John West’s emails to the commissioners, shared in the Daily Courier, raised some interesting points - some in what he said, others in what he inferred, and still others in what he did not say. Those emails provided insight into those West identifies as the commissioners’ base.

West refers specifically to to books on DEI. That argument doesn’t really hold water, though. Surely people don’t need to read books they dislike. If the objection is they are available to children - parents certainly are monitoring what their children read. Also, even if the books are not available in the library, there’s a plethora of information online and the younger generations are extremely adept at navigating the internet.

Rather, the importance lies earlier in the sentence. “President Trump is cutting state library money…” Why? The reason given is DEI, etc., but underneath that is a very strong attempt to undermine education. An uneducated population is much easier to manipulate. West and his “base” are certainly following the party line of destroying the Department of Education and defunding universities and higher education. That sounds like a conspiracy theory, except the mainstream news sources are full of examples of exactly that.

Confusing the issues of literacy with controversial topics that can be used to inflame emotions is strictly deflection. Look at DEI, don’t notice the loss of rights we take for granted.

In defending our libraries, we are defending our right and our responsibility to provide our citizens with education, with critical thinking skills, with information and the ability to use that information to ensure that our democracy survives.