The National Association of Letter Carriers Keystone Branch 157, at 9607 James St. in Torresdale, hosted a rally for Joe Biden on Monday.
Among those in attendance were U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle and Madeleine Dean, state Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, Philadelphia AFL-CIO president Pat Eiding and Frank Snyder, secretary-treasurer of the statewide AFL-CIO.
Joe Rodgers, president of NALC 157, was joined by retired NALC executive vice president Tim O’Malley and Nick Casselli, president of American Postal Workers Union Local 89.
O’Malley said he looks forward to the postal service giving Trump a change of address in a few months. Casselli said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is starting to be known as Louis DeLay, as postal unions believe President Donald Trump wants chaos on Nov. 3 with mail-in ballots.
Rodgers, who called for a moment of silence for the roughly 215,000 Americans who have died of the coronavirus, praised the work of his fellow letter carriers during the pandemic.
“We can’t phone it in,” he said.
Rodgers hopes young people and minorities vote in high numbers, arguing that the issues on the ballot are civil rights, women’s rights, social justice and the Affordable Care Act.
Eiding said Trump has done nothing but “screw the country up,” adding that it is a “sin” that he is pushing Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court so close to the election.
Boyle recalled GOP control of the White House and Congress in 2017-18, when the House voted to repeal the ACA and Trump signed a tax-cut bill the congressman believes was too generous to the rich.
The 2020 race is not about persuasion, Snyder said. Instead, it’s about turnout.
Snyder said people should ignore polls showing Biden leading. He blamed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss on her “buying drapes” for the White House as polls showed her ahead.
“We got to play all 60 minutes,” he said, using a football analogy. ••
