Leftists have been enraged at conservatives for banning books they do not think children should see, but their own president did that to those who were skeptical of COVID-19 information.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) publicized information this week about how the Biden administration pressured Amazon to ban books in an X thread that came as a result of the investigations of the GOP Judiciary Committee. In reference to Elon Musk’s “The Twitter Files,” Jordan named his thread “The Amazon Files.”
On March 2, 2021, senior Biden White House official Andy Slavitt emailed Amazon and asked who he could talk to about “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of Amazon.” He had searched “vaccines” under the books section and said he had found the top results “concerning.”
Amazon did not act in compliance with Biden’s implied commands at first because book censorship would “further compound the Harry/Sally narrative,” referencing its then-recent removal of Ryan T. Anderson’s book criticizing transgenderism called When Harry Became Sally from its stores, and said not to “do anything that is visible and will draw more attention.”
Ironically, Amazon later claimed, “As a retailer, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable,” and therefore could not submit to Biden on the COVID-19 issue.
At least that was their stance until Amazon members were called to a pre-brief discussion with the White House on March 9, 2021, during which they suspected that the Biden administration was “asking us to remove books.” That same day, they caved and decided to “enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective.”
On March 12, 2021, Amazon members discussed a meeting to take place the following week to “reduce the visibility” of “books related to vaccine misinformation” because the prior White House meeting made them feel “pressure from the White House on this issue.”
This whole reveal should come as no surprise, as the Biden administration has openly pressured social media platforms to censor information on COVID-19 that did not fit their agenda in the past. Emails also came out later showing that Facebook had similarly caved under White House pressure to remove posts on the subject.
Leftist media and activists have turned a blind eye to Biden’s behavior here, but they have been completely hypocritical in their response to the conservative-backed book bans that have been taking place in K-12 public schools in recent years. These critics have claimed that such bans violate the First Amendment.
This claim is, of course, absurd. The books being banned by conservatives in this movement are books that explicitly promote vile behavior and often display it in child-friendly picture format. They are weapons of the Left to further indoctrinate children while they are separated from their parents for a majority of the week.
The First Amendment has never been interpreted as permitting obscenity or preventing book banning. Public schools have been prohibited from teaching the Bible, the single most influential work on world and American history, since 1963.
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Book banning is permissible for books that promote things fundamentally opposed to human flourishing, which is exactly what conservatives are fighting to do. Leftists have been misinterpreting the First Amendment and using loopholes to achieve their goals.
Next time a Leftist condemns a conservative for violating the First Amendment by banning books, ask them if they are willing to hold their own president to the same standard. I guarantee they won’t.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner Winter Fellow.
