In the annals of ideas whose time has come, it would be hard to find a better one right here, with President Trump tweeting about holding a new census in the wee hours of the morning.
He's right, and for a lot of reasons. Why should people who don't belong here be counted in the Census? They could be thrown out of the country tomorrow, which would negate the whole point of the Census.
Naturally, the New York Times has a problem with it:
President Trump said on Thursday that he had ordered the Commerce Department to begin work on a new census that excludes undocumented immigrants.
A new census would be a significant departure for a process stipulated by the Constitution to occur every 10 years. Historically, the census has counted all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status, a process that helps determine both the allotment of congressional seats and billions of dollars in federal money sent to states.
“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on social media.
The push comes as Mr. Trump and his allies press Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps to benefit the party. Congressional maps are redrawn after the census is completed based on the new data. The next census is scheduled for 2030.
Which is kind of a cynical take, basically calling it a power grab involving redistricting.
Where have they been in the last four years after Joe Biden's open borders let into the country tens of millions of unauthorized foreign nationals?
That was where the cynicism was -- Biden let in tens of millions to pad congressional districts and seats in Democrats' favor. One congressional district and seat amounts to about 700,000 people. Let in ten million illegals and that's at least seven extra seats for Democrats, whose dwindling numbers in these illegal-heavy districts (known as 'dead' districts with very low voter turnout) end up electing radical leftists who'd never be electable otherwise.
That's a political game, a political project. Import millions of people who can't vote but who can be counted in the Census to create congressional districts, and Democrat operatives can take it from there. They don't need illegal alien voters for the most part, they just need warm bodies clustered in particular districts to give them the congressional seats they want. Who cares if only 10% of a congressional district votes because so many of the legal residents have fled blue-state high taxes, only to be replaced by non-voting illegals? Hain't they got the power?
It's such a cynical, abusive use of America's representative democracy, and for that matter, foreign nationals falsely invited in for political purposes, it would boggle the minds of the Founding Fathers who set up the Census and congressional districting system as it is. Yet it's the baseline for all Democrat power grabs, the foundational rigging.
Could the Founders have imagined one party importing tens of millions of foreigners illegally into the country in order to preserve and create congressional seats from them? I don't think they imagined any scheme so dishonorable. It's rigging so nakedly antidemocratic, it boggles the mind; power for its own sake to disenfranchise the citizens. And President Trump has their number.
Yet here the New York Times claims the Republicans are doing it to serve themselves and avoid congressional investigations should Democrats retake the House, as if nothing the Democrats did were particularly noteworthy and in severe need of a course correction.
I have no idea whether the Commerce Department will be able to get the new Census done before 2030, or court challenges by leftists will stop the process. We know there will be some from parties interested in blurring the lines between citizens and noncitizens for the sake of preserving their political power.
But I hope it works. Trump has diagnosed the Democrat power game correctly and moved to restore balance to the American people. With confidence in elections at an all-time low and several blue states operating as one-party states, it may be the antidote to these negative trends that destroy faith in our country.
Image: U.S. Department of Commerce graphic // government work