Call It Book Burning

Even before I became a victim of it, I had been shocked for a long time by the acceptance of book burning in America. Sadly, book burning is the most accurate term for what I experienced when I published The Elegant Trump just a month ago, but of course it is not what most people call it as we live under ever-changing Orwellian diktats.

Cancel culture is the preferred sanitized term used by the MSM and their minions.  It is undeniably true that any action that destroys books by any means is essentially book burning just as any action that stops or impedes free speech has the aim of eradicating free speech. The term ‘cancel culture’ does not conjure the same dangers we universally associate with fire.  Obviously no one wants to point directly to the myriad ways vandals can actually destroy property with fire one of many.

Book burning still resonates with millions of people – granted probably an older demographic – who are aware that the Nazis literally burned books.  The Nazis censored anything it considered anti-Nazi in newspapers, radio, film, and theatre.  Banned books which spanned almost all categories were publicly burned in ostentatious rituals.  (See painting of a Nazi book burning in Berlin 1933)  Today’s book burners are more covert.

We know book burning too from cautionary science fiction tales like Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel by Rad Bradbury published in 1953. Bradbury wrote it contemporaneously with the McCarthy hearings which sought to clamp down on clandestine communists in this country.   Paper burns at 451 degrees.  Bradbury foresaw an America where all books would be banned.  In the novel, firemen went on book burning raids while one man, Guy Montag, stood against it.   

Meanwhile conservatives circulate memes declaring ‘banning books is just plain fascist and is always wrong.’ 

Three hundred of my brand spanking new fresh from the printer books were book burned on or around the middle of August.  The shipment which consisted of thirty thirty-pound boxes, weighed 945 pounds, and cost nearly a dollar a book to transport. At $82.00 US a book, the total loss was $24,600. This does not cover the product replacement cost which effectively doubles that amount.

The driver of the freight company drew my attention to the condition of the skid. We soon discovered to our horror that the skid had been doused in transmission fluid.  At first we thought it was ‘just water’ but when we looked at closely and started to unwrap the skid, we became aware that the entire skid had been doused with red transmission fluid. (Photo below.)

How did this happen? Who had done such a thing? Why would someone destroy property for no reason?

We quickly realized:  Each book box was prominently labeled, The Elegant Trump and someone somewhere along its journey from Arizona to New Jersey was a triggered Trump hater. It is standard practice in the book business to label each box of books as you see in the photo.  No one at the printer or the bindery thought to disguise the box label. 

During the design and layout phase of work on the book, I had been asking potential vendors outright: Do you have a problem  working on a book about Donald Trump?  All said no.  That included the printer I worked with located in Phoenix, Arizona as well as a book binder also in Phoenix, a book designer, various photo houses, a photo editor, and a head shot photographer.

My book designer recalls he thought my question was a little paranoid. As we worked together over many months he saw how Trump Derangement Syndrome intensified and could see why I asked.    

As one might assume, I had anticipated the arrival of my books with nothing but glee. After nearly two years of dedication to writing and publishing my tome – I had finally crossed the finish line. I could hold it in my hands – touch it, feel it, smell it – and enjoy it for myself before the sales phase kicked in. 

It did not occur to me that I would be robbed of that feeling one gets when they can stand back and admire a job well done. We can paint a room and admire our handiwork for hours. It’s like taking a new car for a spin around the block or sleeping in a new sweater. In fact, my book designer said, “You’ll want to sleep with it–you’ll like it so much.”  It actually took some weeks before I could bring myself to crack open the cover even though the book was selling. And, no I didn’t sleep with it under my pillow. Ever.

The transmission fluid not only filled the air with a gaseous odor that was almost impossible to get rid of but it had penetrated each box along with the plastic wrapping around each book.  Shortly after discovering the fluid, I decided to open every box and inspect every book for damage.  I worked furiously for hours slitting open each box, then each book one-by-one only to find that every book had been exposed to the damaging effects of the chemical and could not be saved.  Discolored books are piled on a table in my garage below.

Woke Culture is a Contagion

America should know the signs of creeping authoritarianism.  Hitler’s rise to power should have forewarned us, but we are not forearmed.  I thought I had covered my bases prior to this event by compensating for being a target of Trump haters. People said I was paranoid but as it turns out I was not paranoid enough.  No one could have stopped this random act of vandalism.  I would have had to pick up my books in Arizona myself and drive them across the country to avoid such a thing.

Cancel culture aka book burning can and does happen to many people every day in this country. It is perpetrated by the big and small against the big and small. Candace Owens, founder of Blexit, published “Blackout: How black Americans can make its second escape from the Democrat plantation” around the same time that my book came out.  Her distributor was Amazon.  Almost 90% of all books go through Amazon’s book distribution system.  She reported that over a thousand people who ordered her book on Amazon received a book smeared in Vaseline.  By the way, I decided when I embarked on publishing this book that I could not trust it to Amazon. Her books were burned. She tweeted about it but no one seemed particularly outraged.

It makes no difference what permutations these book burnings take – it could literally be a bonfire in a neighbor’s backyard or it could be a vandalized shipment of books. It can be at the hands of a Big Tech corporation like Amazon or accomplished by a lone wolf so to speak.

I fully expect all of these activities to continue apace – woke corporations will restrict speech and seek to demonize ‘anyone who disagrees’ as has the media and an array of political factions now set on censoring speech they don’t like.

We will continue to be – as President Trump has been –maligned, smeared, doxed, de-platformed, restricted from partaking in free enterprise and free speech and subjected to similar or worse acts of destruction and violence.  With few exceptions, none of this bothers the left or even the average Democrat.

Apparently there is no authority – no check or balance – no public outcry great enough to push back on whomever chooses to shut down free speech in the country we call America. We shall see how far the left will push its authoritarianism soon enough.

I let the dust settle on this event before talking about it.  In the aftermath of just having to deal with the shock of the attack, I thought it best not to air this news publicly.  I was after all tasked with selling my book and a little voice told me that some people might think I would sell slightly damaged books and I did not want my book tarnished by the ugly photos like you see here.

The freight company settled with me for the retail value of the loss. I’m bound by their settlement terms to not share the name of the carrier.

Below are a few photos from the book. Here is a link to the Reviews page.