Merrily We Creep Along

They warn us about Creeping Authoritarianism. They tell us over and over that the bad guys don't ride in looking like the bad guys.

"Hello. My name is Adolph, and I'll be your führer this evening. Would you like to start off with murdering some Jews?"

This is the slow-rolling crisis - picking up speed.

Greg Sargent, WaPo

Earlier this week, President Trump abruptly declared that his administration will keep up its efforts to rig the 2020 Census — which appears driven by naked partisan purposes — even after Justice Department lawyers waved the white flag. This sent those lawyers scrambling to come up with a new strategy to revive the fight.

We are now learning more details as to why Trump did this. And they are revealing about the real goals driving this effort to game the census, which entails trying to add a citizenship question to it, while claiming this is all about better enforcing the Voting Rights Act.

The Post reports that the president reversed his own administration’s decision “after Trump talked by phone with conservative allies who urged him not to give up the fight.”

Trump also ordered the reversal because he is “furious” over his administration’s quick surrender, officials tell The Post, adding that he believes the administration “had given up the fight too easily.”

Which raises a question: What is the true nature of this “fight” that conservative allies don’t want Trump to “give up,” and which Trump believes officials backed off from too quickly?

Does anyone here think they’re “fighting” to better enforce the Voting Rights Act?
- and -

Reinforcing the administration’s bad faith, newly surfaced files from a deceased GOP operative who advised officials on adding the question revealed that he viewed this as a way to confer electoral advantage on Republicans and whites.

We also know that Stephen K. Bannon and Kris Kobach pushed the administration to do this early on, with Kobach piously insisting this was really about getting a more accurate count. That’s hard to believe, given that Bannon and Kobach are two of the most virulently anti-immigrant of Trump advisers.

Roberts had still given officials a way to keep the case alive, by sending it back to the lower courts, potentially leaving an opening for them to come up with a new explanation for the question to replace the “contrived” one.

But officials apparently saw this as a lost cause, and earlier this week, they confirmed they had dropped the quest to add the question. Which led to Trump angrily tweeting this was “FAKE,” forcing administration lawyers to scramble to revive the effort.

Amy Siskind reminds us about keeping track of the changes.

(new posts every Saturday)

Week 137: Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.

June 29, 2019

This week as Trump backed off mass deportations, public outcry grew over conditions at detention centers for migrant children. Reminiscent of Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Nazi era, the Trump regime offered limited tours of detention centers to the media — viewings that contradicted interviews of immigration lawyers and advocates who described first-hand the inhumane conditions and traumatized children. Much of the country was moved and heartbroken over a photo of a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned on the bank of the Rio Grande trying to cross to the U.S.

This week Trump headed to the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, ahead of which he attacked Japan, China, and European countries. While there, he cozied up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and reveled in joking about 2016 election interference and attacking the free press. Trump had a second private meeting with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince MBS despite United Nations findings of his likely involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Supreme Court made two major decisions on gerrymandering and a Census citizenship question, and seemed to signal a shift towards revisiting controversial issues with the now five conservative justices. Robert Mueller agreed to testify before two House committees on July 17, as the Trump regime continued to stonewall all congressional investigations.