Quick and dirty … Trump’s unqualified choice for postmaster general has f**ked up and the state of Montana has called him out — and won.
Rachel Maddow tonight, in reporting on the despicable actions of unqualified postmaster general Louis Dejoy has highlighted how public pushback has stopped at least one Dejoy/Trump action in it’s tracks.
Among the many orders Dejoy has implemented is removing hundreds or perhaps thousands of postal drop boxes from street corners around America, especially ones located in convenient places for voters to drop their mail-in ballots, like in poor neighborhoods and communities of color. An astute local reporter in Montana got a list of the boxes being removed, and almost all were in convenient locations, while those being left in place were in out-of-the-way inconvenient places.
The reporting led to a letter-writing campaign from Montanans who were already pissed off about the mail slow-down Dejoy implemented. Montana is mostly rural, and the only way to get anything delivered in most of the state is via USPS. People were already pissed that their medications, checks, bills, online orders and other mail was being delayed. Now their ability to mail a letter was being squeezed. This caught the attention of the state’s two U.S. Senators who sent short, tersely worded letters to Dejoy telling him to knock off the removal of the drop boxes.
Within hours, the Postal Service announced no more boxes would be removed in Montana, and a short time later the service announced it would not remove any more boxes nationwide until after the election.
In what has got to be a truly American moment, Rachel’s people convinced Montana Sen. John Tester (D) to get off his tractor, on which he was harvesting winter wheat, to talk to Rachel (people forget that rural legislators aren’t all lawyers and bank presidents — some actually work for a living). And he was eloquent and to the point, calling Dejoy’s actions reprehensible and the Trump administration’s assault on the the Postal Service an attack on rural America. It was a thing of beauty. Then he got back on his tractor.
The lesson, as I have suspected, is that to address this assault on the Postal Service we need to attack the weakest link, Trump’s appointee as postmaster general. The Montana experience makes it clear he doesn’t have the cajones to stand up to pushback. Trump doesn’t handle pushback well, either, but pressuring Richy Rich Dejoy will probably drive him out of office.
That, folks, means the answer is PUSH BACK!
