The Trump White House’s attack on official data is also an attack on democracy

It should come as no surprise that a president whose first term began with a dispute over the size of the crowd at his inauguration would begin his second term with a war over numbers. Yet, over the last few months, the Trump administration has unleashed a wave of attacks on official statistics whose scope is far wider than those of his first term. Data can’t defend itself, but fights from Trump’s first administration offer a road map for resistance.

Since the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, his administration has undertaken multiple actions undermining the integrity of census figures. First, the president issued an executive order revoking a Biden-era order affirming the long-standing precedent of counting noncitizens in the census. The new administration began taking down data from the bureau’s website. Earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disbanded several outside advisory committees that provide technical expertise to the bureau. And the administration enacted hiring freezes that will halt census operations.

The census isn’t the only data in the administration’s sights. Lutnick also suggested that the government may separate government spending from calculations of the gross domestic product (GDP). That change, also supported by billionaire Elon Musk, would conceal the negative economic effects of the administration’s gutting of federal agencies and programs.