Liliputin-5251

Trump and his MAGA supporters age going postal over integrity of our voting by mail system ... "
Amber McReynolds


Liliputins. What, the heck, is this ?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101


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Going postal is an American English slang phrase referring to becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment. The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1986 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, police officers and members of the general public in acts of mass murder. Between 1970 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed by then-current or former employees in at least 20 incidents of workplace rage. Between 1986 and 2011, workplace shootings happened roughly twice per year, with an average of 1.18 people killed per year.

Origin

The earliest known written use of the phrase was on December 17, 1993, in the American newspaper the St. Petersburg Times:

The symposium was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, which has seen so many outbursts that in some circles excessive stress is known as "going postal." Thirty-five people have been killed in 11 post office shootings since 1983. The USPS does not approve of the term "going postal" and has made attempts to stop people from using the saying. Some postal workers, however, feel it has earned its place.

On December 31, 1993, the Los Angeles Times said, "Unlike the more deadly mass shootings around the nation, which have lent a new term to the language, referring to shooting up the office as 'going postal'."


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Trump’s False Attacks on Voting by Mail Stir Broad Concern
The president’s assertions about widespread fraud have little or no basis in fact but are resonating with his supporters and give him the option of raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome.

A polling place on Tuesday in Louisville, Ky. Promoting baseless questions about election fraud is nothing new for the president. Credit...Erik Branch for The New York Times

By Maggie HabermanNick Corasaniti and Linda Qiu
Published June 24, 2020
Updated Aug. 3, 2020

President Trump is stepping up his attacks on the integrity of the election system, sowing doubts about the November vote at a time when the pandemic has upended normal balloting and as polls show former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ahead by large margins.

Having yet to find an effective formula for undercutting Mr. Biden or to lure him into the kinds of culture war fights that the president prefers, Mr. Trump is training more of his fire on the political process in a way that appears intended to give him the option of raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome.

Promoting baseless questions about election fraud is nothing new for Mr. Trump. He has hopscotched from saying that President Barack Obama was elected with the help of dead voters to suggesting that undocumented immigrants were voting en masse to claiming that out-of-state voters were bused into New Hampshire in 2016.

But in recent days, Mr. Trump has focused intensive new attacks on voting by mail, as states grapple with the challenge of conducting elections in the middle of surging coronavirus cases in many parts of the country.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump declared, without offering any evidence, that the 2020 election “will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country, and we cannot let this happen.”

Mail-in ballots, he said, referring to conspiracy theories, could be stolen from carriers, counterfeited or forged by either forces inside the United States or by “foreign powers who don’t want to see Trump win.”

“There is tremendous evidence of fraud whenever you have mail-in ballots,” Mr. Trump claimed during an appearance in Arizona, a statement that has no basis in the experience of the states that give voters the option of voting by mail.

Mr. Trump has made five dozen false claims about mail balloting since April, as officials in various states began contemplating the need for expanded use of the option amid the pandemic.

Figures released Wednesday from a New York Times/Siena College survey of battleground-state voters showed that 61 percent strongly or somewhat support allowing all voters to use mail-in ballots if necessary, while 37 percent strongly or somewhat oppose it.

But the poll also suggested that Mr. Trump’s message was getting through to his base: 88 percent of Biden supporters in six battleground states strongly or somewhat support mail-in voting, while 72 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters strongly or somewhat oppose it.

Justin Clark, the senior counsel to the Trump campaign, defended the president’s words. He said that Mr. Trump was voicing legitimate concerns about how many people would have their hands on ballots with broad mail-in voting, adding, “This is all in the context of a broad Democratic push to greatly expand vote by mail four months before the general election.”

The president’s supporters have already shown that they are taking his assertions to heart. In Michigan, voters began to burn their absentee ballot applications that were sent to them by the state in an act of protest. In Alabama and Kansas, state legislatures have started to pull back from expanded vote-by-mail initiatives.

The president’s attacks on voting by mail stirred widespread concern from current and former election officials and election experts.

“His comments are exceedingly damaging to democracy, to America’s standing in the world, to voters’ confidence in our elections,” said Wendy R. Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. “If you are riling up supporters into a state of anger over the legitimacy of the election, they might actually take steps to try to suppress votes and to undermine the actual legitimate running of the election.”

The unfounded conspiracy theories, some officials said, were no different from the kind of toxic confusion that Russia and other nations have sought to inject into American politics.

Our politics reporters. Times journalists are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. That includes participating in rallies and donating money to a candidate or cause.

Learn more about our process.
“It is misinformation and disinformation, and it’s no different than foreign adversaries and cyberhackers spewing info about an election process,” said Amber McReynolds, a former election official from Colorado and the current chief executive of the National Vote at Home Institute, which promotes  Amber McReynolds.