• Louis DeJoy recently said he is suspending further changes to the USPS until after the election.
• Since assuming the position in June, DeJoy has implemented aggressive reform, which caused critical damage to the USPS before the election.
• The House just passed a bill to allocate $25 billion to the USPS.

As the USPS begins its foray into one of the most critical moments in its history, the man in charge of turning it all around did everything but.

Louis DeJoy’s aggressive reforms to the USPS have finally generated enough backlash that he announced on Tuesday that he would be suspending changes to the USPS until after the election. 

The announcement prompted a collective sigh of relief, but the damage has already been done.

That’s why the House just passed a bill banning operational changes  while allocating $25 billion to the USPS.

Deconstructing the USPS

Since his appointment in June, postmaster general Louis DeJoy’s new strategies seem to be more like roadblocks than innovations.

Massive overhauls in executive leadership, hiring freezes,  and the elimination of overtime have turned the financially challenged institution into an ineffective one as well.

U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney said, 

After being confronted on Friday with first-hand reports of delays across the country, the Postmaster General finally acknowledged a ‘dip’ in service, but he has never publicly disclosed the full extent of the alarming nationwide delays caused by his actions.

Most recently, the planned removal of 671 mail sorting machines had Twitter in a frenzy.

Decommissioning these machines is nothing new. According to data submitted in annual USPS reports , dozens, sometimes hundreds of machines are removed each year in response to American’s diminishing use for letters.

However, both the timing and scale were suspicious. The number of delivery bar code sorters scheduled for removal is almost triple that of the previous two years  despite their inherent value in the upcoming election.

That’s why Nancy Pelosi and the House were not appeased by DeJoy’s declaration to halt changes. Pelosi said his new plan  was “wholly insufficient and does not reverse damage already wreaked.”

Louis DeJoy’s Conflicts of Interest

Louis DeJoy has deep roots in the Republican party. He’s donated millions of dollars to the party  and $1.2 million to the Trump campaign. It’s safe to say that Donald Trump and Louis DeJoy may have some shared interests.

Trump could have a lot to gain from a destabilized USPS. Trump has been laying the seeds of mail-in ballot voter fraud for months.

There is zero significant evidence that mail-in fraud is possible on the scale Trump has depicted. However, creating doubt in the USPS could be a smart play if you’re laying the groundwork to argue election results that don’t fall in your favor.

There are also genuine political advantages to a hobbled USPS. A recent poll posted in USA Today  claimed that 47% of self-identified Democrats said they would vote by mail, compared to 28% of Republican and Independent voters. If these numbers are correct and the USPS were to fall into disarray, that could be a massive win for the Trump organization, something DeJoy is clearly invested in based on his campaign contributions. 

The Effect on the Public

This past week mistrust of the USPS soared when a picture of locked mailboxes started trending.

These mailboxes were locked for security  in neighborhoods where mail had a history of being stolen. Still, the fact that so many people were willing to believe the USPS was actively trying to stop the mail like a comic book villain shows that belief in the institution under its current leadership is waning.

While the recent bill from the House goes a long way, you can still support the USPS by voting early  and buying stamps. 

---

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

---