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PODCAST

MAGA Rage Targeting Local Librarians Is Getting Uglier

The culture warriors are inventing new ways to make public libraries and schools into nastier, angrier, more divided, less inclusive spaces.

A woman rests her hands on stacks of books.
Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images
Jennifer Pippin, president of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for Liberty, in Vero Beach, Florida, on October 16, 2022

It’s a new trend: GOP legislatures are advancing bills that place onerous new kinds of restrictions on public or school libraries in states like Idaho, Alabama, Georgia, and others. On the front lines of taking on this trend is Emily Drabinski, the president of the American Library Association, who also grew up in Idaho and is openly gay. We talked to Drabinski about what it takes to battle the book banners targeting LGBTQ materials in states like her own, and the toll all this is taking on communities across the country.