I just saw the commercial regarding the funding of the pension program. While it is clear that it is unfair to the Post Office that this burden has been placed on the department, it is not a compelling argument for the Public to latch on to.
I have a theory as to why the Republican Party wishes to shut down the Post office: VOTING. If they can shut down the Post Office, who is going to deliver door to door all the voting info, sample ballots, and absentee ballots? Who is going to take the trouble to send their ballots by UPS or FedEX? If they can limit the voting of the rural population (read: Minorities) if they can limit the voting of the lazy individuals who are used to putting their ballots out for their letter carrier to deliver to the election board; then they can limit the voting to the wealthy who can afford UPS or FedEX.
If you make your advertisement about us, the public, and our right to vote, it becomes worth our trouble to get involved in your trouble. We need a compelling argument. They have been trying to shut you down for years now. They haven’t achieved their goals. Now they have moved to Voter ID. But this is still their plan for your department. Make your ad about the public and you might get some traction.
Just a thought.
PostalReporter reader from Bakersfield, CA
If you’ve been reading Postal Reporter, I’ve been making this case for the last year. Washington and Oregon are completely vote by mail states, and both vote traditionally Democratic. If the Repubs can drop the vote in those two states alone, the electoral votes could switch the shape of elections for the forseeable future. It is ABSOLUTELY about restricting votes from a variety of angles.
That makes it even more ironic in regards to shuttering smaller and more remote offices and the associated sparse or low density routes, because rural areas are traditionally an R voting demographic. At least that seems to often be the case in the rural areas of the country that aren’t within California.
However, it would be congruent with a push to move postal annexes to less traditional retail locations where voting demographics and shopping demographics might diverge (and converge) more favorably for R. This aspect plays closer into the narrative outlined by the author.