Louis DeJoy, the CEO of a logistics and freight company and a major donor of the Republican Party, was appointed during the Donald Trump Administration as postmaster general of the United States.
He became the first postmaster general in two decades without prior experience with the United States Postal Service.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-08-21/dejoy-appointment-postmaster-dishonest
Critics said DeJoy never should been considered for the job for ethical reasons.
He had $30 million in holdings from USPS competitors and contractors, Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote.
“DeJoy,” Hiltzik wrote, “also purchased options on Amazon stock that might rise in value if the USPS’ ability to compete with Amazon is hamstrung.”
Hiltzik also wrote that DeJoy’s appointment did not go through the normal channels of being recommended by a headhunting firm knowledgeable of the operations of the USPS. He was instead recommended by a board member who was supervising the job search, Hiltzik said.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-08-21/dejoy-appointment-postmaster-dishonest
DeJoy, once in charge of USPS, made draconian cuts, reducing staffing and removing mail-sorting equipment that left workers in one Los Angeles mail-sorting facility so far behind in their work that “gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes,” The Times reported in a separate story.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-20/usps-cutbacks-post-office-chaos
DeJoy promised that his reforms would streamline the USPS and make it more profitable.
This did not happen.
The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, said that DeJoy did not accomplish the results he promised.
“The Postal Service’s financial performance over the last two years shows no sign of improvement, with billions in red ink accumulating quarter upon quarter,” the newspaper said.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/aug/14/editorial-postal-service-chief-louis-dejoy-fails-t/
President Joe Biden could not replace the failed Trump appointees with people who actually had experience in their designated fields.
Biden could not fire DeLay because he did not appoint him.
DeJoy was appointed by a separate board of governors.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-08-21/dejoy-appointment-postmaster-dishonest
Slate published this critique of DeJoy’s competence —or lack thereof — in February 2021.
“He is an unqualified Trump donor who seems to have done everything in his power to ruin the Postal Service. USPS slowdowns have been a recurring issue since the summer, when DeJoy implemented a slew of cost-cutting measures that suddenly and severely degraded delivery services,” Slate wrote. “His policies prohibited delivery trucks from waiting for late mail or making extra trips, dismantled sorting machines, cut overtime, and reduced hours at retail post office locations. Predictably, these changes created massive backlogs and rapidly diminished on-time delivery rates.”
In addition, Slate reported, the USPS had trouble delivering mail-in ballots during the 2020 Presidential Election.
“During the 2020 Presidential Election, a USPS filing showed major slowdowns in swing states for first-class service, the delivery status assigned to mail ballots. NBC found that between 25,000 and 50,000 ballots likely came in too late to be counted due to poor USPS service,” Slate said.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/biden-cannot-fire-usps-louis-dejoy.html
DeJoy’s appointment became yet another example of what happens when you put people in jobs where they have no experience or competence.
Take Donald Trump.
Please.
Trump’s disastrous term as president demonstrates what happens when a politician with no experience is elected to a political office that is called the “hardest job in the world.”
Those who support Trump will often say they like him because he’s not a politician.
Really.
This would be fine if being president didn’t require being a politician and having political experience and then managing politics and politicians in a political world.
Why hire an experienced mechanic to work or your car, a licensed CPA to do your taxes, or someone with years of landscaping experience to fix up your yard.
Who needs an Uber driver with a driver’s license?
Or an experienced pilot to fly your plane?
And by all means, who needs an experience surgeon to perform your double bypass?
Why not hire a C student in eighth-grade biology?
Or a bankrupted businessman, reality star huckster, and sexual deviant with no political experience to be president?
That would be nuts.
