The left has mastered the art of twisting language to fit its agenda. Abortion becomes “reproductive rights” or “choice.” Leftists politely rebrand illegal immigrants as “undocumented.” But one of their most irritating manipulations shows up in the so-called “banned books” panic. However, in America, there are no banned books. It’s a myth designed to scare parents and shame schools into compliance, and it falls apart the moment you look at the facts.
Here’s the simple truth: The entire narrative is a marketing gimmick. Even the people pushing the idea unintentionally expose the lie. Just look at Amazon, which proudly features a bestsellers list labeled “Banned Books.” How can a book be “banned” while it’s available for anyone to purchase, topping sales charts, and promoted by the biggest online retailer in the world?
You couldn’t invent a more absurd contradiction. There’s even an annual event called “Banned Books Week” that promotes widely read books that are allegedly banned. When publishers and activists use the word “banned” to sell more copies, they’re not fighting censorship; they’re exploiting a lie for profit.
Calling books “banned” is really about marketing. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to figure you can increase interest in a book by hyping it as something that the government doesn’t want you to read.
Author Margaret Atwood knows this all too well. During an appearance on 60 Minutes, she claimed that her work has been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corrupt, and anti-Christian.
The problem with this dramatic claim is that her novel The Handmaid’s Tale is hugely successful, having sold more than 10 million copies since its publication in 1985, and has been adapted into a successful television series, which has also spawned countless costume sales for liberal Karens who protest for abortion rights. It currently ranks in the top 400 books for sale on Amazon. But she and many others push the narrative that the book is widely banned.
“Atwood's own works have been subject to edicts and bans,” claims CBS. “Her works have been banned from 135 American school districts, according to PEN America, a nonprofit that champions free speech.”
Atwood's books have been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corrupt and anti-Christian. She said she was particularly peeved when a recent ban came from Edmonton, Alberta, in her own country.
The distinction here is important. When libraries or bookstores choose not to carry a particular title, that isn’t the censorship the left likes to claim. No institution — public or private — can stock every book ever published, and even many popular titles won’t make the cut. It also isn’t censorship for a school to exclude pornographic material disguised as “LGBTQ inclusivity.” These institutions have every right to decide what appears on their shelves, just as parents have every right to demand that only age-appropriate books are accessible to their children.
No matter how much hype surrounds a so-called “banned” book, if it’s still available for purchase, it isn’t banned. A true ban would require the government to forbid the book’s publication or sale, something Margaret Atwood’s novels have never faced, nor any other book marketed as “banned.”
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Despite this commercial success, Atwood still seems to see herself as a victim struggling to be read, save for external factors. She believes the book would probably just "be sitting on a shelf somewhere" if not for the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, even though the series based on her book started in 2017, and its series finale aired back in May this year.
Ironically, Atwood admits that it’s not conservatives who usually go after her; it’s the left. “I think the right thinks I’m irrelevant,” Atwood said. “The left thinks that I should have been preaching their sermon, whatever it may happen to be, and that I am therefore a traitor for not having done that which they themselves would do.”
It’s a telling remark from a writer often hailed as a feminist icon. Yet it's not all that surprising.
The left’s “banned books” crusade exposes its fundamental dishonesty. It has twisted the meaning of “banned” beyond recognition, turning parental oversight and library curation into dystopian oppression while actual bestsellers fly off shelves. When even Margaret Atwood admits that the real censors come from her own side, the game is up. The left doesn’t want to protect free speech; it wants to control which speech gets celebrated, subsidized, and shoved into every classroom, whether parents consent or not.
