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Crowd of protesters
Photo by LOGAN CYRUS/AFP via Getty Images

People who think it's dangerous to gather in crowds to vote gather in large crowds to protest outside postmaster general's homes

Irony?

The head of the federal government's coronavirus task force, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says that it's safe for in-person voting to occur this November. Many of the same people who have droned on extensively about the need to trust experts apparently disagree and have been pushing for mass mail-in voting this fall.

Fueled by this belief and some conspiracy theorizing by elected Democrats, a number of apparently angry Americans took to the streets in protest this weekend — specifically, the streets outside of properties owned by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. According to the conspiracy theory being floated by Nancy Pelosi, you see, DeJoy is acting at the behest of President Donald Trump to "sabotage" the postal system so that it cannot be counted on to allow the entire country to participate in mail-in voting, which seems to be their goal.

The irony of their cause seemed entirely lost on the protesters. They showed no shame at the prospect of gathering in large crowds in order to ... protest that it was not safe for people to gather in what would doubtlessly be much smaller (and more easily managed) crowds in order to vote. In fact, videos and pictures of the event showed thousands of people pressed together with little or no regard for social distancing. Even mask-wearing — which is NOT an acceptable substitute for social distancing — was inconsistent.

As has been noted here at TheBlaze and elsewhere, Louis DeJoy is not doing anything to sabotage the USPS. The post office is and will remain fully funded through the end of 2021, long after the presidential election. The "missing" mail collection boxes, photos of which have spread all over social media, are part of an ongoing effort to reduce the number of collection boxes that began decades ago.

But more to the point, if it's dangerous to go out and vote in public — where polling volunteers can set up measures to ensure social distancing rules are followed — why isn't it dangerous for these conspiracy-theory-believing yahoos to gather in a huge clump for their ill-informed protest?

This is yet another example of the belief — apparently prevalent in liberal circles — that viruses will not spread at a protest if the protest is for a liberal cause. This contention, from people who like to publicly state that Republicans do not believe in science, is a bit rich. After all, science has yet to identify a virus that has a social conscience.

Of course, the truth is that voting in person during a pandemic is safe, and we don't have to guess or even take the word of Dr. Fauci for it. Recall that in April, at the height of COVID panic, Wisconsin held an in-person election, to the consternation of Democrats who confidently stated that Republicans were trying to kill people by making them vote in person. However, the end result was absolutely no spike in coronavirus cases from Wisconsin's election, to the surprise of many "experts."

However, even if someone was inclined to dismiss the Wisconsin experience as an aberration, it should be patently obvious that these protesters were exposing themselves to just as much (if not more) coronavirus risk with their protest than they would have by simply showing up to vote.

Which leads to only one possible conclusion: Their concern is probably not about the coronavirus at all. Which leads to one inexorable question: Why DO they want to make mail-in voting so widespread?

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