“Light Blue” Banned!

Since we released our e-book, Light Blue: How center-left moderates can build an enduring Democratic majority, earlier this month sales have been, uh, modest.

Then we remembered that one of the very best marketing strategies for books is to get them banned. And there’s plenty of stuff in Light Blue that should get the banners banning. In fact, it might be bragging, but we feel that there’s something in Light Blue that would offend anybody on any side of any issue. In fact, right up there in the dedications we quote Kingsley Amis: “If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”

For example, we go on at some length about how the Republicans have become the de facto “Fascist Party of America.” Certainly, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (also known as the Wisconsin GOP’s law firm) would want to snuff out that kind of talk. So, we called up WILL and suggested that they send us one of their patented threatening letters charging that this was slander. We didn’t get past the receptionist. “Yeah, I checked with Rick,” she said. “Our official position is that we don’t care. Knock yourself out. Oh, and by the way, he points out that if what you’re doing is written it’s libel and not slander.”

Huh. Okay, well there’s more where that came from. We refer to Michael Gableman, leading the partisan “investigation” into the 2020 elections as “a clown.” Surely, Gableman would want us silenced. So, we called up his office. No answer. Apparently, out to lunch. In so many ways.

Having struck out on the right, we turned to our left. We have a long chapter on “Why Woke Won’t Work.” We figure that will be deeply offensive to anybody on a college campus anywhere. So, we contacted the Young Democratic Socialists of America. Finally, we got ourselves some outrage. But here’s the problem. They told us that they would be referring our request for a ban to their Committee for the Review of Counter Revolutionary Thought. But the committee is currently on hiatus while the Committee on Diversity on Revolutionary Committees conducts its inquiry into the makeup of the CRCRT, which, it turns out, lacked a single member (not one!) who was an indigenous queer woman. Once this gets ironed out they hope to be able to catch up with us at a campus reading someplace where they promise to shout us down. Well, that sounds promising, we said, but we’re not going to get invited to any campus readings until we sell some books, and could they help out by just issuing a short statement denouncing Light Blue as, oh we don’t know, say ‘harmful’ or ‘hurtful’ or ‘erasing’ or ‘not intersecting’. Something. They referred our request to the Committee for the Review of Counter Revolutionary Speech, but they’re on hiatus, so…

So, we’re not getting anywhere with our attempt to get banned. But National Banned Books Week (yes, while we may have made up the stuff above, there actually is such a thing) doesn’t happen until September, so there’s still plenty of time. And you can help! Pick up a copy of Light Blue here. Read it until you’re offended — it shouldn’t take more than a couple of chapters. Then contact your favorite organization and demand that the book be banned. Simple as that. Thank you so much in advance.