by Melvin A. Goodman, 
Census Out for the Count
Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, facing the possibility of less than six months in command, are stepping up their attacks on governance. Five Inspectors General have been removed since April; the Post Office has been placed in the hands of a political ideologue; and sensitive data related to the coronavirus is being taken away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last month, two new positions were created at the Census Bureau to allow ideologues to monitor the completion of the decennial census, which has been compromised by the pandemic.
- Last month, Nathaniel Cogley, an assistant political science professor at Tarleton State University, was named the Census Bureau’s deputy director for policy. Adam Korzeniewski, a former consultant to a pro-Trump YouTube personality, was named as Cogley’s senior adviser. The Inspector General of the Department of Commerce has asked the bureau for additional information regarding the two new positions. Neither man has census experience, and the 2020 census has already undergone extensive planning. It was an odd time for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to create two positions that never existed previously.
- Any appearance of political interference in the census will make it more difficult to count such hard-to-count communities as immigrants, Native Americans, and non-English speakers. The Trump administration has been trying to politicize the census. The census is used to determine congressional apportionment, state redistricting, and $1.5 trillion in yearly federal funding.
- Last year, the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to add a question about citizenship that would have compromised the accuracy of the census, giving an electoral advantage to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. The pandemic has already interfered with the effort to conduct the door-to-door count of households.
Choking America’s Voice
The Trump administration has also politicized the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) with the appointment of Michael Pack, another pro-Trump ideologue. The USAGM is a little known, but important agency that is responsible for conducting strategic communication on a worldwide basis to shape foreign perceptions of the United States. Pack in no time has moved the agency far to the right with the removal of some of the veteran directors of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Radio Free Asia; the Middle East Broadcasting Network; the Open Technology Fund; Voice of America; and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. These organizations have gained international credibility with their straight-forwarding broadcast of international news, but this credibility is now threatened.
- Pack has a very close relationship with Steven Bannon. Bannon favors turning the USAGM into an authoritarian state media operation similar to the propaganda networks of Russia and China. Pack is expected to use these broadcasting agencies to provide polemical support for U.S. policy, and to compete with China.
- Pack is cut from the same ideological cloth as Ambassador Richard Grenell, who was Acting Director of National Intelligence for a short spell, and Attorney General William Barr.
The Vote’s in the Mail
Trump’s most threatening move is the appointment of a new U.S. Postmaster, Louis DeJoy, a longtime Trump supporter and fundraiser, with little experience for the job. The Post Office is facing a financial crisis. Further, the country is facing a potential crisis in view of the nation’s obvious dependence on Vote-by-Mail for the November general election. Every member of the Post Office’s Board of Governors is a Trump appointee.
- Five states rely completely on mail-in balloting. Moreover, there will be a huge increase in absentee balloting over the entire country. The U.S. Postal Service will need Emergency funding to make sure the can do its job.
- Trump has already endorsed various conspiracy theories to charge that mail-in balloting will lead to a “Rigged Election.” There has never been evidence of widespread voter fraud in this country associated with voting by mail.
Show Me the Data
Trump has used the national preoccupation with the pandemic and his phony accusations of a “deep state” to purge key parts of the government. In addition to the five Inspectors General, Trump has removed Dr. Rick Bright, the director of the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority, because he resisted Trump’s promotion of a dangerous antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a coronavirus treatment.
- The Trump administration has transferred important pandemic data from the CDC to the Department of Health and Human Services, which means that it will not be accessible to the public. Data on the availability of hospital beds and intensive care units across the country has already disappeared from public view. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield noted last week that the states were told to stop sending hospital information to the CDC. Instead they must report it to HHS. The fact that this has taken place in a worsening public health crisis, even if temporary, is shocking. It may explain why signs are appearing in London that state “All Americans must be accompanied by an Adult“
Walter M. Shaub Jr, the director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics from 2012 to 2017, has referred to the politicization of governance as the “ransacking” of the Republic. Of course, Trump’s personnel maneuvers pale in significance to his unwillingness to declare a national mask mandate and his rush to reopen America, including its schools, which is causing a major pandemic resurgence.
The opinions expressed by Mel are wholly his own. They do not imply in any way Florida Veterans For Common Sense, Inc. endorsement or agreement.