Well, here we are. Here is our world. Here is our next few years. Book people may not have as much economic or political power as other people in other industries, but we have some power. And if we don’t use the power we have, no matter how limited it may feel, how can we ask anyone else to use the power they have? Solving the enormous challenges we face as a society and a nation will take effort from everyone. And it can’t be everyone without you. Start where you are. Go from there. Here we are. Let’s go.
This series is not really about what booksellers, authors, publicists, editors, critics, and others in the book world should do with whatever time in their lives they can devote to activism. There are people with much more experience and expertise in the banalities of justice giving advice on what average Americans should do now. (Here’s one example.)
To put this another way, you don’t need me to tell you to join Authors Against Book Bans, to focus on your local community, to connect with the people and groups who have been doing this work for years, to take care of yourself. Furthermore, other people in the bookselling industry have been sharing ideas and systems for individual action for weeks.
For example, fellow bookseller Nicole Brinkley, in a newsletter and Instagram post, shared a range of actions one could take if they choose to focus their efforts on defending literacy. I hope booksellers, authors, publicists, editors, critics, librarians and others in the book world find useful ideas in this series, or if not immediately useful ideas, then starting points for future useful ideas. And I hope people who just see themselves as readers or stumbled randomly onto this will find value in it too, but really, I’m not talking to most of you.
Most of you know what you should do now, are already out doing the best you can and probably reading this as much to get some validation or spend time with another mind wrestling with the same problems you are, as to learn something new. Those familiar with the “book world” would know who I am talking to whether I elucidate them or not, but, well, it’s not really the time to hold back. Though all of you are welcome to take as much from this series as you can, I am writing here to the decision-makers at Penguin Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, MacMillan Publishing Services, and Ingram Content Group, as well as any world famous and extremely rich authors.
You don’t need me to tell you to join Authors Against Book Bans, to focus on your local community, to connect with the people and groups who have been doing this work for years.
Every contribution counts. Every effort is valid. Every fighter is valuable. But some people are very rich, have a lot of power, and can make decisions that almost instantly have dramatic impacts on everything within their purview. And the rest of us don’t.
We’re all going to grind no matter what, but you, the decision-makers, don’t need to grind. Yes, it is a problem that we have so concentrated power in publishing that a few hundred people (maybe less) could dramatically change the world for the better; but that should not stop those few hundred people from changing the world for the better. The power to enrich oneself can just as easily be used to enrich everyone. You can make decisions. You can spend money.
So here are the decisions I want you to make, how I want you to spend your money, what policies I want you to adopt. I think they will help save lives now and help create a base upon which we can build the better world that must follow this one.
The ideas in the first two sections will feel familiar to many readers. Sometimes I’m encouraged that we are not starting from zero, that we have wisdom to apply, that we have fought fascism before and won. And sometimes I am really frustrated because if we already know how to beat fascism why do I have to convince you to do what worked before? And sometimes I’m scared, because maybe we don’t actually know how to fight this modern version of fascism. Honestly, I can’t imagine an unreasonable emotional response to a second Trump presidency (except for all the positive ones, but no one who feels those has read this far.) Feel what you need to feel. Get up in the morning. Keep going. Let’s keep going.
1.
Do Not Obey in Advance
There is a reason why Timothy Snyder, one of our leading writers on authoritarianism, made “Do not obey in advance,” the first rule in his book On Tyranny. There is a reason why organizers, activists, and historians have been reminding us of this rule since the first Trump presidency. Every aspect of this fight is easier if we do not obey in advance. If the Trump administration is going to oppress us, the least we can do is make them work for it. Make oppression difficult. Make it costly.
If Trump suggests a rating system for books, don’t rate your books until after they pass the law, after the law has been challenged in court, after the Supreme Court has upheld it, and after they have actually served you a court order. Maybe they suggest they’d love for you to submit a detailed description of the books you’re planning to publish next year, highlighting specific content they want to use to “protect our children,” or defend “parent’s rights.” Maybe they think books should be submitted to them for approval. Make them pass the law or write the regulation. Make them defend it in court. Make them do the work of enforcing it. And then take your time obeying.
While we still have time the book world should prepare strategies to make it more difficult for the book banners to compel obedience.
To be perfectly clear, I’m not even arguing for civil disobedience. If they show up with a warrant, I’m not asking you to go to jail. I’m saying make them go through the hassle of getting the warrant. And I’m saying if they do, only give them exactly what the warrant asks for. Do not obey in advance.
In 2025, the book banners will control the Supreme Court, the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. They will not be bound by precedent, tradition, or law. The book bans are coming. While we still have time the book world should prepare strategies to make it more difficult for the book banners to compel obedience.
For example, publishers should prepare decentralized distribution and warehousing systems to make it easier to get challenged or banned books to the people that need them and more difficult for them to be seized by the authorities. They should figure out how they are going to move books from one place to the next if books become contraband. They should know what to do if someone with a badge knocks on the door.
Maybe the book banners won’t get that far. (Maybe the 2026 election will be fair enough that we can flip the House and Senate.) Maybe we’ll never need those plans. But I can’t think of a more “I’d rather have it and not need it, then need it and not have,” situation, and if we end up finding ways to cut the carbon footprint and reduce damages, through this planning, great. But while we plan, we need to remember, the knock is far less likely to come then if we do not obey in advance now.
Every day you delay obedience, you also delay oppression. Every day we delay oppression saves lives. Every day we delay oppression creates opportunities for organizing, activism, and resource building. Every resource they use to force our obedience is a resource they are not using to force someone else to obey. Every inch we cling to now is an inch we don’t need to climb on our way back.
Do not obey in advance.
2.
Deplatform the American Right
How about now? Can we do this now? We have re-elected a white supremacist fascist failed businessman and convicted felon (all the same guy!), who has promised ethnic cleansing in this country, in part, because the book world legitimized the values, ideas, and policies of white supremacy and fascism by publishing them. We took their bullshit seriously enough to acquire, edit, publish, and promote it. We can’t be shocked when people who read our books take that bullshit seriously.
I’ve been expressing this idea publicly since Sean Spicer was a featured presenter at Book Expo America. I published a chapbook making this argument in 2021, which I expanded to a full collection of essays, touching on a range of other issues in bookselling, in 2023. A big chunk of my social media is repeating this point over and over again. I’m not going to rehash every argument I’ve made over the years here. (Especially since I have yet to see a remotely convincing counter argument to the paradox of tolerance.) Honestly, I don’t understand why “If you don’t want any Nazis, don’t support any Nazis,” isn’t the only argument anyone needs to make.
The best time to deplatform the American right from publishing was in the 1980s when Rush Limbaugh was bringing right wing talk radio into the mainstream.
But I do think one thing needs to be said again: platforming them will not protect you. They will never give you credit for publishing their work. They will never appreciate a balanced list. They will never accept a range of perspectives. They will not protect you because you were an ally in their grift. And they will do absolutely everything in their power to make sure their voices are the only voices you publish.
The best time to deplatform the American right from publishing was in the 1980s when Rush Limbaugh was bringing right wing talk radio into the mainstream. The next best time is now. The best time to not obey in advance was during Trump’s first term when some significant number of members of his administration were at least making gestures of legitimate governance. The next best time is now, as Trump and his advisors loft trial balloons to figure out how much they can get away with and how quickly.
It is too late to prevent a second Donald Trump presidency. Deplatforming the right today isn’t going to do much to mitigate the damage Trump is going to cause over the next four years. His administration is going to compel obedience and the Supreme Court is going to let him. But it is not too late to begin shifting our culture. It is not too late to begin amplifying new stories, new voices, new ideas and then giving them ten times the institutional support you gave conservatives on the way here.
It is not too late to start shoveling the bullshit out of our intellectual ecosystem. It is not too late to save the lives we can. It’s not too late to delay the worst actions of the incoming administration by days, weeks, or even months and you will appreciate every single one of those days, weeks, or even months. It’s not too late to work on the world that will follow.
And it is not too late to prevent a first JD Vance presidency.
