The controversy over 2020 census questions didn’t end following the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Trump administration’s attempt to include a question about citizenship. Democrats ridiculously asserted that such a question would dissuade illegal aliens from responding to the census and thus undercut the accuracy of the census. The rest of us knew it was an important question.

The obvious power play for Democrats was to ensure greater population numbers in Democrat-run states, because population numbers irrespective of citizenship determine the number of congressional representatives.

However, the party whose brand is the promulgation and advocation of identity politics may be somewhat bemused by the fact that a significant number of Americans appear to have resisted playing the dubious demographics game. Upwards of 20% of census questions went unanswered, when in past censuses the average rate of unanswered questions ranged from 1% to 3%.

Of particular note were the specific questions that went unanswered — questions regarding a person’s race, age, and sex. It’s almost as if a growing number of Americans are saying those personal details are none of the government’s business. Indeed, the Constitution only stipulates that the population of persons within the nation are to be counted; the Fourteenth Amendment bars discrimination in that count.

There is also another significant aspect of the 2020 census. The U.S. population now numbers 331,449,281, which is a 7.4% increase over the 2010 census. But that’s the second-slowest decade of population growth in U.S. history. The low number has some speculating that Donald Trump’s desire for a citizenship question scared illegal aliens from responding, but that once again is an assumption based upon identity politics and not facts on the ground. It has a lot more to do with other demographic trends.

The more a government seeks to control citizenry using divisive identity politics, the more it encourages freedom-loving residents to resist such disingenuous tactics. What should matter most to government officials and politicians is the citizenship status of residents, not their race or sex.