Sen. Angela Alsobrooks takes aim at Trump tariffs with her first bill
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) on Tuesday night introduced her first piece of federal legislation since joining Congress this year, the Tariff Transparency Act, a jab at President Donald Trump's tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico.
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The Smithsonian faces an existential crisis. The world is watching.
When the National Portrait Gallery was created by an act of Congress in 1962, the authorizing legislation defined portraiture as 'painted or sculptured likenesses.' And when it referred to the future directors of that museum, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, it was with exclusively male pronouns. 'His appointment and salary,' the text read, would be fixed by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents. Fourteen years later, Congress amended the original legislation to widen the definition of portraiture to include photographs and 'reproductions thereof made by any means or processes.' As the NPG built its collection and expanded its mission, it was clear that there were many Americans who would never have their images painted or sculpted — mainly Americans who weren't White, male and wealthy — yet were nonetheless essential to the story of America, its history and culture. Kim Sajet, who became the first woman to lead the NPG in 2013, was hired to continue what that amending legislation did in 1976. She expanded the definition of portraiture and widened the scope of people considered worthy of representation in the nation's portrait gallery. Visitors now encounter painted portraits, photographs, ink-jet prints, sculpture, videos, assemblage pieces, paper cutouts and videos. Women, people of color and those who identify as LGBT are more regularly seen in the museum's galleries. Last week, President Donald Trump attempted to fire Sajet, continuing an assault on the leadership of top cultural institutions that has led to the dismissal of Deborah Rutter, the first woman to lead the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and Carla Hayden, the first woman to lead the Library of Congress. Trump offered no substantial reason for Sajet's dismissal, using only a variation on his all-purpose denunciation of leaders he doesn't like: She is, he said in a Truth Social posting, 'a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.' When she was hired, the Smithsonian celebrated Sajet's broad cultural range and diverse roots as a Dutch citizen born in Nigeria, educated in Australia and with deep professional roots in U.S. cultural organizations. Efforts to caricature her tenure as partisan or obsessed with diversity or identity issues can't be squared with her track record of traditional programming and collection building, which included acquiring the oldest photograph of an American president (an 1843 daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams) and exhibitions such as the rock-solid 2023 survey of colonialism, '1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions.' It's not clear that Trump has the authority to dismiss Sajet, and a Smithsonian spokesman said 'we have no comment at this time' when asked whether she is still the museum's director. Despite receiving federal funds, the Smithsonian is independent of the executive branch, and its museum directors are hired by the Board of Regents. But Trump's effort to oust Sajet presents the Smithsonian with an existential crisis: If the president succeeds in removing a key leader who is not accused of any professional or personal misconduct, he will effectively gain control over the content and mission of the entire Smithsonian. This also presents a critical leadership test for the Smithsonian's secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch III, who is negotiating potentially devastating budget cuts from Congress, including zero funding for the forthcoming National Museum of the American Latino. If Sajet's status as head of the NPG becomes a negotiating chit, then everything the Smithsonian does — including its commitment to telling the truth about history, science and art — will be negotiable. The Smithsonian has a long and sadly craven history of caving to critics, including making changes to exhibitions after pressure from activists and members of Congress. Former Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough censored an NPG exhibition of portraiture featuring LGBT people in 2010, after pressure from conservative Christian activists. Clough forced museum curators to remove a single video, by the gay artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz, which actually made the exhibition more popular when it traveled to Brooklyn and Tacoma, Washington. The precedent for that intrusion on editorial independence had been established at least since 1995, when the National Air and Space Museum censored an exhibition about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. The Enola Gay controversy, which centered on some veterans' opposition to an evenhanded curatorial discussion of why the bomb was dropped and whether it was necessary, damaged the institution, but it also helped foster widespread and lasting resistance to censorship and content meddling throughout the organization. But those examples were mere brush fires compared with the destruction that would follow a new precedent, the right of the president of the United States to dictate hiring and content. Trump's ongoing efforts to assert control over the performing arts, museum sector and the larger American historical narrative have been audacious and destructive. Subscriptions sales at the Kennedy Center are down some 36 percent from last year, and community arts and humanities groups around the country are suffering from the loss of small but essential grants from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Unlike previous scuffles with Congress, which involved particular exhibitions and were limited to a few controversial subjects, Trump is using his anti-DEI agenda as a master key to exert transformative power over the Smithsonian. If successful, he won't stop with the removal of Sajet, who was hired because Smithsonian leaders and the nation at large were once committed to telling a richer, more inclusive story of the American people. The Smithsonian is currently seeking a new director for the American Art Museum and will need to find one for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well. If Sajet is removed, that will be a third major post to fill. What qualified, respected museum leader would take these jobs knowing that Trump has final say over exhibitions, hiring and publications? Throughout the past four months, people tracking the administration's attack on the federal arts and culture infrastructure have periodically wondered, is this the moment of truth? Will the latest executive order or social media post from the president determine the future and independence of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the Smithsonian, the National Park Service, the Institute for Museum and Library Services? Is this the tipping point from mere chaos and destruction into genuine authoritarian control? On Monday, the Smithsonian Board of Regents will hold one of its four annual regularly scheduled meetings, and Sajet's future is almost certain to be one of the main subjects under debate. It will be tempting for the regents to attempt some kind of compromise, find some middle road that appeases the president and preserves the Smithsonian from further harm. But there are no good options, only worse ones. A direct confrontation between the Smithsonian and Trump would probably lead to a protracted battle in Congress and perhaps the courts. But compromise measures, such as reassigning Sajet to some other Smithsonian position, might only embolden Trump for further, even more destructive attacks. There is no middle road. Appeasement won't work. The fate of the Smithsonian is now in the hands of Bunch and the regents, and the precedent they set will reverberate throughout every institution in America that, like the Smithsonian, is dedicated to the 'increase and diffusion of knowledge.'
