Keep Chuckin’ Those Facts!

Krugman reminds us of a classic “fact check” from one of those organizations that don’t even seem to understand the concept:

In June the independent website Factcheck.org made a dig at Joe Biden, publishing a post titled “Biden Floats Baseless Election Conspiracy.” Biden, you see, had suggested that Donald Trump “wants to cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots.” There was, said the post, no evidence that Trump’s “stance toward the U.S. postal system is related to the presidential election.”

A few days ago Factcheck.org conceded that Biden had, in fact, been right. The confirmation? Trump’s own statements.

Well more than three years in and there are still people who need to believe in the good faith of Donald Trump.

Also, this is dead on in terms of the larger reasons Trump is attacking the USPS as well as other institutions that provide valuable public services and promote solidarity:

But most Americans — presumably including most of the 91 percent of the public with a favorable view of the Postal Service — believe that there are some things that should be universally available, even if providing those things isn’t profitable, because they’re important components of full citizenship.

Unfortunately, Trump and those around him don’t share that belief, perhaps because they don’t really buy into this notion of “full citizenship” in the first place. And that’s one reason they might have been trying to cripple the post office even if it weren’t their best hope of stealing this election.