August 17, 2020

A Brief History of Why Donald Trump Hates the Postal Service

Andrej Sokolow/DPA via ZUMA

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Some of you may be wondering why President Trump seems to have it in for the Postal Service. It’s a short story:

  • Trump hates the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos.
  • Trump tweeted about this once and Bezos responded with a joke. Trump can’t stand jokes at his expense, so he hates Bezos.
  • Bezos is CEO of Amazon, therefore Trump hates Amazon.
  • The Postal Service delivers some of Amazon’s packages. As a matter of revenge, Trump wants them to raise the rates they charge Amazon.
  • They have refused to do so, therefore Trump hates the Postal Service.

Believe it or not, that’s all there is to it. Trump has been waiting five years for an opportunity to take revenge on the Postal Service, and the current ruckus over vote-by-mail has given him his chance. He’s pretending that it’s all about ballot fraud and inefficient management and so forth, but it’s really about the fact that Bezos—who is considerably richer than Trump—once made a modest joke about Trump and the Postal Service got caught in the crossfire.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s how the United States of America is governed these days.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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