A recent news headline seemingly proclaimed an end to the crisis that was foisted on to the postal service by Donald Trump. The news said that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had backed down and was no longer going to try to keep you from getting your mail and voting. However, like everything else coming from a Trump-appointed official, not all is what it seems. The Democrats need to keep up the pressure and not back down from their efforts to stop this form of voter suppression. The Trump Administration is still trying to steal the election by sabotaging the United States Postal Service.

Much of the Damage Is Already Done

For the most part, the damage to the USPS has already been done. DeJoy is not crippling the mail. He has already crippled it. The sorting machines have already been taken away, and top leadership has already been replaced. DeJoy has not reversed anything. Instead, he has consolidated his gains, knowing that he has already gone a long way to accomplishing the task that was undoubtedly assigned to him in a roundabout manner by Trump, who probably speculated about how nice it would be if the mail was slowed down quite a bit.

Not only did DeJoy not reverse any of his sabotage, but he has also only pledged to stop some of what he has been doing. What is even more dangerous is that we do not know the full extent of what has been happening at the Post Office. With the damage already done, the Democrats need to have a full understanding of what has happened. Given the absolute lawlessness of Trump's appointees, it may even be a futile and losing battle to try to force the USPS to reverse and fix the changes. DeJoy will certainly try to run out the clock and stall the Democrats in court. By the time that the Democrats win a lawsuit, there will be little time for the USPS to fix what it broke. As a result, Democrats should just assume that the Post Office will not deliver their mail in time if they wait weeks to send back their ballots.

With that in mind, Democrats need to have a two-fold strategy right now. The first is to continue to hammer this home as a political issue. The USPS is one of the most popular institutions in the entire country. As much as people like to complain about the Post Office, the USPS has a 91% approval rating. Accordingly, the Democrats need to continue symbolically drawing attention to the Republican sabotage. Calling the hearing with DeJoy on the first day of the Republican National Convention was a masterstroke on the part of Nancy Pelosi. DeJoy needs to be made to answer on the record for what he has already done. Democrats need to play up the issue and highlight the secondary effects that the postal slowdown has had when it comes to Social Security checks and delayed medications. People depend on the mail, and continued delayed mail is a political goldmine when people know who did it.

The Democrats Need to Use the USPS Sabotage to Fire Up The Base

Even more important, Democrats need to use this issue to juice their own turnout. Democrats have already started by driving this point home at their convention. They have advised their voters to have a strategy for making sure that their vote is counted. The Democrats need to leverage this to get as many people to vote early as possible. This will mean that votes are counted on election night, frustrating Trump's efforts to delegitimize the election.

If anything, the efforts to sabotage the USPS are backfiring by making Democrats even more committed to making sure that they vote. People who may have waited until the last minute to vote are now going to be waiting in the figurative line at the first possible minute. The Democrats have been able to devote countless volunteers to helping people navigate their state's polling system and helping them devise their own plan. All it took was a scandal that was very easy for the average voter to understand. At this point, the Democrats need to turn inward and use this blatant attempt at voter suppression to motivate their own base.

It will be hard to overturn the sabotage. We may never even know the extent. But the Democrats need to take advantage of this situation.