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In the wake of Donald Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election, a list of books reportedly being banned by him in the USA went viral. One of the first videos sharing the alleged list of banned books came from TikTok user @kim_kimchii on November 7, a day after the election results were announced.
The user shared a reel comprising the names of 389 books along with their authors and themes. They also provided a Google Spreadsheet link to the alleged list. Some of the books mentioned in it include Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mocking Bird, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, George Orwell’s 1984, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
TikTok user @onisvideodiaries also shared a short reel comprising names of a few books and claimed that the Trump administration was allegedly planning to ban them from the country. The TikTok user added in the caption how the alleged move was part of Project 2025.
Since the list of books allegedly being banned by Trump garnered online traction, social media users have been sharing their opinions. For instance, TikTok user @aubrey commented under the first video by writing:
Many people joined the conversation and shared similar reactions on the social media platform X.
“No way this is gonna be a real thing,” a netizen wrote.
“The government better not ban a lot of these books. A lot of the reasoning to ban these books is ridiculous, I mean, 'Ella Enchanted?' Really just because it has characters that use magic? It's a fantasy book, fantasy books have magic. I see readers rebelling if these get banned fr,” one netizen wrote.
“Wait what, can we not read classics anymore now?” another netizen asked.
“Anything that could empower women to rebel. it's honestly sick,” wrote another.
Meanwhile, others pointed out how several of the books in the alleged list have earlier been banned from schools or public libraries in the USA.
“Idk ab all of them, but some of these have def been challenged and banned before in school districts,” a person wrote.
“Have you been living under a rock for the last 10+ years, genuine question? Yes, all of these books have been banned by various orgs at diff times. I don’t think any of this is news, unfortunately,” another person wrote.
“These are books that have historically been banned for one reason for another. There’s a week in September where schools and libraries “celebrate” banned book week by reading banned books. This has been a thing for a long time!” an individual wrote.
“Saved the images, I’m gonna read all of these one by one,” wrote another.
Exploring the alleged impact of Project 2025 on books amid Donald Trump’s election win
Project 2025, also called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a political initiative published by an American conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation, in April 2023. The 900-page manifesto pushes far-right policies and ideologies for Donald Trump’s presidency.
Some of the proposed agendas in Project 2025 include expanding the power of the president, dismantling federal bureaucracy, shutting down the Departments of Education and Justice, sweeping tax deductions, mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, pornography ban, restrictive abortion laws, and more.
Maggie Tokuda-Hall, the co-founder of Authors Against Book Bans, told Lithub earlier this month that Project 2025 will reportedly be detrimental to the fundamental right to read and freedom of speech and expression.
She pointed out a certain section of Project 2025 that reads,
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and s*xualization of children…has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”
Tokuda-Hall alleged that the paragraph means,
“All LGBTQ+ content will be regarded as pornography. This is already the pernicious lie being used to ban books all over the nation. First Amendment rights will not apply, meaning we will no longer have freedom of speech to protect us.”
Maggie further said that if Project 2025 becomes a reality, it would be “the single-most, expansive, extreme attack on our freedom to read.” She said it would seek “book bans” to try and remove “publishers, teachers, and librarians,” who are subject matter experts in the field of education.
Notably, Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025 repeatedly. In July 2024, he even took to Truth Social and wrote:
“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
However, during the election cycle, Trump's campaign pushed a manifesto called Agenda47. It offers policies to be implemented under the Trump administration for the next four years.
Meanwhile, since November 6, i.e., Trump’s re-election, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, has shot up in the best-sellers list of Amazon from 209 to 3. The Booker Prize-nominated book was published in 1985 and is set in a futuristic dystopian New England. It portrays a totalitarian, theonomic, and patriarchal society.
Other dystopian novels, including Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, have also been high up in the best-selling charts online.
