Since the election, I have been so certain these events were coming that I almost pre-drafted this post, but I didn’t want to be a jinx. Then when it did happen, I hardly knew what to say. Every day, we are confronted with evidence that the only agenda of Trump 2.0 is wanton destruction. I am increasingly convinced that Trump himself is a mindless wrecking ball set in motion by cyberlibertarians like Peter Thiel, animated by the “Dark Enlightenment” ravings of Curtis Yarvin, and determined to raze America and on the wasteland, erect their fever-dream of techno-feudalist “corporate zones.” Of course, I only think that because that’s what they explicitly said they want to achieve.
Last Thursday, around 7:00pm Eastern, Trump fired Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, and then, on Saturday afternoon, he dismissed Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter. So, the first conflict in this shit-show (maybe) will be jurisdictional. Although the Librarian is a presidential appointee, the Library and Copyright Office comprise employees of the Legislature. Thus, a president doesn’t necessarily have the authority to fire Copyright Office or other Library staff, and as of yesterday, Trump appointees, Paul Perkins as acting Register and Brian Nieves as acting Deputy Librarian, were both turned away from the Library according to a story in Wired.
Trump also named his former defense counsel and current assistant AG Todd Blanche as acting Librarian, and other reports on social media stated that DOGE employees arrived at the Copyright Office and were also turned away. So, this is now a right and proper clusterfuck wholly consistent with the Trump brand of governance. Whether Congress will assert its authority in this mess is this week’s question along with the other question: Why? Why aim the Trump wrecking ball at the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office?
Dr. Hayden was a natural target for the hate-machine wing of the MAGAverse. She’s Black, an Obama appointee, and easy to accuse—and was accused—of fostering a “leftist DEI” agenda.[1] Notably, the White House email she received about her termination accused her of “putting inappropriate books in the library for children,” which is classic Trumpism—not only an invented allegation about Dr. Hayden, but one which highlights that these people have no idea what the Library of Congress is or does.[2]
Trump firing the Librarian of Congress is an attack on the institution consistent with other administrative attacks on cultural and scientific institutions throughout the country. Appointing a DOJ attorney to be acting Librarian signals hostility toward the purpose and meaning of the Library—a hostility in harmony with the rhetoric of Goebbels wannabe Stephen Miller, who talks about incubating a nationalist, “patriotic” culture. As any student of history knows, that’s a recipe for stupid—not just book stupid, but can’t feed oneself stupid. Today’s editorial in Time by Alondra Nelson, explaining her resignation from both the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress, makes the point. She writes:
In both these roles, over the past few years, I’ve been asked to serve on diverse bodies that offer guidance about how the Executive and Legislative branches can be stewards of knowledge and create structure to enable discovery, innovation, and ingenuity. In the instance of the National Science Board, this ideal has dissolved so gradually, yet so completely, that I barely noticed its absence until confronted with its hollow simulacrum.
The Copyright Office Debacle
The day before Register Perlmutter was fired, the Copyright Office released a “pre-publication draft” of its third and final report on copyright and AI—this one addressing training AI models with protected works. Because the Office does not release “pre-publication” drafts, it was clear as of late Saturday, that the report had been quickly distributed ahead of the anticipated firing of the Register. In this regard, Shira Perlmutter is owed a debt of gratitude for publishing the Office’s statement at a time when over 40 lawsuits are asking the courts to weigh the issue of AI training with protected works. But why was the report controversial and a likely catalyst in Trump’s desire to fire Perlmutter?
The pending third report made the AI developers anxious because, as with any report of its kind, the Office would aim to provide guidance on the legal considerations and implications without necessarily choosing sides. The AI developers have been lobbying hard in the press, and with appeals to the administration, to argue that training AI models with protected works is per se fair use. Further, they have argued as a matter of national interest that “winning” the AI competition with China is too important to allow copyright rights to interfere. Not that there’s any merit to that claim, but between Trump’s addle-minded concept of nationalism and the fact that he’s elbow-deep in Big Tech’s booty, copyright interests have been anxious since the inauguration that he might stick his mittens into the mix.
Meanwhile, at the end of April, Tom Jones of the right-wing American Accountability Foundation told the Daily Mail that it was time Trump, “…show Carla Hayden and Shira Perlmutter the door and return an America First agenda to the nation’s intellectual property regulation.” So, in addition to being a general dickhead about “leftist agendas,” Jones reiterates the incoherent proposal that America can hope to “lead” in IP while its Executive promotes brain drain across multiple sectors and attacks independent thought and diverse creativity wherever it can. Because attrition like the resignation of Alondra Nelson is exactly how you lose in IP, in case anyone’s keeping score.
So, Dr. Hayden’s ouster, packaged in the rhetoric of “anti-DEI,” is an attack on yet another cultural institution (one that houses the world’s largest collection), while the broadside at the Copyright Office may be solely about the reports on AI. Regardless, Trump gets to feed red meat to the MAGA nationalists and his Big Tech patrons at the same time, and where we are now is a lot of uncertainty pending chaos. Further, if Trump 2.0 is indeed designed to soften the ground for a techno-feudalist makeover, then tanking the creative economy would fit that agenda, as would allowing AI developers to build whatever they want without oversight of any kind.
One can only imagine who an illiterate, demented, and seditious facsimile of a president would tap as the next full-time Librarian of Congress—my money’s been on Kid Rock since November—but it will likely be someone whose idea of a national library roughly matches Pete Hegseth’s comprehension of national defense. Everything about Trump 2.0 mimics weak, authoritarian nations, including the aforementioned effort to foster a nationalist culture. To achieve that aim, authoritarians will always try to exsanguinate the professions supported by copyright law while they destroy evidence of historical fact and scientific discovery—a narrative housed within and symbolized by the Library of Congress.
Not since the British torched the place in 1814 have occupants of Washington shown so much contempt for America’s genuine capacity for greatness. More profound than the hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, removal of historical material from federal institutions and websites, or cutting the NEA budget, the concurrent dismissals of the Librarian and Register should be understood as an attack on the intent of the IP clause of the Constitution to “promote science and the useful arts.”
[1] As an aside, I criticized Dr. Hayden in 2016 for her improper and sudden ouster of then Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante, and I would likely still quarrel with her on that and other copyright matters today, but all that has nothing to do with these recent events.
[2] The Library houses the world’s largest collection of EVERYTHING. It is not comparable to a library in your local community.
Photo by Extender_01
