Sabotaging the Census and Other GOP Poison Pills Ahead
The Supreme Court’s ruling effectively ending the 2020 census early may seem like just another part of the chaos surrounding modern day governance in the United States, but it’s not.
Screwing up the decennial population count has implications beyond the obvious fact the under-represented populations numbers will be diminished.
** You can still respond to the census online today!**
In July, President Trump instructed the Census Bureau to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count for the purpose of congressional reapportionment. This would seem to be unconstitutional, and last month a panel of judges blocked the memo.
The Department of Justice has appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that “expedited consideration” is needed due to fast-approaching statutory deadlines.
The Secretary of Commerce must deliver the census data to the president by December. 31, and the president is required to pass them on to Congress by January 10, 2021.
From the New York Times:
Some academics and advocates fear that ending the census early could mean that White House officials, rather than Census Bureau experts, may use the population numbers to determine representation in the House of Representatives and in state and local governments. The census is supposed to be a nonpartisan, data-driven exercise.
Most experts said a shortened census would only worsen existing undercounts of the people census workers have had the most trouble reaching, including those in racial minority groups, poor people and young people.
Should the administration win its exclusion case before the newly expanded Supreme Court, the shorter timeline provided for by this week’s ruling ending the count would allow the Trump administration to finalize the census count — and exclude undocumented immigrants before the inauguration of a President Joe Biden.
Bingo. Republicans would then have some protection from the shifting demographics of the nation for another decade.
There are some IFs involved in this potential timeline, but I’m calling attention to it in today’s post to make the case for the hard road we as a nation will have to travel in a universe where Democrats win on November 3rd.
Key players in the political establishment are privately resigned to major losses for Republicans at the polls.
Rupert Murdoch, whose N.Y. Post tried and failed to spring a Russian-made October surprise on the Biden campaign yesterday, is telling associates he believes Trump will lose in a landslide.
https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1316742238597271552?s=20
Donald Trump has all but been deserted by his party. Surrogates for the campaign trail, typically drawn from a pool of sympathetic elected officials, are limited to the president’s family and his inner circle of sycophants.
Here’s Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos:
Trump's travel schedule this week is all defense as he tries to hold on to regions and states to which he shouldn't be devoting much time this late in the game: West Pennsylvania (Johnstown), Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida.
Oh, and by the way, as Trump hits states that are also critical to the GOP effort to maintain control of the Senate, don't expect to see those vulnerable Republican senators campaigning alongside him. They are too busy running for the hills, literally trying to edit him out of their lives and voters' minds in every campaign ad they cut.
Off the campaign trail, Trump is starting to assume an early lame duck posture—that is, he’s losing his juice in Washington. Trump has apparently lost his bid to get not just one, but two fabricated reports intended to smear his Democratic rival. Last week, Attorney General Bill Barr made it clear his report on the origins of the Russia investigation wouldn't be dropping before the election, and this week it emerged that his "unmasking" investigation was also a total flop, finding no “substantive wrongdoing” by Obama administration officials.
All that boils down to the subtext that the career prosecutors tapped to lead those investigations—U.S. Attorney John Durham and recently resigned U.S. Attorney John Bash—likely decided they didn't want to permanently sully their reputations by delivering dirt for a guy who’s on a path to defeat.
In the US Senate, it’s become increasingly obvious that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans have already given up on a Trump victory. This is the truth behind the Senate’s unwillingness to even negotiate a second stimulus package.
From Bloomberg:
A GOP strategist who has been consulting with Senate campaigns said Republicans have been carefully laying the groundwork to restrain a Biden administration on federal spending and the budget deficit by talking up concerns about the price tag for another round of virus relief. The thinking, the strategist said, is that it would be very hard politically to agree on spending trillions more now and then in January suddenly embrace fiscal restraint.
Greg Sargent at the Washington Post offered up the following analysis upon seeing this nugget:
Republicans almost certainly suspect Trump will lose even with a big stimulus and already hope to put an incoming President Joe Biden in a fiscal straitjacket, saddling him with the terrible politics of a grueling recovery.
A big package now under a GOP president would make that harder to get away with. That’s bad enough, but the evolving strategy here may be worse than this suggests. The calculation is probably not just about avoiding the hypocrisy of spending big now and embracing austerity under a Democratic president.
It’s also likely that a big package now would put the economy in a somewhat better position early next year, when Biden (should he win) would take over. This, too, is probably what Republicans want to avoid.
Indeed, as Eric Levitz points out, if Republicans can scuttle a robust package now, that would hand Biden a “deepening recession.” If Republicans hold the Senate and can block big stimulus measures at that point, Levitz continues, “Biden’s presidency would be over before it starts.”
And so, when McConnell chortled with glee at this week’s debate in Kentucky about the failure to pass more aid at a desperate national moment, it telegraphed what’s coming. And we’ve already lived through what happened when Republicans, led by McConnell, tried to cripple the recovery from a previous economic calamity that a Democratic president inherited from a Republican one.
Should Democrats retake the Senate, they’ll have no choice but to eliminate the filibuster so they can pass the trillions of dollars in stimulus that is going to be necessary without allowing Republicans to stop it. And if they don’t take the Senate, we’re all really screwed.
There are potential pitfalls ahead, like Trump’s citizen militia, hardcore elements in border security enforcement, and noise from rightwing media.
For now, we must face the most immediate task; turning out voters in numbers large enough to undermine any credibility reactionary forces have moving forward.
So, have you voted? Asked everybody in your social universe if they’ve voted?
One. step. at. a. time.
https://twitter.com/Wendy4SD/status/1316582136112058369?s=20
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post emailed to you check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com