Last week, the Florida Department of Education released a list of more than 700 books banned from school libraries in the K-12 public school system. These bans were initiated over the past three years by the far-right group Moms for Liberty and the state’s fascist governor, Ron DeSantis. They provide an indication of what the far right envisions in terms of widespread censorship, including, ultimately, censorship of left-wing views, which will neither be opposed nor blocked by the Democratic Party.

In 2023-2024, Florida banned 400 more books than last year, largely because of a 2023 state law, HB 1069, that prohibits schools in the state from holding books describing “sexual conduct” or “inappropriate for grade level and age.” group for which the material is used. The law allows a small number of fundamentalist and/or fascist Christian parents to challenge the placement of books in school libraries.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project notes that this number could be much higher since the state “only requires that they report what each district considers an objection to the materials, and many of these objections were still ‘pending’ d ‘a final decision at the end of the 23/24 school year.

Florida has recorded 4,500 individual book ban cases across its 71 school districts over the past three years, the most in the United States. Escambia County, on the Alabama border, has the most book bans at about 1,600, followed by Orange County with 700 cases and Clay County with 400.

Among the books most commonly banned in Florida are the works of Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut and children’s fiction like Thirteen reasons why by Jay Asher, The perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and Talk by Laurie Halse Anderson. A graphic novel based on that of George Orwell 1984 was also banned.

Nationally, according to PEN America, book bans increased by about 200 percent last year, with Florida and Iowa leading the way, followed by Texas. Only Nineteen minutes, a novel about a school shooting by bestselling author Jodi Picoult, is the most banned book in the United States and by Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale, about a Christian-fascist dystopia in the United States, is one of the most banned books in Florida. According to media reports, sales of the book have increased nearly 7,000% since Trump’s re-election.