Elayne Clift (elayne-clift.com) has written this column about women, politics, and social issues for two decades.
BRATTLEBORO-Along with other shocks that are bombarding us daily while the current regime thrives on cuts, insults, inaccuracies, and political power grabs, we are faced with some cuts that we should be paying attention to and resisting. Those cuts are aimed at our culture as a national community, our legitimate history, and our beloved literature.
Many of us grew up loving books like Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak; the Dr. Seuss classics; Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White; and A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle, along with Katherine Paterson's young adult stories. These books for children, and many others, are now banned in various venues - sometimes for ridiculous reasons.
Charlotte's Web was apparently removed because it referred to death and talking animals who had interesting things to say. A Wrinkle in Time was taken off shelves because it "opposed Christian belief," according to censors.
Other books for young adults used profanity, or supported kids who had same-sex parents, or told stories of people of color who had overcome prejudice, or had different cultural practices than those of typical white Americans. Organizations like PEN America that track such things have amazing lists of what has been culled from libraries and kept from reach of young readers.
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Censorship is not new, but it is escalating and mutating. PEN America found that more than 10,000 books had been banned and more than 4,000 titles removed during the 2023-24 school year. Most of those books were young adult titles and picture books for young readers.
"Book bans, while alarming on their own, are a bellwether for rising educational censorship," PEN America reports in "Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves," a 2024 study that looked at the issue.
The nonprofit also identified the venues that are experiencing censorship, including "a range of institutions, including public libraries, colleges and universities."
The policy changes and emerging state laws "are designed to suppress education about certain viewpoints, identities, and histories," especially if the titles in question concern people of color, LGBTQ people, and sexual themes, the report continues.
"This broad campaign uses falsehoods, fear, and hatred to dehumanize, dismiss, and diminish important voices in the public sphere - and these efforts are reshaping American public education," the report said.
In 2025 the American Library Association (ALA) tracked 4,235 titles that were challenged. That was the second-highest number ever documented by the organization.
And during National Library Week in April this year, the ALA released data documenting attempts to censor books and materials in public schools and academic libraries.
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Censoring literature for adults has happened throughout history, and masterpieces have been banned for various reasons.
In recent times, classic works of literature have, amazingly, been banned. Among them are Lolita, because of perceived obscenity and perversion, and The Grapes of Wrath for "communist" sympathies and alleged obscenity, according to PEN America. So too has Beloved, because of its depictions of slavery and sexual content.
Literary works have faced intensive censorship. Among them are To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984, for explicit political context and "socialist themes." The Handmaid's Tale was widely banned for its perceived political themes and exposure to patriarchal governance.
Since our president returned to office, literary works have been banned or removed via federal directives, including executive orders that purged military base schools of hundreds of books.
* * *But books are not the only thing that the Trump regime insists need to be controlled. Museums are taking big hits, too. Since Trump was elected for a second time his administration has repeated a narrative that claims museums are centers of "woke" activism and anti-American information.
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has come under fire, along with its secretary of the Smithsonian, Lonnie Bunch, and other staff. Burch, the first historian and first African American to lead the federal museums, has announced plans to retire at the end of 2026.
One Trump executive order accused the Smithsonian Institution of "historical revision" in its exhibits, calling its interpretation of U.S. history "inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed."
The Smithsonian is not the only cultural institution to be targeted since Trump's second term. Since the president has returned to office, his administration has excessively focused on references to "improper ideology" on controversial historical and social issues.
Exhibitions that share major events and eras in American history have become subject to executive orders that eliminate place names, signage, and photographs, denying us a truthful history and replacing it with one aimed at undermining democracy's values. It's straight out of the authoritarian playbook.
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As George Orwell warned us in 1984, "Who controls the past […] controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."
The National Coalition Against Censorship expressed outrage when a White House report attacked the Smithsonian, citing its threat to the independence of the 21 museums as a threat to free expression in the United States.
Lee Rowland, executive director of the organization, stated in a news release that "the government's attempts to strong arm a revered private institution violates the values of open discourse and our First Amendment. They are also deeply un-American."
On July 4, as we celebrated our 250th anniversary, another report from the White House's Domestic Policy Council issued "Saving America's Story," a document that condemned the Smithsonian for having "traded settled truths and basic history for political activism and division."
The report repeated the accusation that the Smithsonian fosters "anti-white activism," "supporting illegal aliens," and "embracing transgender activism."
There you have it in a nutshell. We must bring back books, autonomous museums, truthful history and diverse cultures before it's too late.
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