Today's links

Trump fought the law and Trump won: Administrative competence is trumped by total lawlessness.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

A caricature of a head-clutching, distressed Uncle Sam, locked up behind dingy bars. In the foreground, from below, looms Trump's candyfloss hair.

Trump fought the law and Trump won (permalink)

The saving grace of the first Trump administration was its administrative incompetence: for every terrible thing Trump I and his henchmen pulled off, ten more awful plots were thwarted because they were so bad at being evil.

Remember the Muslim Ban? It died because Trump repeatedly, publicly said he was banning people from his disfavored "shithole" countries because of their religion. The courts took one look at that and said, "Nope, you can't discriminate against people on the basis of their religion, it's right here in the First Amendment." In court, Trump's lawyers insisted that they were banning people due to something something security something mumble mumble, but then the other side's lawyers would just play back the tape of Trump gleefully celebrating the move as a way to keep Muslims out of America.

Trump's most effective henchmen understood this. Mitch McConnell, for example, played the senate's procedures like a virtuoso in order to deny Obama a Supreme Court pick, preserving a seat for Trump to fill with a credibly accused rapist.

Then there was Ajit Pai, Trump's loathsome FCC chair. When Pai wanted to kill Net Neutrality on behalf of the telco monopolists who had funneled millions into the GOP, he didn't just declare the Net Neutrality rule to be dead. Instead, he worked with the telcoms cartel operatives who flooded the docket with millions of fake comments opposing Net Neutrality, plausibly crossing all his tees and crossing his eyes so that the whole plan had at least a superficial appearance of legitimacy:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#pais-lies

But for every Pai and McConnell in the Trump menagerie, there were a dozen Sloppy Steve Bannons, shooting their mouths off in between ads for prepper chow, gold bars, and contaminated testosterone supplements, loudly trumpeting their mens rea into every microphone they could find. And of all the people whose big dumb fucking mouths screwed up Trump's plans, Trump's big dumb fucking mouth was the biggest, the dumbest, and the fuckingest.

When the first Trump admin lost the election, Trump found himself repeatedly dragged into court, where his big dumb fucking mouth became a perennial liability, as his own words were used as Prosecution Exhibits A-Z. It seemed like Trump might be getting a lesson in why other people don't lie, bullshit, and continuously admit their own guilt in public.

No one believed Trump when he disavowed Project 2025 on the campaign trail. I mean, obviously he didn't read it (Trump doesn't read anything more challenging than a Fox News chyron) but he definitely was aware of some of its broader contours and was absolutely planning to elevate its architects to positions of real power. The question wasn't whether Trump supported Project 2025 – it was whether he would have the executive function to implement it in his second term, keeping his big, dumb fucking mouth shut as he did, so that he didn't create the basis for more court losses.

Of course, Trump has not kept his big, dumb fucking mouth closed. He has vomited up an endless stream of confessions, like when he livestreamed the fact that he'd tipped off his billionaire buddies ahead of a tariff U-turn so they could make billions insider trading:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/officials-explosive-allegations-trump-brags-195506345.html

Trump and his cronies have not acquired even a smidgen of administrative competence. Instead, they've embarked on a frenzy of out-of-control, chaotic motion, literally snatching random people off the streets and shipping them to forced-labor camps. Trump isn't just running a purge on America at large: he's also busily purging the conservative movement and the GOP of anyone with a hint of administrative capacity.

Far from figuring out how to do terrible things without technically violating the law, Trump II is a lawless administration, prepared to violate laws, procedures, norms, and the US Constitution.

There are plenty of people of all political persuasions who respect the law, institutions, procedures, courts, and yes, even norms. Many of these people identify as conservatives – a movement with a long history of insisting that it is the home of rule-followers. Trump is the enemy of anyone who values these intangibles.

For Trump, these things are stupid games played by the weak.

Hey look at this (permalink)

* The original slop: How capitalism degraded art 400 years before AI https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-original-slop-how-capitalism

Rational Astrologies and Security https://www.schneier.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Rational-Astrologies-and-Security.pdf
Feeding the Beast: Superintelligence, Corporate Capitalism and the End of Humanity https://sites.google.com/view/capitalismandsuperintelligence/home

A Wayback Machine banner.

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Phone DRM cartel lowers fees from outrageous to merely ridiculous https://web.archive.org/web/20050413205335/http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/mobile/0,39020360,39195029,00.htm

#20yrsago Bush’s iPod filled with infringing goodness https://memex.craphound.com/2005/04/13/bushs-ipod-filled-with-infringing-goodness/

#20yrsago Felten: Why the RIAA is suing Internet2 users https://web.archive.org/web/20050413223053/http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000797.html

#20yrsago BBC Creative Archive launches, without DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20050413173407/https://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/archives/what_is_the_creative_archive/project_faqs/index.html

#15yrsago Horrifying stationery https://web.archive.org/web/20100419065151/http://www.behance.net/Gallery/13th-Street-_quotStationery-of-Horror_quot-(Design)/440850

#15yrsago BITTER SEEDS: Alternate WWII novel pits English warlocks against Nazi X-Men https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/13/bitter-seeds-alternate-wwii-novel-pits-english-warlocks-against-nazi-x-men/

#10yrsago HOWTO make a working Apple ][+ watch https://www.instructables.com/Apple-II-Watch/

#10yrsago NSA declares war on general purpose computers https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-encryption-spreads-us-worries-about-access-to-data-for-investigations/2015/04/10/7c1c7518-d401-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html

#10yrsago Exploding the Phone: the untold, epic story of the phone phreaks https://memex.craphound.com/2015/04/13/exploding-the-phone-the-untold-epic-story-of-the-phone-phreaks/

#5yrsago Quantifying Boris Johnson's body-count https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/13/control-c/#the-nasty-party

#5yrsago Virginia's election-day holiday https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/13/control-c/#ralph-northam

#5yrsago Fighting the EU Copyright Directive in court https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/13/control-c/#control-c

#5yrsago Trump will deliver killing blow to the USPS https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/13/control-c/#art-1-sec-8

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.

Virtual, Library Journal Day of Dialog
https://www.libraryjournal.com/event/library-journal-day-of-dialog-spring-2025
Auckland: Unity Books, May 2, 6PM
https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1320740102199
Wellingon: Unity Books, May 3, 3PM
https://www.unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-events/author-talk-picks-and-shovels-by-cory-doctorow
Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
https://whitewhalebookstore.com/events/20250515
Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
https://us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/
PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025
PDX: Picks and Shovels with bunnie Huang at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0
London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
https://howtoacademy.com/events/cory-doctorow-the-fight-against-the-big-tech-oligarchy/
Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059
Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 3
https://www.uk.coop/events-and-training/events-calendar/co-op-congress-2025-book-your-place
New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)

Can we use the Internet for Democracy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh_HON6iql8
Fightback Against Trump's Tariff Attack (Avi Lewis)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9sgIAc6z_o
The Voice of Canadian Humanism
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uuwdZTIbWzKhBQ3mmMiRv?context=spotify%3Ashow%3A6N5hl8on16CfaeYArrKyqZ

A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)

- Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
"How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)
"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
"Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026
Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: Nimby and the D-Hoppers CONCLUSION https://craphound.com/stories/2025/04/13/nimby-and-the-d-hoppers-conclusion/

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.