An Intentional Dismantling: Trump is Killing the Government to Maintain Power

On Thursday morning, the President of the United States of America joined Fox News to admit something incredible. He was purposefully destroying the United States Postal Service in order to steal an election.

“Now (the Democrats) need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take in all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he said, “but if they don’t…that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

Meanwhile, newly-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has carried out Trump’s planned implosion of the institution by cutting off overtime, removing mailboxes and crucial infrastructure, and all but destroying the network of sorting machines that, come November, will be crucial to carry out the presidential contest.

This new gambit should be no surprise. Trump has spent his term stocking the administration with sycophants who are expressly opposed to the departments they oversee, creating a self-immolating ecosystem in which the functions of government are being relentlessly and purposefully disabled. This is one of the first steps in a post-political government, an authoritarian project that continues the veneer of representative government while removing any public benefit or oversight that might impede corruption or profit. Here, with the Postal Service, one of America’s most necessary services is being systematically imploded for personal benefit.

For far too long, Trump has been emboldened and protected by people’s inability to grasp or believe that a president might engage in such a craven and dangerous project. Now, after hundreds of thousands of Americans have died during a generational pandemic, nearly half of all citizens face a possible eviction, and as Trump’s behavior becomes increasingly hard to ignore, the sobering truth is shining through.

Here is more truth: the Postal Service is only the beginning. Trump will cannibalize every democratic institution in the United States in order to maintain or consolidate power. This feels odd because the Postal Service is a somewhat antiquated institution. How could anyone attack postal workers? But it is a means to an end, and in this case we are watching one more institution that stands in Trump’s way be totally eliminated.

This is how an authoritarian operates. There is a cycle that can be witnessed and predicted with alarming accuracy. In Trump’s narcissistic, authoritarian worldview, anything that stands in the way of his power and profit must be dealt with, and he lacks any duty or patriotism or basic human decency that might cause others to pause. His collection of anti-government cronies will carry out his anti-democratic orders because they enable their own agendas to flourish, prompting the collapse of representative government and setting off a series of lucrative privatizations and political victories.

Already we have seen these principles play out. In his term, Trump has poisoned our air and water and food, rolled back even the most modest and uncontroversial regulations, and all but frozen the government as a means of helping the people. The pandemic has only highlighted this, making it undeniable, but the ramifications of Trump’s actions will reverberate for decades to come. The Postal Service is a means of fixing an election, but it is just yet another domino to fall in this pursuit. And authoritarians like Trump will not stop, will not be sated, until there is nothing left standing but the authoritarian himself.

Jared Yates Sexton is the author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed its People, available for pre-order from Dutton/Penguin-Random House. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Politico, and elsewhere. He currently serves as an associate professor of writing at Georgia Southern University and is the co-host of The Muckrake Podcast. You can support his work and The Muckrake by becoming a patron on Patreon.