Who Will Rescue The U.S. Postal Service, And How?

This week, the U.S. Postal Service admitted that in 46 states and the District of Columbia it could not guarantee mail-in ballots would arrive in time to be counted for the 2020 election.

Though Trump casts his own ballots by mail, he’s vigorously criticized efforts to allow more people to do so, which he argues without evidence will lead to increased voter fraud.

Meanwhile, the removal of U.S. Postal Service mailboxes triggered concerns and anger in Oregon and Montana. Boxes were also removed in Indiana.

The Only Thing That’s Certain Is Widespread Uncertainty

Do you trust that you’re getting all your important mail, right now? Are your recipients receiving your letters, your rent checks, and so on in a timely fashion or at all?

This commercial appeal from the Post Office was released three months ago. It’s a timeless appeal but time and money are running out for the USPS.

Enter The American Postal Workers Union

The APWU reminds us that the USPS is not for sale.

The postal workers union suggests that we call our Senators and tell them to support stimulus funding for the USPS: 833-946-2037.

The Coronavirus shutdown is plummeting postal revenues while increasing costs. The Postal Service could run out of money by the end of the summer and the Trump administration is trying to leverage the crisis to sacrifice our public Postal Service at the altar of private profit.

Here the union’s appeal in a radio spot.

Aside from the election, American commerce depends on the mail. Not everyone has electronic billing and not everyone is ready to adopt it because of a federal crime wave.

Did You Know?

• The Postal Service receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products, and services to fund its operations.
• The Postal Service received 811.8 million retail customer visits during 2019.
• There are 31,322 Postal Service-managed retail Post Offices in the United States.
• The USPS served 160 million delivery points nationwide in 2019 with 1.4 million new delivery points added to the network.

Sorry, UPS and FedEx Can’t Help

“State ballots must be postmarked to be considered valid and only the USPS has lawful postmarking status. Therefore UPS, FedEx, and other private parties cannot technically be involved in shipping ballots,” UPS told Reuters in a statement.

FedEx said much of the same in a similar pronouncement to the news agency.

“FedEx does accept individual ballots, and we advise that customers planning to return their ballots via FedEx should closely review their state’s guidelines on absentee voting and deadlines for ballots or related election documents,” the company said.

Deep Fakes Are The New Reality

Did you ever expect to lose the USPO to a fascist regime? Or the White House and the Dept. of Justice, for that matter? Whether we had that particular nightmare or not, here we are.

I remember a time not too long ago when calling the president and his administration fascists would have been unthinkable. Now that it’s 2020, we place the proper nouns where they belong.

What You Can Do Today: Buy Stamps!

A sheet of 20 stamps costs $11 and you can buy as many as you need right now from the USPS online store.

I’d also love to see the ad community as a whole take on a Buy Stamps call-to-action that produces real results, fast.

Ultimately, we the People must save ourselves. The government is not interested, nor capable.