Dare to Dream of a New Postal Service

The USPS is a failing government service by which we measure our frustration. I’ll say it again: The USPS is a failing government service by which we measure our frustration. I don’t believe in bloated bureaucracy… I don’t believe in Postmaster General Louis DeJoy… I don’t believe in mail carriers… you get the gist, and I’ll stand by paraphrasing John Lennon’s 1970 song “God” from his first (and best) solo album, partly because Lennon’s post-Beatles career is mostly remembered for 1971’s “Imagine,” an “anthem” which (unless Beatles scholars tell me otherwise) isn’t a parody.

As many of my 1.2 billion readers know (a “source,” also “an expert,” gave me those number on the condition of anonymity so as not to cause unfathomable jealously) one of my longtime hobbyhorses, dating back to the 1990s, is the deterioration of the United States Postal Service, which becomes more acute with each passing week. The Washington Post reported (it required three bylines; talk about inefficiency) last week that Donald Trump is floating the idea of privatizing the perpetually mired-in-debt USPS. The common-sense idea has cropped for several decades, and though I’m top-of-the-mountain in favor of Trump’s remarks, I’ve little faith his embryonic proposal has legs. (On the other hand, I hope his way-over-top tariff threats directed at China, aren’t serious, just some sirloin for the “better dead than red” crowd.)

Here’s a nugget that was new to me, provided by the Post: “Even though financial challenges wrought by the rise of the internet, the Postal Service has remained one of Americans’ most beloved federal agencies, second only to the National Park Service in a 2024 Pew Research Center study.” Fit me in extra-heavey long johns and a purple people-eater suit: the USPS has a 72 percent favorable rating (a grain of salt: the FBI! received a 52 percent favorable grade). I never would’ve predicted that result: the USPS is a busted shell of the service I remember as a young boy and teenager, back when Zip Codes were introduced and my mom and I would visit our local post office once a month to pick out new sheets of commemoratives. Today, if you chance sending a bill or check to a vendor, it’s anybody’s guess when it arrives.

I’ll say this again, too: when I was seven years old, while my friends, queried about what they wanted to be as a “grown-up” answered astronaut, doctor, baseball player, cop, teacher, cartoonist, fireman and the like, I was firm in my future as a mailman. I was a kid, so my parents laughed it off, and Mom said, “That’s sweet, honey, but I think you’ll be a lawyer.” Since “God is a concept,” I ducked that fate. Six or seven of my high school and college friends entered (and prospered in) that profession, and most, now around 70, regret it, aside from the affluence it afforded).

Privatizing the USPS is a complicated procedure—Trump’s and his advisers’ on-target rhetoric notwithstanding—as Congress would have to pass a bill to bring home the bacon, and, as so many legislators are from non-urban states and districts, where constituents apparently love USPS, politics holds the upper hand. On the off chance the Congressional hurdle is jumped, who would put up the billions? That’s somewhat out of my depth, but since the agency owns so much real estate across the country, which could be flipped almost immediately, a private equity firm taking the gamble isn’t unfeasible. As for the rural consumers who depend on USPS, that would be a top priority for any consortium that wins the prize. Business, and profit, is the main thing, and after a period of adjustment the new USPS (with some goofy “branded” name) might even exceed the popularity of social media platform Bluesky. (A joke to leaven the mood, for the benefit of my friend Ken Silber, who’s deactitvated his Twitter account.)

The accompanying photo is of my three older brothers, wolfing down lunch, and maybe waiting for the friend-of-the-neighbors mailman. Take a look at the clues to figure out the year. Walt Disney’s Peter Pan premieres in Chicago; Georgia approves the first literature censor board in the U.S.; assembly is completed on the first Chevrolet Corvette in Flint, MI; Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is released; Playboy’s newsstand price is 50 cents; Tony Shalhoub is born and Eugene O’Neill dies; Beverly Cleary’s Otis Spofford and Roald Dahl’s Someone Like You are published; Patti Page’s “The Doggie in the Window” is a smash hit; and Konrad Adenauer is Time’s Man of the Year.

—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023