Use These New John Lewis Postage Stamps To Write To Congress!

Fine, you'll have to wait until they're actually available.

Yr Wonkette doesn't make a lot of predictions, but we're pretty confident in this one: When the US Postal Service starts selling its new stamp honoring Civil Rights icon John Lewis sometime in 2023, you're going to want to order it online or get down to the Post Office quickly, because unlike the real John Lewis, those stamps are going to sell out. The USPS announced the stamp Tuesday, along with other 2023 releases, although no date for the release was included in the announcement.

NBC News also reports that sometime next year, USPS plans a stamp honoring Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, although no design has yet been announced. Don't expect a "notorious RBG" design, though, darn it.

 Lewis died in July 2020 at the age of 80, after a life of fighting for justice and equality. The Postal Service announcement offers this capsule history lesson that covers the basics:

This stamp celebrates the life and legacy of civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020) of Georgia. Devoted to equality and justice for all Americans, Lewis spent more than 30 years in Congress steadfastly defending and building on key civil rights gains that he had helped achieve in the 1960s. Even in the face of hatred and violence, as well as some 45 arrests, Lewis remained resolute in his commitment to what he liked to call “good trouble.”

Lewis knew full well the threats to democracy that were growing in the run-up to the 2020 election, although he was spared having to witness the subsequent attack on Congress in an attempt to nullify the election, and democracy itself. When he voted in December 2019 to impeach Donald Trump the first time, he said on the House floor,

When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, "What did you do? What did you say?" For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.

Bizarrely — but perhaps inevitably — the National Review's Dan McLaughlin tut-tutted that this is "a very odd moment in our politics" for the Postal Service to be issuing a stamp honoring Lewis, because for all his admirable heroism in the Civil Rights movement, once he was elected to Congress in 1987, he "did much to create today’s bitter and paranoid political climate." Among his many supposed sins, Lewis not only refused to attend George W. Bush's inauguration in 2000, he also had the temerity to vote against certifying the vote in Bush's 2004 reelection, and how is that any different from what Republicans did after the 2020 election? Like, as long as you leave out the violence and the attempt to prop up alternate slates of unelected "electors"? Why, Lewis even did election denial following the 2016 election when he said that Russia had meddled in the election! Plus he kept comparing modern Republicans to George Wallace, and that's pretty monstrous, too.

So yeah, even a postage stamp honoring Lewis is very very divisive , harrumph.

In January of this year, Republicans in the US Senate blocked yet again consideration of voting reform by filibustering a bill that combined the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and a subsequent vote to change the filibuster for that voting rights bill also failed when it was opposed by all 50 Republicans, plus Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

When the John Lewis stamp does come out, use it to send letters to your own representatives and senators demanding they protect voting rights. Maybe include an extra copy of the stamp in your letter to remind them what it means to actually stand up for democracy.

[ USPS / NBC News / National Review ]

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