In the modern world, where everything is connected by the internet, it’s quite easy to forget how we get our regular amenities. Whether you get your food from DoorDash, the grocery store or the side of the road, there’s always a mechanism in place that brings it to you. This is true for everything, from a bolt to the bricks in your home.

Now, imagine you live on a remote island, somewhere in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. You’d imagine it’s quite hard to get there, and you’d be right. Now, imagine that this small, insignificant island also happens to need its regular shipments of food, bolts and bricks. How do they get there? Well, I can answer that: occasional planes and massive cargo ships loaded with containers. 

But you see, the problem lies therein—those ships take months and months to actually get from the mainland to that small island. The planes take far less time, of course—they do fly near to the speed of sound, after all—but the problem still remains of actually getting that plane there. Planes aren’t cheap, and if the cost of shipping goods by plane were directly proportional to the cost of the space on it, then no one would be able to bring anything in by that method. 

Thus, I must say thank you to USPS.

Without the postal service, my island, American Samoa, would have very little in the way of quick transit for supplies. Here on the mainland, a truck can go from one end of the country to the other in a matter of days. On an island, which few people even know exists (let alone the logistical requirements behind its continued habitation), it becomes quite the herculean task to get anything there. With the postal service, however, it’s doable; people can run online businesses, get mail from relatives and be a part of the greater aspect of the United States of America. 

However, with the recent downsizing of the postal service because of the “unprofitable” nature of the program, things are getting worse. I know folks from there who are still waiting for their shipments from November because almost everything has to go by cargo ship now. Fresh fruits and vegetables? In your dreams, because half the stuff coming out of the cargo containers is already covered in mold. Need a part for your car? Well, I hope you don’t need your car for the next six months. Cousin wants to send you a birthday gift? Well, happy half-birthday! 

Christmas decorations from the year before arrive in June. There are pumpkins for sale starting in November at the earliest. These facts we already know to be true because they’re facts of life there. But every single thing that is supposed to get to the island will now take that much longer to do so because our president believes that a government is supposed to be a profit-making machine rather than a device for the general welfare of its nation.