-workers-union)

------
Havoc
I don't quite get why this is #1 on hn?

~~~
happytoexplain
Give the thread a read. There's a dramatic significance beyond "Philly's mail
is delayed".

~~~
Havoc
A right. Another Fascism play.

Agree that is unfortunately significant

------
nxc18
It’s frustrating that we have to discuss the current administration as if we
assume they are acting in good faith. It is frustrating to have to have a ‘but
both sides...’ and ‘actually they just care about market efficiency’ arguments
when the current administration, acting against all expert advice, has taken
action to create the worst outcomes we’ve seen in decades, at least as long as
I’ve been alive: unmanaged global pandemic (ignoring pandemic response plan
and so predictable Biden was tweeting about it last fall), attempts to
recklessly change policies that are overturned by the courts (often purely
because the admin can’t be bothered to follow procedure), and now postal
delays like I’ve never seen before, deliberately caused by a Trump-appointed
postmaster.

It shouldn’t be political to point out that for Americans, and probably many
other people in the world, the current administration has delivered remarkably
poor outcomes so consistently that you have to consider the possibility that
that is the goal.

America relies on strong infrastructure for our strong economy, and degrading
an institution like the post office is just irresponsible.

The whole voting by mail aspect is another angle to look at the continued
ongoing attacks on the American lifestyle; apparently empty supermarket
shelves weren’t enough.

On top of all this absurdity, while it is clear that the degradation of
service at the post office is intended to suppress democratic voters, there is
little evidence that vote by mail privileges republicans:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/politics/vote-by-
mail....](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/politics/vote-by-mail.html/)

~~~
lopmotr
> create the worst outcomes we’ve seen in decades

Do you really believe all that is worse than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
which caused millions of people to be killed? It sounds like you're just a
nationalist who thinks their lives don't matter because they're not Americans.
If millions of Americans were killed in a decade-long internal war, you would
probably rank it worse than the mail being slow, fear for your American
lifestyle, and the president's policies being stopped by the courts.

~~~
nxc18
Americans have been destabilizing foreign countries almost continuously since
the end of WW2, it’s the baseline state and hasn’t changed significantly under
the current administration.

If Trump actually delivered and extricated the US from the Middle East you
might have a point, but he hasn’t. At best he’s ceded control of important
areas to anti democratic regimes (Russia, Turkey) while abandoning US allies:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/world/middleeast/syria-
tu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/world/middleeast/syria-turkey-
invasion-isis.html)

edit: If you care about civilian deaths, you might be particularly interested
in recent policy changes made by the Trump administration:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-06/trump-
can...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-06/trump-cancels-u-s-
report-on-civilian-deaths-in-drone-strikes)

Another article describes the state of US murder of civilians in the Middle
East: [https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-
civili...](https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-civilian-
casualties-war/) \- I totally forgot that Trump had promised to murder the
families of suspected terrorists; perhaps is delivering on that.

(meta: parent comment is _exactly_ the type of bad faith, 'both sides'
argument that I was referring to above; such arguments don't hold up under
inspection or review of facts, but sadly people don't always take the time to
point that out)

~~~
lopmotr
So your answer is "yes, I believe it's worse than those wars during those
previous presidencies"?

If I come up with numbers of deaths of innocents during these time frames, and
Trump's are lower, will you agree that those extra deaths are not as bad as
the mail being slow and the other stuff you complained about?

------
Simulacra
Example number one why mail in voting will never work. We can’t even prevent
carriers from hoarding or throwing away mail, let alone ballots. The USPS has
been grossly underfunded and abandoned for generations, and it’s in no
position to take on our most valuable right and responsibility.

------
mcguire
Is this limited to Philadelphia, or are all large cities having problems?

------
newbie789
I've had significant delays up here in the Pacific Northwest. A friend of mine
mailed me a box of comic books over two weeks ago and it's still in limbo.

I just want to read Green Lantern Corps. :(

~~~
bredren
My pal is a mail carrier in Portland. A few weeks ago the postmaster general
ordered a normalized practice of overtime use to clear large amounts of mail
from some bins to cease.

Regularly, employees would catch up on mail processing this way. Mail has been
piling up ever since.

From what my pal told us, didn’t make sense given how mail is handled but it
is also not unusual for unexplained top down orders in USPS to be given.

Questioning USPS management does not make you a valued team member—-most
people are focused on making sure their vacation time gets granted or trying
to get successful bids for new routes or workflows.

From many stories about the workings of USPS, it sounds to me like there are
widespread inefficiencies in the post office.

(And as an aside, there are definitely USPS employees that would not have jobs
without the powerful union that keeps them there. Stuff that never would be
forgiven in private enterprise happens all of the time.)

However, this sudden action from the PM general is not the way to bring about
change, it is just causing an organization with a lot of operational debt to
redline.

------
xoxoy
what if Trump’s new USPS head Louis DeJoy is purposefully cutting the budget
and thus slowing mail delivery to mess with absentee ballots ahead of the
election?

------
kevin_b_er
This is the result of intentional sabotage by Trump administration. This is
100% political. A political set of acts by the Republicans.

------
jorblumesea
It's crazy that the party in power is literally tearing apart democracy to
stay in power. Destroying the foundations of this country, the right to vote,
for self serving political purposes.

Incredible that within 60-80 years the Republican party went from shoring up
democracy here and abroad to naked fascism and intent on tearing up our
institutions.

~~~
riffic
Wait a second, what was the Republican Party doing between 1940 and 1960 that
shored up democracy here and abroad?

