The Post Office is under attack. Ahead of the upcoming presidential election, when mail-in voting will be crucial, President Donald Trump has more or less explicitly stated his intent to undermine one of America’s most popular institutions. His postmaster general, Louis DeJoy — a supply chain executive and major GOP donor — has deactivated mail sorting machines across the country and reduced overtime pay for workers in a bid to make the Postal Service run more “like a business.”

While it’s unclear whether Congress will be able to repair the damage (a House bill to provide funding is currently stalled in the Senate), Trump’s assault should be viewed as the latest in a long line of conservative attacks against one of the most important forces historically for democratization in the United States. In addition to delivering mail at a low cost to all corners of the country, the Post Office helped build roads that connected people, created a public banking system that helped immigrant workers, employed black and women workers when they were shut out of other sectors, and, often thanks to the struggles of postal workers themselves, provided good-paying jobs to its employees.

The Post Office has been so much more than just the Post Office. As scholar Leonard White has written: “The Post Office was unique in the closeness of its relations to the great mass of people.” To defend it, even after the pandemic is over, is to defend democracy itself.