One week after prominent members of the Republican Party gathered at the White House to “celebrate” the nomination of federal judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, it was discovered that the September 26 event was likely a congressional superspreader of the coronavirus. Notable Republicans present at the (largely maskless, not at all distanced) event at the Rose Garden — including Donald and Melania Trump, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, Trump senior adviser Hope Hicks, and former Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway — announced their positive COVID-19 diagnoses on Friday and throughout the weekend.

But Barrett, who was nominated by Trump to fill the SCOTUS seat left behind by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has proved herself to be a darling among many conservative members of the Senate — and as such, they wanted to commemorate her with a fully loaded pandemic event. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time speeding through the process to get Barrett seated before November’s presidential election, getting the approval of nearly all of the Senate Republicans with the exception of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Although the expedited process has been criticized by the Senate Democrats, who noted that Obama was not afforded the opportunity to appoint a new SCOTUS judge well before his term ended, Republicans have remained steadfast in Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination. But that seems to have taken a sudden change: now that her nomination party has proven to be detrimental to the health of so many, is it possible Barrett no longer has the votes needed to cinch her Supreme Court Justice seat?

That answer is currently a big maybe. Since the confirmation of so many positive cases, Mitch McConnell announced a two-week Senate recess on Saturday so that those infected could recover and others who have come in contact with the virus could be quarantined; the Senate is scheduled to meet again on October 19. Despite this, the confirmation hearings for Barrett are still scheduled to begin on October 12, meaning that it’s possible at least three key Republican senators who have contracted COVID-19 won’t be able to vote in-person.

Thanks to some pandemic-era changes to Senate voting, it’s possible they will allow those senators to vote remotely, though not without a fight from the Democratic minority voters. According to Senate voting and quorum procedures, technically, they must be present on the Senate floor during Barrett’s confirmation.

While this seems like good news for Democrats, there are still a number of other ways opposing Senate leaders could push back: For example, if McConnell decides to slightly delay voting, or replace Senators Lee and Tillis on the Judiciary Committee so the voting could move forward, Barrett would still seem to have the majority vote.

But it’s hard to say how this will unfold, considering the rising number of cases on Capitol Hill. In the days since the announcement of Donald and Melania Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has announced his diagnosis; Kellyanne Conway’s daughter Claudia announced on TikTok Sunday that she had also been diagnosed. As the virus has continued to super spread as a result of the lax enforcement of masks at the White House, Barrett herself has made no public statement on the multiple positive cases.

With nothing set in stone just yet, Senate leaders opposing Barrett’s vote won’t know what McConnell has up his sleeve until Barrett’s scheduled confirmation hearing on October 12. Until then, it’s a game of “will he or won’t he?” 

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In the Trump administration’s never-ending quest to distract, infuriate, and confuse the American people, the Department of Justice announced in a memo on Monday that New York City, Portland, and Seattle would officially be deemed “anarchist jurisdictions.”

What is the point of assigning this definitely not-made-up term to these three cities? Basically, pettiness, with a little bit of racism thrown in. The DOJ claims that they made this decision in direct response to increased “violence and destruction of property” within these cities, specifically following this summer’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Essentially, then, each location risks losing different levels of federal funding because its residents didn’t want statues honoring racist leaders to remain in place. It doesn’t hurt that all three cities have Democratic leadership and majority Democratic populations, making them unimportant to Trump as he makes his re-election bid.

This decision comes a few weeks after Trump’s September 2 memorandum declaring that, should a state and local government body permit “anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities,” they’d have their federal funds reviewed and have restrictions set on their federal grant funding. But how would this be determined? With definitely not made-up and highly objective criteria like, “Whether a jurisdiction unreasonably refuses to accept offers of law enforcement assistance from the Federal Government” and “Any other related factors the Attorney General deems appropriate.”

So now that New York City, Portland and Seattle are now “anarchist jurisdictions,” what does that actually mean for the cities and their residents? Nothing good. These places have all been hit hard by the pandemic, with record unemployment and ongoing housing insecurity — to say nothing of the effects of the actual disease. So, it’s really not helpful to have Trump threaten their federal funding.

Dubbing multiple cities as “anarchic” because they don’t fall under a singular vision of what the president considers peaceful is a gross misuse of power, and one that the president doesn’t seem to care about exercising just 44 days before the election. It’s also a clear example of the Department of Justice trying their best to distract the U.S. from Trump’s constant failings — from his polling numbers to his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic — by essentially threatening Trump’s opposition.

And it’s this very opposition that has wasted no time speaking out against Monday’s memo. “The President and Bill Barr’s latest stunt is pure politics AND unconstitutional,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted. “We will see them (and beat them) in court if we have to.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo noted during a press conference on Sunday that being dubbed an anarchist jurisdiction, and potentially losing funding, is “cheap, it’s political, it’s gratuitous, and it’s illegal.”

All undoubtedly true. But while the potential loss of federal funding is no laughing matter, after decades of rampant, destructive gentrification, New York’s new designation as an Anarchist Jurisdiction might just mean that there’s some hope for the future.

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Less than 50 days before November’s presidential election, Donald Trump is now openly threatening to pass an executive order that would prevent Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden from being elected.

During a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Saturday, Trump told a cheering crowd of supporters that “You can’t have this guy as your president. […] Maybe I’ll sign an executive order, you cannot have him as your president.” While he didn’t delve into the details of the executive order that would hypothetically bar Biden from holding office, Trump did continue to berate his opponent for the crowd, questioning how Biden became his party’s nominee and accusing him of being against a coronavirus vaccine. But there is some good news: Trump also told the crowd, “If I lose to him, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I will never speak to you again. You’ll never see me again.”

But Saturday’s rally didn’t mark the first time Trump has threatened to protest if he’s not re-elected. Many voters have wondered if he would simply refuse to leave, and what he can legally do if his loss occurs. So, what exactly would happen if Trump refuses to leave office?

Well, Trump has regularly floated the idea of staying in the White House and even abolishing the two-term limit as President of the United States since 2018. That year, when Chinese President Xi Jinping got rid of China’s political term limits, Trump commented “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”

During a rally April that same year, Trump boasted about the number of regulations being cut by his administration, telling the Republican Congress members present that “We’re cutting record numbers of regulations; we’ve cut more regulations in a year and a quarter than any administration whether it’s four years, eight years, or in one case 16 years. Should we go back to 16 years? Should we do that? Congressman, can we do that?”

The following year, when criticizing The New York Times and the Washington Post on Twitter, Trump referenced his life post-White House and added “(do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT).”

Trump’s recent attack on mail-in voting and his effort to invalidate this method of voting in the 2020 election has kept Democrats up in arms most of all. Trump suggested delaying the election altogether due to the pandemic, saying in July that “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

But, thankfully, Trump cannot legally serve more than two terms as president, according to the Constitution. The Twenty-second Amendment, initially proposed in 1947, was ratified in 1951 to include term limits because of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms as president. He was the first and only president to serve more than two terms, holding the highest office in 1932, 1936, 1940, and for a part of 1944; Roosevelt died 2 months and 23 days into his fourth term. Since then, all presidents are limited to serving only two terms, and even any measures put forth to attempt to overturn that would have to pass through Congressional voting.

So, despite Trump’s (terrifying) jokes that he could serve for another 16 years, that’s not really a possibility for him. And if he does attempt to prevent a Biden inauguration or presidency all together, well, the party-line war that would ignite would perhaps be the least expected outcome of 2020 so far.

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Sen. Ted Cruz has made a career of taking a small mess and creating a much bigger one. And this apparently now applies to Netflix films, one of which the Florida senator has launched a crusade against in the past week.

Cruz has called on the Department of Justice to investigate Netflix over disproved claims that Cuties — the streaming service’s now-controversial French film about a Muslim girl exploring her sexuality alongside a local dance team — violated federal laws and promoted child pornography during filming. Cruz appeared on Fox News on Sunday and repeatedly referred to the movie as a “pornographic” film, stating that “If you have child pornography, if you have kids engaged in sexual activities, if you produce it, if you distribute it, you face criminal penalties. I guarantee you every pedophile in America is going to watch this movie.”

Cruz’s interview comes two days after he sent a letter to Attorney General Willam Barr urging the AG to investigate Netflix and the production crew behind Cuties to determine whether any child pornography laws were broken on set. The senator specifically noted that one of the offenses he took with the movie was a scene “exposing a minor’s bare breast.” But that claim was debunked, and the character in question was of age.

The senator’s obvious dog whistle to QAnon and other conspiracy theorists over sex trafficking has actually managed to gain some traction. Since positioning itself in the cultural conversation thanks to Netflix’s initial misleading promotion art, Cuties has been the subject of backlash, criticism and the #CancelNetflix hashtag on social media. Some have decried the sexually-charged dance routines performed by middle school aged girls in the film as inappropriate, despite director Maïmouna Doucouré repeatedly noting that Cuties, like many women-centered coming of age stories, deals with the protagonists navigating young adulthood, exploring their femininity, and figuring out their identities.

Doucouré told Refinery29 that she specifically hired a psychologist for the young actresses, and stressed that she walked them through her thinking behind every scene in the film. “We communicated a lot about why I was making this movie,” she said. “It was important that they understand. I think this is a movie that will facilitate important conversations between pre-teens, teenagers, and their parents. I wanted the actresses to know the real activism that this movie was coming from, and the feminist ideology it represented.” 

But politicians like Cruz, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, and Rep. Jim Banks are hell-bent on claiming that the film is normalizing child pornography and pedophilia and, according to Gabbard, will “fuel the child sex trafficking trade.”

Perhaps Cruz is only attempting to heighten conspiracists who believe that Hollywood “Dems” are responsible for profiting off of sex trafficking, but by doing this, he is only aligning himself with the dangerous right-wing conspiracists his party keeps trying to distance from. Or, perhaps he is just pulling a Ted Cruz, and is truly that out of touch with the reality of a Netflix coming-of-age story.

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On Sunday, in defiance of Nevada state and law officials — as well as an entire global pandemic — the President of the United States decided it was due time to host a mass indoor rally.

Thousands of Trump supporters gathered in a Henderson, Nevada warehouse, where the president took the stage for his first indoor rally since June. But despite the professionally-shot images that show the crowd behind Trump masked up, according to photos shared on social media, almost all attendees — who were standing side by side in the packed warehouse — did not wear face masks or practice social distancing.

So why is it that only some images show mask-wearers in MAGA hats? Well, as it turns out, all of the people who were standing directly behind the president on camera were instructed to wear face coverings, according to the Associated Press. Despite Trump’s rouse to appear safe, even Nevada officials pleaded with him to cancel the indoor event.

Prior to Sunday’s rally, Trump and his campaign were given a verbal and written warning by the City of Henderson. They highlighted the state rule, set in place by Gov. Steve Sisolak, that gatherings of more than 50 people during the pandemic were prohibited and that “large, live events” had to be approved by the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, Division of Industrial Relations. But Trump’s campaign rally did not have the city’s approval to be held and was threatened with a $500-per-violation fine.

Gov. Steve Sisolak didn’t hold back when condemning Trump for his decision to hold an unapproved, indoor rally as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread throughout the country. Sisolak took to Twitter on Sunday night to call Trump’s actions “shameful, dangerous and irresponsible” and call out his failure to develop a “a unified national response strategy” that would protect U.S. citizens.

Sunday’s rally is Trump’s first indoor campaign event since his sparsely-attended June event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one he bragged would have an attendance of at least 10,000 people (though it definitely did not). While tiktok users and K-pop fans were thought to be the reason behind the empty event, Trump assessed that a fear of contracting the coronavirus resulted in a low turnout. Despite those fears, Oklahoma saw an uptick in the number of infections three weeks after Trump’s rally, with the number of new cases jumping up to nearly 20,000 in early July.

Trump’s decision to ignore the science behind crowded indoor spaces and the pandemic, which has already killed around 200,000 Americans, with a current average of 1,000 deaths a day, really only tells us one thing: This is what Trump’s America really looks like.

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Ronnie Long, a 64-year-old Black man wrongly accused of rape and burglary charges in 1976, was finally freed from prison after 44 years behind bars in North Carolina. When Long was released from the Albemarle Correctional Institute on Thursday, he declared that “It’s been a long road. But it’s over with. It’s over with now.”

When he was 20-years-old, Long was charged with the rape of 54-year-old Sarah Bost in North Carolina alongside burglary charges connected to the case; he was notably convicted by an all-white jury. Despite the scene of the crime containing hair and fingerprints not matching Long’s own DNA, he was sentenced to 80 years in prison by the state.

But Long never failed to maintain his innocence during his decades in prison, and it was a move that benefited him down the road. As it turns out, Concord police may have tampered with evidence that could clear long’s name: According to his attorney, 40 finger prints and a semen sample that were collected but never shared all did not match Long. Stephanie Thacker, a U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, called the hiding of the evidence following his trial and sentence “a troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence.”

Even with this revelation, the state maintained that nothing could be done to change Long’s sentence. At the request of Long’s lawyer, Jamie Lau, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Cabarrus County District Attorney’s office did eventually dismiss the charges against Long. He hasn’t, however, been cleared of both charges.

“This is real right here,” Long, with his wife AshLeigh and family members by his side, told a local news station upon his release. “I’m trying to enjoy every minute of it. Every minute I’ve got left in my life.”

According to Long, his lawyer, and various political figures, prejudice and racism played a major role in his conviction. Judge James Wynn of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals drove home the fact that Long, “a Black man, was tried in ‘small town’ 1970s North Carolina by an all white jury for the rape of the white widow of a prominent local business executive” in a statement. Long now plans to contact North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and seek monetary compensation through a pardon of innocence.

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After over a week of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the August 23 shooting of Jacob Blake, White House spokesman Judd Deere announced on Saturday that Trump would be visiting the city currently rife with unrest. News of his impending Tuesday visit was quickly decried by state and city leaders, including Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who sent a letter to the White House on Sunday asking Trump not to come.

“I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state,” Evers expressed in his letter. “I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.”

Kenosha mayor John Antaramian also expressed his disapproval with Trump’s visit, noting on Sunday on NPR’s Weekend Edition that “All presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But it would have been, I think, better had he waited to have for another time to come.”

Trump, never one to let others stop him from doing what he wants to do, doubled down on his intent to visit Kenosha on Monday, tweeting “If I didn’t INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!”

But after a teenage white supremacist shot and killed two protestors in Kenosha just last week, it’s hard to imagine what Trump — who has stoked division and promoted white nationalism — would gain from visiting Kenosha at all. Though, if you look at his history, it might make more sense than immediately imaginable.

Trump has frequently provoked ongoing anti-racism protestors by calling white nationalists and even anti-maskers “good people.” In June, he denounced the Black Lives Matter movement and tweeted a video where people were clearly yelling “white power.” It makes perfect sense now why Trump would want to go to Kenosha: If there’s a chance for him to fan the flames of chaos, he’ll take it, just as he has with supporting white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville and beyond, threatening to send the National Guard to major city protests like he did with Portland, and tweeting about retaliating against protesters after being hidden in the White House bunker.

This visit will ultimately will benefit Trump, who, during an election season, has literally created a campaign out of the ongoing protests. At the Republican National Convention, the president made frequent remarks about Joe Biden’s role in persisting ongoing violence. The tag line “Biden’s America” was even used in front of images of protests aflame, that were later proven to be from Barcelona. Trump has done the same by attacking local officials of cities that have seen continued protests, butting heads with Democratic leaders and labeling them as instigators when they continue to plea for help.

Vice President Mike Pence has also tacitly peddled this message, saying at the RNC, “The hard truth is, you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”

But what, exactly, does this say about Trump’s America? When local leadership are stepping over each other to beg him to stop stoking division and promoting violence, why is he so eager to keep doing it? Perhaps that’s something for voters to consider come November.

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Following a fatal shooting during continued protests in Portland on Saturday, mayor Ted Wheeler is begging president Donald Trump to cease his criticisms of the city’s current unrest, saying that the president is promoting division in his tweets.

During a news conference with the Portland Police on Sunday, Wheeler addressed a reporter’s question referencing Trump’s criticism of the mayor on Twitter, where the president referred to Wheeler as a “fool,” a “weak and pathetic Democrat Mayor,” and accused him of wanting the city’s “lawless situation” to go on forever. Wheeler, becoming frustrated with Trump’s words as they were read back to him, noted that “[Trump] has encouraged, or at least tacitly, approved of violence.”

“The president needs to reset, I need to reset,” Wheeler continued, referring to the situation for them to come together and denounce violence as an “olive branch opportunity.” “It’s going to take his leadership in the White House and it’s going to take my leadership here in City Hall to get it done,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler made a plea to Trump after the president thanked a pro-Trump rally group ahead of the weekend shooting. After three months of protests in the city, a shooting took place on Saturday night involving Trump supporters and anti-police protestors. It is unclear if the shooting was related to the protests, and law enforcement has not identified the man who was shot. On Saturday, a member of Patriot Prayer — a far-right white supremacist group — identified the deceased as Aaron “Jay” Danielson, who is also known as Jay Bishop.

According to local news stations, Trump supporters gathered in Portland for an event dubbed the “Trump 2020 Cruise Rally.” As the large group, which Police Chief Chuck Lovell dubbed a “caravan,” made their way towards downtown Portland, they came head-to-head with anti-racist protestors and physical altercation ensued between both groups.

Paintball guns and pepper spray were used in retaliation between both groups. According to videos circulated on social media, the shooting occurred after 8:45 p.m. and Portland Police confirmed that the victim had died roughly 45 minutes later, just before 9:30 p.m. Trump later tweeted his condolences to Danielson, who is still independently being identified as the shooting victim by social media, writing “Rest In Peace Jay!” on Sunday night.

Wheeler, during Sunday’s press conference, ended his time behind the podium by vowing to put the violence in Portland that occurred this past summer behind him and behind the city. He told reporters, referencing back to Trump’s instigating tweets, that “This would be a really good time for us to stand together, to lock arms, to denounce the violence, to make a commitment to the kind of changes and reforms that people in this country are demanding. […] Wouldn’t that be a message? Donald Trump and Ted Wheeler working together to help move this country forward. Why don’t we try that for a change?”

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio presented parents and students throughout the city with a new option for in-person learning this upcoming school year: the “Outdoor Learning” initiative. During a Monday press conference, de Blasio announced that students in public, charter, private, and religious schools will have the opportunity to participate in Outdoor Learning for the 2020-21 school year. The program, created in collaboration with Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, will utilize a school’s onsite and/or nearby outside space so that students are able to learn together while following coronavirus precautions, including social distancing. The mayor cited similar programs in Italy, Denmark and Norway as part of the inspiration for the Outdoor Learning initiative.

“We want to give schools the options to do as much outdoors as they can,” de Blasio said of the program. He explained that school principals wishing to request a space to use during the Outdoor Learning initiative would need to submit a proposal to the Department of Education by August 28, and that schools wanting to use their own onsite space, like a recess yard, would need to fill out the survey, also sent to the Department of Education. Schools, according to the Mayor’s office, will hear back by September 4, and any additional requests can also be submitted on a rolling basis.

So what exactly will Outdoor Learning look like? Apart from utilizing playgrounds and parks, extra spaces would include temporarily closed off one-way streets and local parks, too.

de Blasio also noted that schools in 27 neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus throughout the five boroughs would get priority choosing over outdoors spaces. But questions have amounted regarding both safety and weather conditions that could upend this planned program.

“We never know what the weather brings, and that’s why I’ve said before that Outdoor Learning is not a perfect solution,” he said. “It won’t work every day, but it will certainly add a lot of flexibility to what we’re doing and be a great alternative for many schools.”

As for safety, the announcement details that schools will need to provide barriers and staffing to close streets part of their outdoor plan, and will need to meet a criteria of quiet, non-commercial spaces in one-way lanes or non-MTA-route areas.

Come September 10, New York state will be the latest to attempt to reopen school doors during the new normal of the coronavirus pandemic. But so far, results from other states’ school reopenings have shown less-than-desirable results. Students and school staff members in Southern and Midwestern states faced an uptick in the virus as schools reopened in August, with certain schools only staying open for a matter of days before closing once more due to outbreaks.

In particular, nine students at North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia contracted the virus during their first week back, and throughout various school districts in Indiana, one to two days of in-person learning took place before classes went virtual, thanks to numerous students and staff members testing positive.

Given that New York City was once the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, parents and caretakers are generally welcoming alternate solutions to returning to classrooms, given these results. And, if the Outdoor Learning initiative be successful, it’s possible that this could be a learning method other states could adopt.

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Days after Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of Donald Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway and her husband George, expressed her devastation over her mother speaking at the Republican National Convention this week on Twitter, both Kellyanne and George announced on Sunday that they are stepping down from their high-profile political positions. Kellyanne has served as Trump’s counselor since 2017 and George is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a committee formed in 2019 to fight against Trump’s reelection.

Kellyanne announced her intention to leave the White House and shared her parting words on Twitter, writing in an attached statement that she would be “transitioning from the White House at the end of this month.”

“Our four children are teens and ‘tweens starting a new academic year, in middle school and high school, remotely from home for at least a few months. As millions of parents nationwide know, kids ‘doing school from home’ requires a level of attention,” she stated. “This is completely my choice and my voice. In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.”

George also tweeted that he was “withdrawing” from The Lincoln Project to “to devote more time to family matters,” but that he would “continue to support the Lincoln Project and its mission. Passionately.” He also stated he would take a hiatus from Twitter.

But the Conway’s joint decision to step aside from their current roles leading up to the November election has many speculating. Author and former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson was among many to provide unsolicited advice and reasoning behind Kellyanne’s decision, claiming that this was a direct result of her daughter, Claudia’s public demand for change. “I think Claudia standing up for what she believes politically is brave & beautiful,” Williamson wrote, before suggesting that onlookers stoking division between the family are simply exploiting them.

Amidst her parents’ resigning from their jobs, Claudia also announced that she was seeking emancipation from them, citing alleged abuse. It is unclear whether her parents’ decision or the latter is her reasoning for doing so.

“Y’all, I know I said I was taking a break, but um, um, um, um,” Claudia posted in reaction to the news on TikTok with her parents’ headline announcement in the backdrop.

The 15-year-old’s Twitter and TikTok profiles, where she regularly decries Trump and her parents’ political beliefs, as well as supports the social justice causes like the Black Lives Matter movement, has earned her a significant social media following in the last few months. It’s also caused many to speculate divisions among the family, where three distinct political views are all at odds.

Neither Kellyanne nor George has spoken publicly about Claudia’s social media presence, though George has previously asked for his family’s privacy, citing that Claudia is a minor. But with all of the time the Conway family is about to have together, this could be a new beginning for the family of six, who have certainly engaged in some awkward family dinners.

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For over 20 years, my mother woke up for work well before 7 a.m. — usually it was still dark out. When we were still kids, my sister and I woke up with her, arriving at school extra-early so that our mom could make it to the post office on time. She wore black, sensible sneakers — the kind that made it comfortable to be on her feet all day. Sometimes, she’d bring pieces of her job home with her: a white postal tote here, a catalog of clothing she could buy with her postal stipend there. And for me and my sister, Sunday morning trips to the Federal Building and Post Office in Brooklyn were considered adventures, even though they were also just a fact of our lives.

The rituals of being a mail carrier were deeply ingrained in me: five decades of my family have been employed by the USPS. My mother, grandmother, uncle, and aunt each donned the classic two-toned blue uniform, signaling that the communications of thousands of New Yorkers were safe in their hands. Even my childhood best friend’s mother and my hairdresser worked at the USPS. Because of this, I have always felt a pang of emotion every time I pass a postal employee on the street, or even saw one on television. They all reminded me of family.

But in the past few weeks, I feel like my family is hurting. The USPS has been shown on every news outlet for days on end, because it’s under attack. Now, I feel something entirely different when I see the USPS uniform: anger — and sadness. Last week, when Donald Trump admitted to intentionally trying to defund the United States Postal Service as a means of upending mail-in voting during the general election, my fury — and my family’s fear — intensified.

But the reality is, attacks on the USPS aren’t new at all. The agency has been steadily losing billions of dollars every fiscal year since 2006. The problem isn’t only that the post office has had to compete with speedier, privately funded delivery services, like UPS and FedEx, but also that fewer and fewer mailed letters are sent in the digital age. All the while, the USPS has had to maintain the costs of health benefits and pension payments for retirees, the very incentives that made working at the USPS so appealing to members of my family and countless others over the years. But still the USPS has been continued because of how many people still rely upon it.Only now, under the direction of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, it’s facing a crisis that could upend the entire institution of mail as we know it — which would be a catastrophic blow to working class people of color.

For working class families of color like mine, particularly those who rely heavily on one breadwinner, USPS jobs were a lifeline. This clearly doesn’t matter to Donald Trump, who sees the USPS as just another agency to downsize or dismantle, as if its half a million people employees don’t matter. But maybe to Trump, they don’t matter. After all, as of 2018, 41% of the USPS workforce was Black, Latinx, or Asian, and therefore don’t number among the demographics who voted for him.

My mother was a single parent, and we occasionally had periods where money was tight. During my younger years, she came home exhausted from a long day at work but didn’t even get out of her uniform until my sister and I were fed and bathed. As I grew older, my mom would often recount the daily dramas of her workplace, filling me in on how the higher-ups would often play favorites on who would get ahead. As an adult, I recognize that my mother, like so many other parents, was overworked and underpaid, all the while having to navigate office politics. I can also recognize that appointing Louis DeJoy as the postmaster general means those very practices will continue unabated.

In the years since my mother’s retirement, the problems at the USPS have only gotten worse, with the number of employees continuing to decline and the threat of salary cuts looming. As of 2019, 496,934 people are employed by the USPS, from letter carriers to service clerks to station managers. Of those nearly 500,000 employees, salaries are determined by a system of sliding variables, called pay steps and pay grades. As of February 2020, according to the American Postal Workers Union, the payment range is between $32,788 and $74,988.

But it doesn’t look like it’s the letter carriers and postal service clerks making upwards of $80,000, according to research done by the Houston Chronicle and Payscale: positions like these reap an average of $16-$18 an hour, putting them closer to the beginning or middle of that range. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms this with 2019 statistics, putting the national mean annual wage for carriers at $52,180, and $50,610 for service clerks.

Earning that amount of money is a good place to start when working a government job, but it’s nowhere to stay, especially when a household depends on you. Black people have long made up a majority of postal workers in major cities across the U.S.; they peaked at 53 and 66 percent, respectively, in Chicago and Washington, D.C. in the fifties, and remained one-fifth of the workforce in 2010 at 21%. Even as the number of postal workers have steadily dropped (there are about 250,000 fewer career postal workers now than there were 25 years ago), thanks to increased retirements and a rise in temp employees, Black people and people of color have continued to make up a large percentage of the workforce. 

For an agency that’s always had a large Black presence (as of 2018, 23% of the USPS workforce was Black), cuts to funding for the USPS, lack of pay raises and lack of opportunity to earn more money is a direct hit to Black quality of life. Black people already struggle with racism in professional settings; getting no support in a field where they play a significant part is a brutal, life-threatening hit to their wellbeing.

It’s hard not to take Trump’s attacks on the post office personally. But I also worry for all the families across the country employed by the USPS who are stuck worrying about the agency’s uncertain future and their own. That fear is driving me to vote in their, and all of our, best interests come November. And also, mail some letters to my loved ones.

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How To Vote Without Relying On A Mailbox

Poll Workers Are Scrambling To Save Our Democracy

Trump's Attack On Mail-In Voting Helps No One

Amidst a global pandemic and during a major election year in the United States, president Donald Trump has set his sights on running the United States Postal Service into the ground. Following service cuts to the USPS under the eyes of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, mailboxes are being removed from neighborhoods, packages and priority pieces of mail are late arriving to their destinations, and postal employees are losing overtime, among other intentional attacks. All the while, Trump hasn’t been shy about the fact that he has been purposefully withholding relief funds for the service.

“They want $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion — BILLION — for the post office,” Trump told Fox Business journalist Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. But last week, the president explained the real reason he is withholding any relief aid has to do with the election and his desire to impede mail in voting. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it,” he admitted, prior to a White House press briefing where he confirmed he wouldn’t veto a relief bill that would aid the USPS.

Trump’s flip-flopping stance on whether or not he believes the USPS deserves emergency funding has made voters who were planning on relying on mail-in ballots for November’s election nervous. Service cuts are drawing out delivery times and delaying the arrival of important documents, sparking fear and worry amongst those who don’t want to risk visiting the polls during the pandemic that their ballots may not be counted during the election final tally.

While Americans continue to increase independent efforts to help save the USPS — from buying stamps en masse to signing petitions — the reality is that the American post office is under attack, and these efforts may be fraught come November. Now, many are seeking out alternate ways to safely vote without relying on a mailing system under attack. Ahead, we’ve outlined how voters can still submit ballots received by mail without relying on a mail service to return them.

Use ballot drop boxes

A reliance on drop boxes, created specifically for delivering mail-in ballots, may become more common as the days leading up to the election dwindle. California, Washington, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Hawaii, Oregon, Montana, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona are currently the only states that have drop boxes available to voters, though for states considering creating their own, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission recommends making their location public 80 days before the election, which would’ve been August 15. If drop boxes are available in your state, you can bring your filled out ballot directly there to be counted.

Deliver ballots to a local politician’s office

Voters relying on mail-in ballots have the option to drop off their ballots at their local politician’s office in some states. Voters may also be able to drop off ballots at their local polling place. Those interested can check the Board of Elections website or the Secretary of State website to see if it’s an option for them. 

Try in-person early voting

Early voting is an option around the U.S. for voters looking to avoid large crowds, no doubt including the surge of people who can still turn up to the polls in November. Voters worried about their mail-in ballots possibly getting lost prior to the big election can opt to vote early to guarantee their voices are heard. In order to check if and when early voting is available in your area, you can locate state-by-state information here, as well as contacts to local voting places.

Organize a community ballot drop

If your state offers the option for appointed groups, organizations, or individuals to return ballots on behalf of others, this could be a good solution to safely casting your ballot. This system is currently available in 26 states, where a designated person can collect and return a limited number of ballots on behalf of others deemed high-risk or unable to submit their own. You can help organize a community ballot collection in your area by checking to see if your state has this rule and organizing with neighbors or friends.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

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