Trump Throws Temper Tantrum Over Supreme Court Decision, Threatens to Delay Census

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration could not currently go forward with its plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Trump’s solution to this particular defeat is to suggest delaying the Census, and no CONSTITUTION will stand in his WAY.

Only in America!

First and foremost, per the United States Constitution, the Census must be held every 10 years, not that the Trump Administration seems to care much for pesky legal process. Second, it’s not like the Census is some half-assed pop quiz you can print out 10 minutes before class starts. According to the Associated Press, the 2020 Census could cost, uh, $15.6 billion, and delaying it will certainly incur further costs.

To recap, all of this is thanks to the Trump Administration’s insistence that the Census reinstate a question whether or not respondents are citizens of the United States. The Census has not had a citizenship question in six decades, and legal experts and civil rights groups say that reinstating it will disenfranchise immigrants and people of color by undercounting populations that might decide to forgo the Census for fear of deportation—a very real fear, all things considered. The question could also disproportionally benefit Republicans in gerrymandering voting districts.

And of course, all of this comes with a big dollop of racism, as evidenced by yet another tweet the President made about the Census back in April:

The Supreme Court left room for the citizenship question to make its way back onto the Census, since the court ruled against the question based on the Trump Administration’s argument for it, not because of the question itself. What happens next is anybody’s guess, but expect more tweets.