Almost as soon as right-wingers began their coordinated drive to keep certain reading material out of the hands of impressionable children, they also began their drive to deny that they were doing any such thing — screaming, “We’re not going to let our kids be exposed to this stuff!!!” out of one side of their mouths while mumbling, “Ban? What ban??” out of the other. Ron DeSantis, predictably, took a breather from his relentless gladiatorial gauntlet hurls against assorted cartoon characters to declare that the notion he was engaged in book-banning was not only untrue but an outright “hoax”. He may proclaim that Florida is “where woke goes to die”, but he’d never, ever touch the printed word, now would he?

Unsurprisingly, the media — both the extreme right-wing variety, and what used to be the centrist mainstream variety — have been entirely willing to carry the gaslight torch for this revisionist and denialist campaign. For one thing, the deniers invariably point to a single instance of a book wrongly believed to have been banned , but that actually was just moved from one school library to another, as proof that the “hysteria” over book banning is unwarranted. (There’s also been a bogus list of banned books in circulation, and that certainly hasn’t helped keep the record straight.) The effort to fantasize away the reality of book banning has taken essentially four forms.

“That word doesn’t mean what you think it means”

The most frequent defense against denunciations of book banning is to indulge in semantic hair-splitting and even semantic legerdemain to insist that what people are doing to those books is not really banning technically actually as such per se. It’s just.. er, um… “removing them from the shelves for review”. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Okay, sure. So what exactly is the point of all this “reviewing”? Is anyone really so naive as to believe that the goal in “reviewing” hundreds of books is so they can just be re- shelved? Maybe some of them are returned to their niches– we can’t know for certain, because there’s virtually no transparency to the process. Which doesn’t exactly inspire a high level of trust and respect. What we do know is that books are being yanked because of objections by “parents” in the community — who’ve rarely actually read the books in question. (When the ugly wuglies really are parents, they frame the issue as one of “parental rights”, on the theory that having the right to determine what their children read encompasses the right to dictate what other children don’t read.) And the reason these “parents” — which include the likes of Moms for Liberty — are allowed to wield such a sledgehammer is that the state legislature mandated it. Got that? The government is forcing books off shelves. Isn’t there a word for that?

Daniel Buck at the ever-entertaining National Review (which we’ve examined here and here and here) complains that the central problem of the “banning” narrative is that the definition of ban used by free speech watchdogs is overly broad; he doesn’t mention that the definition of ban is inherently rather broad. A ban is an official or government action prohibiting something. There is certainly official and government action involved here, and it certainly prohibits something.

The NR article appears under the doubly disingenuous title “Book Curation is Not Censorship”. First, that throws in the word censorship, which is even broader than banning. In its narrowest sense, government censorship indicates the prohibition of certain kinds of material from being disseminated through any channel. That isn’t happening, at least not yet. And Buck cites the availability of banned titles at Barnes & Noble as proof that books aren’t being banned anywhere. No, really. But there is an even bigger deflection here: the conflation of the book bans in question with mere “curation”.

Curation is the process whereby a venue (library, museum, theatre, etc.) decides what products to offer its patrons. Granted, this entails a certain amount of rejection as well as selection. But curation means making such decisions autonomously, on the basis of such factors as quality, relevance, timeliness, and constraints of space and budget. Those factors for the most part do not figure into with what is happening in Florida, Texas and elsewhere. Books are being pulled just because someone chooses to find them offensive (again, almost always without having read them). And those choices aren’t being made autonomously. They’re being made under intense pressure from government bodies and their proxy agitators. Curation is not what escalates dramatically when authoritarians rise to power.

Pornography patrol

At the same time they’re denying that they’re really banning books, right-wingers are also offering attempts to justify the bans they’re not really doing. And one of the most common tactics is to brand the offending pulp as “pornographic”. Never mind if not a single book has ever been found in a public or school library that was actually pornographic. Conservatives are always willing to bend, twist and torture definitions to suit their purposes. So they slap the “pornography” label on anything that makes any kind of reference to sex — well, except for the Bible , which is quite racy but beyond reproach for them. (Quite a few of the “reviewed” books do include various Bibles and biblical books; but these appear to have been entered into contention by opponents of the movement to make a point.) Even so, among the books that have been “reviewed” in Florida thus far, only about a third have been targeted for this reason.

Indoctrination inoculation

Another common claim is that the books being attacked are guilty of somehow “indoctrinating” kids into… well, something. Usually some combination of “liberalism”, “leftism”, “communism” or “anti-Americanism”. For conservatives, of course, anything that fails to indoctrinate kids into right-wing extremism is guilty of indoctrinating them into left-wing extremism.

There are two types of books in particular to which they are eager to award the Indoctrination Trophy. One is anything with a gay or trans character, or that even makes reference to a gay or trans character, or even acknowledges the existence of such beings. Such books, the theocracy warns, are indoctrinating kids into the gay “lifestyle”, whatever that is. Funny how they’ve never complained that the vastly larger number of books with “straight” characters (which almost always includes even those books with LGBTQ characters) might be indoctrinating kids into the hetero “lifestyle”.

The other prong of the fork is anything that provides too much truth about racism. If you write about the horrors of this shameful tradition without a heavy coat of whitewash applied, you’ll be branded as an anti-American commie librul who “hates white people”. And there’s a good chance your book will be “reviewed” in certain states. Florida has even advanced a bill, with the enthusiastic backing of DeSantis, that would prohibit teaching anything that causes white people “discomfort”. Which for some white people could include… well, just about anything, it seems. One of the books removed for “review” was a biography of baseball legend Roberto Clemente (a great man off the field too, by the way) because it mentioned the racism he encountered. How exactly is it supposed to be harmful to acknowledge that? Whenever a reactionary makes an accusation about a book, the book is always presumed guilty.

Over and above all, of course, there’s the complaint that too much literacy is indoctrinating kids into leftism — or its buzzword equivalent du jour, “wokeism”. Some of the books considered too “woke” in recent days include: The Laura Ingalls Wilder Story; Forever (Judy Blume); Baton Twirling is for Me; The Kite Runner; My Family of Poems — My Favorite Poetry for Children; Slaughterhouse Five; Poisonous, Smelly and Amazing Plants; Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Boy; I Is For Immigrants; The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Baseball Saved Us; Anne Frank — the Diary of a Young Girl; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and many other Douglas Adams books); Beloved; Watership Down; Zorro; Flowers in the Attic; Chaucer and His World; Wuthering Heights; The Stranger (Camus); Frozen; David Copperfield; Catch-22; Ulysses (Joyce); A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man; Schindler’s List; Flowers for Algernon; The Road; Doctor Zhivago; Dracula; What Is Sexual Harassment?; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Winds of War; Encyclopedia of World Costume; numerous Stephen King novels; The Guinness Book of World Records; and even the frigging DICTIONARY.

As you might notice, many of these books have been circulated for years without hopelessly corrupting the nation’s youth. Some were even around when I was a kid; a few were even required reading in our high school English classes. There was nary a peep of protest — and I grew up in an extremely conservative, fundamentalist, bigoted environment in the Deep South. But faux outrage hadn’t become the new abnormal yet. Clearly, it’s not about the books themselves. It’s about the people protesting them. Everything is always all about them.

“Yeah, but whaddabout…”

And just to make sure the bases are covered, there are the obligatory whataboutisms. What about the librulz censoring and “cancelling” Dr. Seuss books? (Answer: they didn’t. His publishers made the free-market decision, entirely of their own volition, to withdraw a few titles from circulation. It’s very telling that the “cancelled” titles that right-wingers were so triggered about featured illustrations of racist stereotypes. By the way, if you do a little digging, you’ll learn that a great many instances of “cancel culture” have more to the story than you’ve been hearing.)

Another common thread in the whatabout tapestry is to insist that librulz have no right to complain, because they still have more books on the shelves than conservatives do. Well, yes, they do. So what? Writers, especially good writers, are far more likely to be liberal than conservative. In fact, you could just about count on one hand the number of noteworthy books written by conservatives. Let’s see, there’s Catch-22, and there’s The True Believer, and… and… wait, don’t tell me. I’m sure I’ll think of more. Eventually. (To this canon one might add Atlas Snored — oops, Shrugged. Not because it’s a well-written book — it is in fact unendurably awful — but because despite its badness, it’s been historically popular and influential.)

What conservative authors are skilled at is churning out catchy invective, groundless inflammatory aphorisms and soundbites that rile up their right-wing audience. (See Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Rush Limbaugh, Dinesh D’Souza, Gregg Jackson, etc. ) This isn’t necessarily good writing, and it certainly isn’t well informed and well reasoned discourse. And it just might not warrant precious competitive space on a bookshelf. At the risk of offering really radical proposals, I humbly suggest that if conservatives want to see the shelves more “balanced”, they might try…um… I don’t know… writing better books or something? Just spitballing here.

The “balance” trope is given one of its quintessential absurdist treatments over at The Free Press by James Fishback, who presents a cherry-picked comparison of books available by supposedly left-wing authors versus the much fewer available books by right-wing authors. This, he says, is not only proof that there are no liberal books being banned, but that it’s actually conservatives who are the victims. That’s right: while the National Review wants you to believe that the banning of books that are supposedly liberal (but very often are not) is mere “curation”, The Free Press wants you to believe that actual curation (if it results in an insufficient quota of right-wing fanaticism) is de facto banning. (Take notes if you can’t keep up.) And it’s pertinent that he frames the matter as “The Left” complaining about “progressive books” being “censored”. As usual, there is the presumption that only The Left is concerned about such matters; but some libertarian types have joined dozens of organizations (including book publishers) in fighting these bans. And again, most of the books are not really liberal in any ordinary sense. In fact, the suspects even include two of Ayn Rand’s reactionary agitprop novels; and “The Left” has fought for them along with all the others.

It doesn’t help Fishback’s case any that he cites numbers provided by The Heritage Foundation, a shady think tank with a long history of authoritarian aspirations — and authoritarian successes — as well as a history of malicious misinformation. Heritage, mind you, has been one of the primary actors in the “stolen election” lie. And it’s the architect of Project 2025, a scheme to purge government officials who aren’t hardcore MAGA. (It’s also damning that Free Press founder Bari Weiss delivered a keynote speech at The Federalist Society, telling its members they were the “last line of defense” against something or other. The Federalist Society, like The Heritage Foundation, exists to engineer a fascist society; it doesn’t “defend” against anything but democracy. But I digress. Maybe.) Accordingly, he concludes that the “one-sided” school libraries are “failing students”, and because of this only 16 percent of Generation Z say they are proud to be American (having been fed too much “anti-American” librul ideology, doncha know); and further, 76 percent of young women say that (horror of horrors) they wouldn’t “date a Republican”. Which, he concludes, must be because they’ve “likely never been exposed to conservative ideas, and thus, entirely dismiss conservatives as people” — as opposed to, say, not being particularly attracted to bigoted, delusional, egocentric creeps who feel they’re entitled to date liberal women.

He makes his highly strained argument in part by juxtaposing a list of available books by “some of the world’s most well-known progressive thinkers” and a list of available books by “some of the world’s most well-known conservative thinkers”. The former roster, though a mixed bag, is mostly pretty impressive, and includes Bernie Sanders, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and even Karl Marx . (Do you suppose it’s just an accident that the name most associated with communism is at the top of his list?) The group of conservative “thinkers” however, reads like a Who’s Who — not of intellectuals, but of pseudointellectual cranks: the likes of Alan Dershowitz, Ben Carson, Victor Davis Hanson, Douglas Murray, Marco Rubio, Thomas Sowell, and even (Are you sitting down?) Jared Kushner. The only name here that can be taken even the least bit seriously is Milton Friedman, who is reasonably represented in libraries; and there are major problems with him.

This is false equivalence at its silliest. Left-wing intellectuals say that democracy is a healthy thing, that we owe it to ourselves and our descendants to take care of the earth, that we have a duty to alleviate suffering and injustice, and that we should be tolerant of those who are not like us. Right-wing “intellectuals” say that gays are immoral, that drag queens and trans people threaten our children, that racism is not really a thing (but swarthy foreigners are trashing the country), that the U.S. should bully its way around the world, that scientists are crooks and liars, and that greed is good. Think the latter are just straw men? Try reading their books. I dare you. Just be sure the other hand is holding a barf bag.

Whether he intends to or not, Fishback is buying into the trendy fallacy that all beliefs are created equal, and that bad faith arguments, lies and misinformation should be given equal time with facts and logic. He is promoting the popular delusion that there is some kind of morally defensible middle ground between fascism and non-fascism. He is, whether he realizes it or not, giving wings to a premise that ultimately comes to this: that you should put a supposedly left-wing book like Ann Frank’s diary on the shelf next to an extreme right-wing book like Mein Kampf, and say, “Okay, kiddies, the truth must be somewhere in the middle.”

Think this is just an exaggeration? Tell that to Gina Peddy, who in her role as executive director of curriculum and instruction for a Texas school district said, “Make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has opposing, that has other perspectives”. Got that, ye authors of history treatises? Don’t just write about the horrors of the Holocaust. Consider the feelings of the Nazis just as much. And also give equal time to the argument that mass torture and extermination were really not so bad, as well as the argument that the whole thing never really happened at all. Otherwise you’re guilty of left-wing indoctrination and “identity politics” (as if there is any other kind) and your books just might get “reviewed”.

Getting back to National Review, Daniel Buck, in bemoaning the “hyperventilation over supposed book banning”, is particularly appalled that anyone should (as some have done) liken the situation to anything that happened in the Third Reich. After all, you may have heard how the Nazis responded to books they didn’t like. (Hint: they gave the tomes a very warm reception.) And that kind of thing could never happen in the old U.S. of A., now could it?

Don’t look now, but it’s already happening. And it’s been happening for some time. That photo way up at the top of the page is a viable GOP (read: GQP) candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri. She’s literally torching literature. And in the campaign video — yes, campaign video — from which this image is taken, she exults, “These are Missouri library books. When I am in office, they will burn.” It’s not the least bit subtle or ambiguous. She openly commits the crime of destroying public property and vows to do more of it. (Is the Secretary of State usually tasked with the book burning duties in Missouri? Just wondering.) And she’s by no means the only Republican who’s either advocated burning books, or actually has done it.

It’s tempting to write this off as just the fringe of the fringe. But it is, alas, much more than that. It’s the endgame. This is the goal that all the book banning (or reviewing, or mollycoddling, or whatever you choose to call it) is headed toward: the holocaust (total burning), whether figurative or literal, of anything these people disapprove of. And it’s barreling down at a faster pace than many people realize.

You’ve probably heard it before, but it bears repeating: there has never been a time in history when those who banned books were the Good Guys. Never. And it’s twelve times never for those who burn them. This is a real and present danger, and it just keeps on festering. It needs to be addressed much more thoroughly and candidly than is being done by the sycophantic , “both sides”, gaslighting media.