American democracy depends on the census. Trump is undermining it | danah boyd

The very mechanisms that allow the census bureau to resist partisan interference are coming undone. And Congress is silent

When the constitutional architects of the United States got together, they came up with a crazy plan: What if we count everyone in the country and allocate political representation that way?"

It was a radical act. Until then, censuses had been used by kings to levy taxes and conscript men into war. With the penning of article 1, section 2 of the US constitution, being counted ensured that states would get financial resources and political representatives. Congress was tasked with building the processes to anchor representation to the population. People wanted to be counted. And politicians wanted their people to be counted more.

danah boyd is the Geri Gay professor of communication at Cornell University and the author of Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census