6 ms·

Judging from the past, making the census voluntary in the same way as the vote in federal elections would have this peculiar capacity to be used to skew the res

Judging from the past, making the census voluntary in the same way as the vote in federal elections would have this peculiar capacity to be used to skew the results in favor of any result the designers should choose. So of course this should be pushed by the Republicans. It's much easier to avoid unpleasant facts when you can effectively erase the existence of inconvenient groups of people.

ur-whale 11mo ago
[flagged]
- QuadmasterXLII 11mo ago
  Seeing every issue in black and white is simplistic, and can cause issues. Seeing shades of gray is better. Attempting to avoid bias by seeing only a single shade of gray, as you are suggesting, is obviously not going to be very effective for percieving the world.
- bryanlarsen 11mo ago
  Yes, the Republicans are putting their anti-truth bias on public display.
- nilamo 11mo ago
  It's not a bias if it's just history repeating.
- catlikesshrimp 11mo ago
  Not even mentioning last names (Steube and Risch) "Language in a pending 2026 spending bill written by the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives goes further. It would make both the ACS and the regular 10-year census voluntary, and would also prohibit the agency from reaching out more than once to anyone who doesn’t initially respond."
- afavour 11mo ago
  Is it bias when informed by observable fact?
rayiner 11mo ago
[flagged]
- hodgehog11 11mo ago
  It may be clear with the benefit of hindsight that a higher turnout in 2024 would have further benefited Trump. But the Republicans have not typically acted with the intention to make it easier for arbitrary members of the public to vote (happy to be corrected), and I don't expect them to act in this interest in the future.
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    Republicans and Trump supporters are two overlapping but distinct groups. A lot of establishment Republican approaches were based on ideas that are obsolete in the Trump era. Trump can win enough Bangladeshi immigrants in Queens or Hindi nationalists in New Jersey to win the popular vote. Mitt Romney Republicans can’t. There is nothing about right-wing politics that inherently benefits from a limited electorate. After all, Latin American countries regularly flip-flop between far-left and far-right leaders, like in Brazil with Bolsonaro, or Modi in India. The increase in immigrants in the U.S. and expansion of the electorate to include them won’t get rid of “Republicans,” like many had hoped. Instead, it simply changed what kind of right-wing party could form a viable majority coalition.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > That's incorrect. Since the Trump era, it's Republicans that benefit from higher turnout, while Democrats benefit from low turnout The variance in voting preferences dominates this effect. We simply have insufficient data to make statements like this confidently, a fact being laid bare by the potential fuckup that has been the Texas redirecting.
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    Both Pew and Blue Rose Research have confidently stated that Trump would have won by 3-5 points if everyone had voted. These conclusions were based on thousands to millions of samples, far more than a typical poll.
austin-cheney 11mo ago
Although that is a possible reason the stated reason for more than a decade is minimal constitutionality. Republicans and conservative groups have long claimed to advocate for smaller government and minimal access to any data except for that required to perform government's mandates according to the various governmental agency charters. The reason for the census comes directly from the US constitution and its only stated purpose there is to redistribute congressional districts and Electoral College electors. My own personal opinion favors giving government as much access to data as possible because contrary to what many people claim government is overwhelmingly more productive compared to the private sector.
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - plussed_reader 11mo ago
    [flagged]
  - schmidtleonard 11mo ago
    When you drive to work, you yearn for a negotiation with the local road monopoly? On cold nights, you dream of a glorious future where an unregulated energy utility could try to trick you into surge pricing? When you wrote your post, you did so with teeth clenched in disgust at having to use a government invention? When you take the trash out, you wish it were a bit more exciting, that you had to dodge gunfire from skirmishing warlords? And so on, and so on, but the point is that a statement you probably intended as a slight hyperbole actually required a staggering amount of "out of sight, out of mind."
    - deburo 11mo ago
      Unless you agree with the US's current budget (and the staggering debt it entails), you can't say that the government is particularly efficient.

ur-whale 11mo ago

[flagged]

QuadmasterXLII 11mo ago
Seeing every issue in black and white is simplistic, and can cause issues. Seeing shades of gray is better. Attempting to avoid bias by seeing only a single shade of gray, as you are suggesting, is obviously not going to be very effective for percieving the world.
bryanlarsen 11mo ago
Yes, the Republicans are putting their anti-truth bias on public display.
nilamo 11mo ago
It's not a bias if it's just history repeating.
catlikesshrimp 11mo ago
Not even mentioning last names (Steube and Risch) "Language in a pending 2026 spending bill written by the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives goes further. It would make both the ACS and the regular 10-year census voluntary, and would also prohibit the agency from reaching out more than once to anyone who doesn’t initially respond."
afavour 11mo ago
Is it bias when informed by observable fact?

rayiner 11mo ago

[flagged]

hodgehog11 11mo ago
It may be clear with the benefit of hindsight that a higher turnout in 2024 would have further benefited Trump. But the Republicans have not typically acted with the intention to make it easier for arbitrary members of the public to vote (happy to be corrected), and I don't expect them to act in this interest in the future.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  Republicans and Trump supporters are two overlapping but distinct groups. A lot of establishment Republican approaches were based on ideas that are obsolete in the Trump era. Trump can win enough Bangladeshi immigrants in Queens or Hindi nationalists in New Jersey to win the popular vote. Mitt Romney Republicans can’t. There is nothing about right-wing politics that inherently benefits from a limited electorate. After all, Latin American countries regularly flip-flop between far-left and far-right leaders, like in Brazil with Bolsonaro, or Modi in India. The increase in immigrants in the U.S. and expansion of the electorate to include them won’t get rid of “Republicans,” like many had hoped. Instead, it simply changed what kind of right-wing party could form a viable majority coalition.
JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
> That's incorrect. Since the Trump era, it's Republicans that benefit from higher turnout, while Democrats benefit from low turnout The variance in voting preferences dominates this effect. We simply have insufficient data to make statements like this confidently, a fact being laid bare by the potential fuckup that has been the Texas redirecting.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  Both Pew and Blue Rose Research have confidently stated that Trump would have won by 3-5 points if everyone had voted. These conclusions were based on thousands to millions of samples, far more than a typical poll.

austin-cheney 11mo ago

Although that is a possible reason the stated reason for more than a decade is minimal constitutionality. Republicans and conservative groups have long claimed to advocate for smaller government and minimal access to any data except for that required to perform government's mandates according to the various governmental agency charters. The reason for the census comes directly from the US constitution and its only stated purpose there is to redistribute congressional districts and Electoral College electors. My own personal opinion favors giving government as much access to data as possible because contrary to what many people claim government is overwhelmingly more productive compared to the private sector.

terminalshort 11mo ago
[flagged]
- plussed_reader 11mo ago
  [flagged]
- schmidtleonard 11mo ago
  When you drive to work, you yearn for a negotiation with the local road monopoly? On cold nights, you dream of a glorious future where an unregulated energy utility could try to trick you into surge pricing? When you wrote your post, you did so with teeth clenched in disgust at having to use a government invention? When you take the trash out, you wish it were a bit more exciting, that you had to dodge gunfire from skirmishing warlords? And so on, and so on, but the point is that a statement you probably intended as a slight hyperbole actually required a staggering amount of "out of sight, out of mind."
  - deburo 11mo ago
    Unless you agree with the US's current budget (and the staggering debt it entails), you can't say that the government is particularly efficient.