Jonathan Bernstein: “What I find astonishing is just how out of touch a president has to be to think that no one will be upset by an apparently deliberate slowdown in mail service. As the political scientist Ken Schultz put it: ‘Don’t Republican Senators have constituents who depend on a functioning postal service?’ The thing is that Trump, by opposing money for the U.S. Postal Service and supporting ‘reforms’ that have slowed it down, is just handing former Vice President Joe Biden yet another easy campaign issue. Democrats may or may not be able to overturn new procedures that are causing significant problems, but they certainly can make sure that anyone who’s waiting on a letter or a package thinks that Trump is responsible when it doesn’t show up on time. And that’s not the kind of thing politicians want voters to blame them for.”

“This isn’t the first time Trump has missed the obvious direct effects of a policy choice. That was certainly the case with the executive actions he took recently instead of cutting a deal to get real pandemic relief; Trump has been acting ever since as though unemployed people won’t notice that they’re getting much smaller checks as long as he keeps saying that he’s solved the problem. It’s also the case with his payroll-tax holiday, which may not happen but which has certainly given Biden a chance to say that Trump is slashing dedicated funding for Social Security. Why does this keep happening to Trump? As with many of his problems, the key is information. Presidents are well situated to learn exactly what the costs are of any proposed policy — they have experts to brief them and ties to their party’s politicians and operatives, all of whom they can use as early warning signs of a coming backlash. But Trump has effectively shielded himself from neutral expertise and intimidated many Republican politicians and other party actors into silence. He does listen to party-aligned media, and that’s one potentially useful source of information, but when it’s the only source … well, that’s how you manage to forget that a lot of people depend on the post office.”