She sounds like a high-school kid who gave up on having a bake sale to fund the agency because she’s suddenly hit on an even better idea.

Even on its own terms this makes no sense. If you’re worried about the Postal Service not delivering important parcels like votes and medicine on time, why the hell would you give them more mail to deliver? Why not just ask everyone to, say, buy a few books of stamps and then hold on to them for future use as needed?

How is this real?

In a bid to revitalize the USPS, @aoc proposes a “national progressive penpal program” to boost stamp sales. pic.twitter.com/UzTNdz2Moq

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 17, 2020

Of all the dreary duties one must perform in a leftist utopia to keep the state functioning, taking time out to write letters to comrades purely to keep the postman employed would be among the dreariest. I can’t imagine (and am too lazy to calculate) how many progressives would need to participate in this scheme, and how many letters they’d each need to send, to make a meaningful impact on the agency’s bottom line. How would they fill the pages?

There’s only so much one can say about the latest episode of Chapo Trap House.

It feels like an epitaph for the USPS and really for the entire concept of snail mail that sending written letters is conceived of here as a form of charity to the Postal Service itself. No one would think of a cockamamie idea like a political pen-pal scheme on the merits; if you want to connect with other progressives nowadays, that’s what social media and message boards and even email are for. You come up with something like this only if you’re looking to funnel some cash to the agency and need an excuse. But at least she’s on-brand: Propping up inefficient government agencies with wasteful spending is what socialism is all about.

It’s what Republican government is all about too, of course. But at least Republicans half-heartedly pretend to feel bad about it.

Now that we’ve had a laugh at AOC’s expense, go look at this new YouGov poll. Trump is in a lot of trouble potentially from this developing Postal Service scandal.

According to the survey, which was conducted August 14 and 15, 61 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s USPS gambit, with a full 50 percent disapproving “strongly.” Less than half that many (28 percent) approve…

There are signs Trump has already hurt himself with persuadable voters by seeking to undermine mail-in voting and the legitimacy of the election. Not only do nearly a quarter of Republicans (23 percent) disapprove of the president’s effort to block USPS funding, but independents disapprove by a 2-1 margin (58 percent to 29 percent). Among non-leaning independents — that is, independents who don’t yet express even a slight preference for Joe Biden or Trump — that margin is larger (65 percent to 21 percent). And voters who say they are undecided or could still change their minds oppose Trump’s stance on the USPS by a staggering 51 percentage points (68 percent to 17 percent)…

In fact, Trump is on the wrong side of every issue related to the election. Sixty-four percent of registered voters say the Postal Service should be provided with funding to ensure there are no delays in mail delivery during the election. Only 21 percent say it should not get such funding. A mere 15 percent of registered voters say it was appropriate for Trump to suggest delaying the 2020 election; 68 percent say the opposite. And 80 percent of registered voters think it is more important to wait for mail-in ballots to be counted so we are sure which candidate won, even if the process drags on for some time. Just 20 percent think it’s more important to determine the outcome of the election quickly, even if many mail-in ballots have not been counted — Trump’s preferred scenario.

The Times had a story this morning about Trump “outrage fatigue,” in which things he says or does that would draw days of brutal coverage if said or done by any other president now pass off the collective radar screen in hours or minutes. People are inured to it — and in most cases, the latest outrage only confirms for them something about Trump they already knew. Yesterday when he retweeted someone who said that Democratic cities should be left to rot, there was barely a murmur beyond media Twitter. That’s who he is and we all understand it and we’ll render our collective verdict about whether it’s acceptable or not on November 3. What he said last week about blocking funding for the Postal Service to prevent universal mail-in voting is different, though. It’s not that it was a surprise that he felt that way, but it’s a rare case of the latest outrage having an unusually direct effect on people’s lives. Trump being a jerk is priced into his stock but Trump being enough of a jerk that he might not lift a finger to help you get your ballot in or your medication delivered on time hits home. He needs to back off from that immediately, and he needs to get the postmaster general to postpone the reorganization that’s producing mail delays. It’s political malpractice if he doesn’t. The Senate may depend on it, never mind his own chances.