Unless one is a racist dingbat consuming Fox News all day, I don’t see how you would look at Postmaster General Louis DeJoy as anything short of a saboteur and stooge for the Trump administration and their plans to steal the election. 

But based on ratings and what trends on Facebook every day, that’s a sizable portion of the population, which means for the Democrats, their aim should have been to not just expose DeJoy and the moral consequences of his actions, but the legal ones. To me, that would be members of Congress forgoing asking questions themselves in favor of a lawyer doing so. Even if the efforts proved to be in vain, during the impeachment trials, it was much better for the Democrats when impeachment lawyer Daniel Goldman was asking the questions rather than many of the House members. 

At the very least, select members might have made better use of their time be donating it to some of their colleagues. Unfortunately, none of that happened. Politicians are often no less self-involved and ego-driven than some bird you roll your eyes at but can’t unfollow on Instagram. 

For some select members of Congress, when they know that one of their hearings might have a larger than usual audience, they get a lil’ excited. They want to perform for the audience, presumably with the hopes to build their national profile. And then most of them flop. 

Of course, DeJoy himself is still the most insufferable thing about all of this. He had already shown himself to be a jackass last Friday during the Senate hearing where he blasted the “insinuation” by Democrats and people like me who believe that his political ties to Donald Trump have shaped postal operations to favor the President’s reelection. A charge he claimed was “frankly outrageous” as he refused to commit to turning over data to Democratic senators asking for more information from his office. 

By Monday, he was somehow even smugger. What made it all the more painful viewing, though, was the Democrats just not seemingly being on one clear accord. Some of that was not their fault. In the case of Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo), his wi-fi just went out. The fault for these monopolies go to both parties, but I digress. 

Other House Democratic members just made it worse by virtue of rants without purpose. 

For example, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass), who after a five-minute lecture on the history of the Postal Service, asked DeJoy, “What the heck are you doing?” 

This isn’t home theater, it’s a House hearing. Ask specific questions. people at home don’t need lessons about the Post Office. They know how important it is. They are looking for checks to pay bills and medicine to take to stay alive and make life less unbearable. If you’re going to not ask questions that pose the legal ramifications of DeJoy’s actions, at least speak to those?

The same goes for Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn), who quipped, “Is your backup plan to be pardoned, like Roger Stone?” No matter what Donald was conditioned us to believe, this is not a reality show. I get the desire to perform, but half of y’all can’t perform in normal times much less chaos. Stick to the point. Let’s not skip to the Roger Stone pardon portion of the program if you haven’t made DeJoy himself acknowledge the con. 

Not everyone was bad, but the two that made most uses of their time were arguably Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez (D-NY). 

In Porter’s exchange with DeJoy, she managed to highlight that DeJoy doesn’t know who ordered the USPS overhaul, refused to reverse the changes, and refused to take responsibility for how his actions are hurting Americans. Should anyone believe him? No, but that’ll be his problem soon enough.

Meanwhile, Ocascio-Cortez pressed a reluctant DeJoy to turn over his calendar to ethics officials so it can be screened for conflicts of interest; managed to get DeJoy to concede that he probably has been in contact with officials/friends at XPO since starting as Postmaster General; pressed DeJoy on returning correspondence made inquiring about providing wheelchair access at the postal office in her local district for disabled members of the community. 

Some members of Congress could aim to study that for future hearings. Well, if they don’t do the smarter thing and donate their time to others and/or a lawyer, so they can do the questioning. As for the rest of us, other than a handful making DeJoy look worse than he already does, there was nothing I watched that made me feel more comfortable about voting by mail. I have voted absentee before, but like a growing number of other Black and Latinx voters, I’m increasingly wary of mail-in voting in November. 

But more than anything, I’m more worried about how many folks are going to suffer if not die while Louis DeJoy remains Postmaster General.