Why I Love Amazon, And What the Dems Can Learn From It

I’m told I’m supposed to hate Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos.

The most recent reason is that Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, spiked an editorial that would have endorsed Kamala Harris for president. In fact, there was a day last fall when I was supposed to boycott Amazon in protest. Liberals were supposed to boycott Amazon to teach Bezos a lesson for denying the presidency to Harris, as millions of Trump voters would have gotten up one morning in October and said, “Gee honey, I know we were going to vote for Trump, but my gosh, when the Washington Post endorses a Democrat I think we have to reconsider! And the editorial was so well reasoned. I left an annotated copy with your coffee.”

But here’s the funny thing. I live in the very belly of the liberal, “kindness is everything” beast — the near westside of Madison, Wisconsin. My neighborhood went north of 90% for Harris, even without guidance from the Washington Post. And yet everyday in my condo building the mail room table is stacked with packages from Amazon, even on the day that we were all supposed to be boycotting the company because Bezos wouldn’t let the Post endorse Harris and make her the next president. Gray and blue trucks ply my neighborhood streets, some parked in front of houses that scream at me about kindness being everything.

Why the disconnect? Where’s the ongoing boycott? It doesn’t happen because Amazon is just so damn good at customer service. My uber liberal neighbors are eager to deal with the devil if it means if they don’t like it they can return it without a hassle.

Personal case in point. I lost my key fob for my car. Don’t do this. It’s not like you can just grab your wife’s key, walk over to the hardware store and get a new one cut for a couple of bucks. Oh no. You have to order one and then have it programmed at the dealership.

But because I’m always eager to save a buck where I can, I decided to order an “after market” fob from Amazon. It arrived within a day and I took it to the dealership where they spent an hour (and $100 of my money) trying to program it, only to fail. Now they have to order one from Honda and program that one, all of which will cost another $300 — plus the $100 I incinerated on the failed programming attempt. In other words, my attempt to save a few bucks on the fob will wind up costing me about a hundred dollars.

But I won’t get stuck with the $30 for the useless fob. I went online and within minutes had a QR code from Amazon. I didn’t need to package up the fob. I took it and my QR code to Whole Foods (where I also bought some apples), the guy scanned it and requested that I have a good weekend. If it hadn’t been for the apples, I would have been in and out of there in minutes as the interaction with the Amazon guy took about 10 seconds.

The next time I looked at my email I already had my refund. It didn’t take the sting out of my cheapness ultimately costing me a hundred bucks (a deeper malady that my wife would be happy to tell you about in much more detail), but it made me feel better about corporate America.

Contrast this with a nonprofit advisory group I sit on. I won’t name it, but it also provides customer service. Part of the meeting was about an employee survey that had just been conducted. It was fine, but I kept wondering where the customer survey was. It was as if we existed for our employees, as opposed to existing for the people we allegedly served — and who paid the bills.

That was a problem I observed — and tried to change — in municipal government as well. Often, when some policy change was proposed that would make it easier for our customers (otherwise known as taxpayers, otherwise known as the people who paid our salaries) to do something, the pushback was about how it would make things harder in some way for employees. This is the wrong mindset.

Amazon is successful because it provides excellent customer service. Rather than look for ways to tear it down, other organizations should study it to see why and how it works so well. And the overall idea — pay some respect to the people who pay the bills — is one that needs to get more attention in every realm whether that’s for-profit businesses, nonprofits, government or political parties.

The Democrats are desperately in need of a new image. Something other than the party of identity and victimhood. Some suggest “abundance” but I don’t think anybody knows what that means. Others think we should be the party of democracy, but I think that’s too abstract for most people. I like the idea of a party that respects taxpayers and works for people who work.