The Rise of Fascism in Texas: One County’s Story
Note: Although this is a piece about local politics, it has a lot to say about book banning and fascism. I hope others can use it to fight back against their own school districts if they start banning books as a way to appease extremists. As we learned from Neville Chamberlin, appeasement is often permission.
Moms for Liberty got their butts kicked in November 2023. It was thrilling to see that most of their preferred candidates lost nationwide. I celebrated their losses, thinking it was clear most Americans don’t like book-banning, Nazi-loving fascists. All too soon, I had to stop my gloating though because, while that may be true in other parts of the country, I (sadly) live in Texas. Things are different here. Until recently, I didn’t realize just how different…but I should have.
I keep up with local politics. For years, I wrote a weekly column about what was going on in Collin, the large county where I live. That got exhausting, especially since my day job is incredibly stressful, so now I only check in on occasion. That’s why a column written by a guy from Austin (which is hours away) surprised me. He sounded the alarm that a local school district — Plano ISD — was banning books, something most of us in Collin were unaware of. Yikes!
