On the Postal Service

If you haven't read David Brin's The Postman, you really should. Well, really, you should read all of David Brin's work. 

But in these trying times, the United States Postal Service is in the cross-hairs again.

We all know what's been going on: Donald Trump is screwing with the service in order to scupper the upcoming elections, when millions more people will be voting via mail than ever before due to his not being able to control the COVID pandemic.

In Brin's novel, America has vanished, subsumed in decay and civil war. An itinerant actor finds a letter carrier's heavy coat, and takes it to keep warm. He comes across a settlement, and one thing leads to another and suddenly he's leading a regeneration of America.

The Postal Service isn't just some random government agency. Departments like Defense and State aren't in the Constitution; they were created by Congressional act. The Postal Service is one of the few government agencies which receives its brief from the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power To... establish Post Offices and post Roads

The Founders saw the need to weave together a nation which covered, at that time, half a continent. Any great state has a postal service, from Persia to Rome. Communication is integral to any civilized polity, or it falls apart. The image of the Pony Express rider is a mainstay of American folklore.

In Brin's novel, the Postal Service is seen as a hearkening back to better times. It's seen, indeed, as the mark of civilization. 

As we send emails and engage on Twitter, much of our business is still done via post. When a nation's postal service gets downgraded, or ceases to function, that's the mark of a failed state. And, as easy as messaging Mamaw on Facebook is, there's still something magical about sending a letter via mail, handwritten on good paper, which will go into the scrapbook. (My BFF and I used to write each other letters. We saw each other all the time, but, again, there was something magical about opening a letter and reading the words.)

The Trump Regime thought that America was done with the Postal Service. It thought it could kneecap it with no consequence. But, as always, Trump is his own worst enemy. Of course he thought the postal service was a dead letter; he has no idea what normal people think or feel. But the service delivers those letters to Mamaw. It delivers checks. It delivers medicines. It delivers baby chicks. It is woven into the very fabric of this economy, and hamstringing it helps to destroys that economy.

There are many heroes in the Age of Trump. Add letter carriers to that list. Everything and everyone Trump and his minions think can be dispensed with are actually vastly more popular, and powerful, than they are. It's a hard lesson we're learning, but we're learning that the edifice which has underpinned this Republic for two centuries is worth fighting for. We used to joke about "going postal". Now we've added letter carriers to the roll call of honor. It's amazing how much you appreciate something when it's under threat.

What this episode hammers home, again and again, is that we're not powerless. The world isn't hopeless. We can move mountains and cut off tomfoolery. But only an engaged citizenry can do this. We all have to take our roles as sovereigns seriously, as the Founders thought we would. We can't be made soporific by the distractions of the day. In the end, nothing matters more than the communities we create and are part of. Individuals, by themselves, can't create a civilization. That can only be done by concerted action.

In the After Time, may we come to an appreciation of what we have, and vow to make it better.