Notes from Surreal Land

David Remick, the editor of The New Yorker, observed in a recent interview: “Trump is cornered. There is nothing he won’t do.”

Yesterday, I learned that Trump evidently directed the mega-donor crony he installed as Postmaster General to slow down mail deliveries. The president of the United States wants to make mail service less efficient and reliable. Nothing will seem strange about that if you keep in mind that we’re living in surreal land.

If, as seems likely, Trump loses the election, his plan is to claim that mail-in voting produced a fraudulent outcome to the election, then declare the reported results to be void, initiate lawsuits in order to escalate doubts and confusion, remind everyone that under the Constitution he is the commander and chief of the armed forces, send every federal police unit and militia he can get his hands on to quell uprisings and protests he causes by such action, declare a national emergency requiring the imposition of martial law, and promise to hold a new properly conducted election in the fall of 2021. Undermining peoples’ faith in the postal service is part of this grand plan.