“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” reads the U.S. Postal Service motto. It might be time to add Donald Trump to that list.
Trump tried to undermine the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the 2020 election, but it was all for naught. He failed, and in the midst of an ongoing pandemic it’s looking like mail-in voters played a crucial role in handing Joe Biden the presidency. Now, as Americans take to the streets to hail the Biden-Harris ticket’s looming victory, they’re reserving some cheer for the post office specifically.
Jubilant citizens across the country are showing their support for one of the country’s most popular federal agencies on Saturday. Shortly after major news networks called the election for Biden and relieved citizens took to the streets, photos and videos began to pop up on Twitter showing the appreciation people everywhere are feeling for their mail carriers.
Members of the U.S. Postal Service have faced an uphill battle in recent months, following Trump’s appointment of political donor Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General. Shortly after he started the job, DeJoy quickly implemented rules that implicitly aimed to hobble USPS operations ahead of a pandemic-year election that was widely expected to see a record turnout for absentee ballots.
Trump played his own part in undermining the federal agency, spending months fueling doubts among his supporters around the (in actuality, relatively low) risk of voting by mail. The result, based on 2020 election returns so far, was a heavily depressed turnout among absentee Trump voters.
The actions taken against the USPS were widely criticized on both sides of the political spectrum. They also led to court proceedings, unseen acts of resistance, and a clever ad campaign aimed at blunting or canceling out the destructive efforts of the Trump administration.
While the whole endeavor was seemingly meant to boost Election Day voting for Trump supports and, thus, create the idea by the end of that night that Trump was the election’s big winner, it backfired. Instead, while Trump did appear to have a commanding performance by the end of Nov. 3, his would-be lead disappeared in the days that followed as non-standard votes were counted.
Even GOP efforts to reframe election law in a way that reduced the power and sway of absentee votes fell flat. In the end, all the legal votes were counted, and the American people’s collective voice was heard. (The counting is technically still ongoing as of Nov. 7, but Trump has no path to victory based on what’s left.)
And so, as Americans take to the streets to celebrate, the post office is right there with them – deservedly so.