The examples of Donald Trump trying to subvert the Constitution that he allegedly swore to defend keep piling up. Whether it's his efforts to suppress the media that he calls "the enemy of the people," or enriching himself with money from foreign governments, or his attempts to ban immigrants based on their religion, or his phony national "emergency" to get funding for his border wall, or his threats to engage in warfare without the consent of Congress. Trump has demonstrated that he has zero respect for the document that defines America's principles.
On Thursday morning the Supreme Court issued a ruling that dashed the Trump administration's hopes of perverting the census by adding a question on citizenship. The Court sent the matter back to the district court that already ruled against Trump. But rather than respecting the decision, Trump lashed out on Twitter (of course) with a flagrantly contra-legal suggestion:
It won't surprise anyone to learn that Trump is incapable of grasping why the citizenship question is improper and discriminatory. His only interest is in distorting the census results by smothering responses from immigrant residents. He doesn't know that the census is a count of ALL those residing in the United States, without respect to citizenship. And his purpose - along with the Trump Republican Nationalist Party - is to repress the representation of districts that traditionally vote Democratic.
It's a purely political motivation that is driving Trump. But his intention to delay the census for his partisan benefit is also unpatriotic and unconstitutional. The census is stipulated to take place by Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution. It isn't voluntary or discretional. And federal law goes even farther to assign an April 1st date for the census to be undertaken. Trump's tweet, therefore, expresses a blatant desire to breach the Constitution and federal law - again. Ironically, the census is found in the same section of the Constitution that grants Congress the sole power of impeachment. Maybe that's why Trump is avoiding it.
The fact that Trump can announce these criminal acts so publicly is reflective of his disrespect for the law and his aspirations for the powers of the tyrants he admires (Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, etc.). He often comments on his jealously of their despotic rule. And remarks like these refute any claim that he might have just been joking.
The American people want and deserve an accurate census. And Trump's efforts to undermine that for his own purposes have - for the time being - been blocked. But the real patriots in this country need to remain vigilant, because Trump has shown that he will continue to defile the Constitution every chance he gets if he isn't stopped. It's shocking and sad that we are all now conscripted into having to defeat the President's unconstitutional ambitions.