Most rightwing bamboozlement is a no consequences affair for the bamboozlers. Death panels, Manchurian candidate presidents, ‘armed IRS’ agents busting down your door to ram low deductible health care coverage down your throat. It goes on and on. But it seems one old yarn from the fever swamp may have some very pernicious consequences for the folks who make their living making up stories to keep the wingnut masses in a state of chronic agitation and moral panic.
Rightwing hullabaloo over the federal Census, particularly the improbable claim that the Census is unconstitutional, is reportedly leading a lot of the most conservative Republicans to refuse to fill out their Census forms, which in theory at least could lead to substantial underrepresentation for these folks in Congress over the next decade — not to mention a lower cut of services from the federal government.
That at least is what Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), the ranking Republican on the committee that oversees the Census, thinks is happening. And he’s now taken to Redstate.com itself, Fever Swamp Central, to tell fellow conservatives to do the right thing and fill out their Census forms. As McHenry notes, it’s very hard to reason that the Census can be unconstitutional since it’s one of the only things the constitution not only provides broad powers to do but actually expressly enjoins the federal government to do every decade.
