‘Washington Post’: A ‘Dead Man’s Hard Drive’ Reveals The GOP Attack On Democracy

Digital files belonging to a dead Republican strategist have revealed at least some of the Trump administration’s motivation as they work to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, as The Inquisitr has documented. The files belong to deceased Republican operative Thomas Hofeller, whose work is best known for helping develop the voting district maps which helped tip the scales in favor of Republicans when they took the majority in the House in 2010.

Hofeller had overseen a study in 2015, which determined that a citizenship question would adversely affect Latinos and generally put Democrats at an electoral disadvantage.

In addition to documenting the political opportunity in adding such a question, Hofeller is also credited with helping to advocate for the question’s addition, including by ghostwriting a Department of Justice letter asking the Department of Commerce to add it to the census. Instead of citing the electoral advantages he was pursuing, though, he framed the request as a matter of helping the DOJ enforce voting rights.

Those electoral advantages, however, were clear.

Now, The Washington Post has started to call out what many have seen as a cynical attempt to gain electoral advantage at the expense of the representation of voting and non-voting Americans alike. Their editorial is titled “How a dead man’s hard drives are exposing the GOP attack on democracy.”

“People being dishonest about their real motivations happens a lot in politics, of course. But there are some lies that stand out, those that are so obvious that the one uttering them can only be enjoying themselves watching how flabbergasted everyone is that they’d be so epically mendacious,” reads the editorial.

They go on to express frustration with the mainstream media’s coverage of stories such as this, arguing that traditional media outlets fail to call out the dishonest rhetoric of those acting with bad intentions. Instead, they argue in this example, if Republicans claim that their efforts to disenfranchise a certain voting demographic is really just a matter of being concerned about voter fraud, then most media outlets will take them at their word. From there, commentators and journalists alike will allow a conversation to take place despite one side acting in demonstrably bad faith, particularly when an operative such as Hofeller is involved.

blessings and gratitude to Stephanie Hofeller, who exposed her evil father's plan to help restore Jim Crow https://t.co/FezKQdSc0o

— Jason Linkins (@dceiver) May 30, 2019

“Once you’ve gotten away with that kind of lying to the public, it might begin to feel like you can get away with anything. Like, for instance, lying to a judge. Sure, it’s technically illegal, but who’s going to find out?,” the Washington Post asks in closing.