Census data reveals the real reason why the GOP is ramping up its war on democracy

[marmar]

(Salon) Donald Trump, who never met a fact or figure he didn't want to distort, desperately wanted to prevent the Census Bureau from getting an accurate count of the people living in America. So his administration pursued "policies that suppress the count among hard-to-count communities — including immigrants, people of color, low-income individuals, and those in rural areas — and effectively disenfranchise them," according to a 2020 report by Vox and the Center for Public Integrity. The Trump administration implemented strategies that were cooked up by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group, due to their advocacy for immigration policies aimed quite overtly at preserving white supremacy in the U.S.

It's hard to know for sure how successful the Trump administration was at undercounting the non-white population in the U.S. — it's not like there's another, stronger set of data to compare the census to. But we now know that Trump failed at concealing the fact that the United States is becoming more cosmopolitan and racially diverse.

Newly released data from the 2020 census shows that that the white population actually shrunk in absolute numbers for the first time in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Black, Latino, and Asian populations got bigger. The result is that white people are now only 58% of the population, down from nearly 70% when George W. Bush was elected in 2000. While not surprising, such a precipitous drop is shocking nonetheless. Additionally, people are leaving rural areas behind to pack into urban centers.

Trump reacted to losing the 2020 election by attempting a coup that got to the point of inciting a violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. But despite having to run for their lives from Trump's mob on January 6, Republican politicians in Congress like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and former Vice President Mike Pence continue to kiss Trump's ring. Even those who don't hide their disgust for Trump very well, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., still do everything they can to cover for him and set him up to run in 2024. In the Beltway press, it is fashionable to ascribe this masochistic display of fealty to Trump to "fear." Republicans, we're told, are afraid of Trump, knowing that he's still beloved by the GOP base and that he can turn the masses against them with the drop of, well, not a tweet, but maybe an angry rant on Fox News. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/13/census-data-reveals-the-real-reason-why-the-gop-is-ramping-up-its-war-on-democracy/

[msongs]

1. meanwhile in democrat-ville at least 3 people are blocking efforts to solve this problem nt