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Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took charge of the United States Postal Service less than a year ago and began a process of running it into the ground. Now, he wants to accelerate that process.

If President Biden does not take the necessary steps to begin the process of removing DeJoy from his position, the postmaster general’s austerity agenda threatens to ruin the USPS at a point in its 246-year history when the service is every bit as essential as it has ever been.

The urgency of presidential action was illustrated Tuesday when DeJoy announced a 10-year “reorganization” plan for the Postal Service that would slow down delivery times for first-class mail, hike postage rates, and reduce hours for post offices. The postmaster general and his cronies tried to portray the proposed changes as a streamlining project, but The Washington Post correctly characterized it as a strategic initiative “that diminishes delivery standards and raises prices.” The effect of those changes makes this, in the words of Chuck Zlatkin, the legislative and political director for the New York Metro Area Postal Union, “DeJoy’s 10-year plan for the de facto privatization of the post office.”

Even if DeJoy’s slashing and burning do not immediately lead to the dismantlement of the agency, it will do severe harm to the Postal Service, and to the communities that most rely on it. “Cuts to service standards for first-class mail, limiting hours at local post offices, and making it more difficult for people to access postal products would adversely impact USPS customers across the nation, including in rural and underserved communities,” explains Senator Gary Peters, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee with oversight responsibilities for the Postal Service.

Save the Post Office, a coalition of labor and progressive groups, offered a blunter response: “Asking Louis DeJoy to make a ten year plan for the post office is like asking the fox to build a better henhouse. After his record of destruction, incompetence and self-dealing over the last nine months, the only plans he’s qualified to make at this point are his own retirement plans.”

Unfortunately, DeJoy, an ally of Donald Trump whose efforts to dismantle the Postal Service during last year’s debate over voting by mail sparked national outrage, is not showing any inclination to retire on his own. Asked recently about how long he intends to remain at the head of the USPS, DeJoy recently told the House Oversight and Reform Committee, “A long time. Get used to me.” DeJoy’s hubris is rooted in the fact that he is not directly accountable to President Biden or Congress. He serves at the behest of the nine-member Postal Board of Governors, a bipartisan board that is still dominated by Trump appointees.

But that does not mean DeJoy can’t be fired.

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