Literary giant calls out Trump’s 'meager box of repetitive right-wing auto-defenses'

New York Times bestselling author George Saunders knows President Donald Trump can probably fire the librarian of Congress, but says the move gave him "a visceral feeling for just how diseased this administration really is."

Librarian Dr. Carla Hayden, the first Black woman to hold the position, is energetic, engaged and “utterly dedicated to the work of the library,” Saunders wrote in the Times.

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But the White House tossed out “nonsense from its meager box of repetitive right-wing auto-defenses” when it claimed Hayden had, “in the pursuit of D.E.I.,” done “quite concerning things.”

“Did it name those things? It did not. It couldn’t have,” Saunders argues. “Putting aside the basic idiocy of being against that position (“What, you value diversity? You think things should be equitable? And that all should be included?”), members of the administration now use ‘D.E.I.’ as a sort of omni-pejorative, deliberately (strategically) leaving its exact meaning vague.”

“What it seems to mean, to them, is: The accused is a person who is aware that certain groups have had a different experience of American life and who feels that it is part of our intellectual responsibility (and joy) to engage with that history, so as to improve our democracy,” Saunders said.

The White House also claimed with “sickening” inaccuracy that Hayden put “inappropriate books in the library for children,” when the librarian of Congress “doesn’t put books” into the library at all.

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“When a ship is sinking,” writes Saunders, “there’s value in knowing how fast, and calling it out. When a country is self-sabotaging, ditto. So let me just say it: Shame on the White House. Shame on those who should be stopping this slide into autocracy and aren’t. (I’m looking at you, John Thune, Mike Johnson and Marco Rubio.) Shame on all of us if we let these ignorant purveyors of cruelty reduce this beautiful thing we’ve built over these hundreds of years to a hollow, braying, anti-version of itself.”

Read the full New York Times essay here.