Fear of libraries runs deep in today’s GOP

In response to the article in the Learning section (“Librarians fear fines, jail as activists challenge books,” April 15), I now understand how deep the fear of libraries and literacy run in today’s Republican Party. My story begins.

I grew up in Iowa in the 1960s in a Republican household. Both my parents were engaged in civic activities, serving on community boards and in the church. My mother, Joanne Soper, was a supporter of the arts, working with the National Endowment for the Arts and the United Nations hosting international visitors. She was a Nixon girl. Those were the days when there was an apparent middle to the Republican Party. In 1976, the 6th District in Iowa was represented by a popular Democrat, Berkeley Bedell, in the House of Representatives. In an attempt to find a Republican to run against him, my mother stepped forward.

The irony of this brief story is central to the true roots of the Republican Party that lay hidden beneath its veneer. As their candidate, mother approached many leading Republicans seeking their financial support in her campaign but received very little in return. In a meeting with the head of the Woodbury County Republican Party, he said to her, “Joanne, I really like you, but you are too liberal.” When she asked what he meant he replied, “You are on the library board.” That was in 1976.

Today, across a large swath of Iowa and other rural states, Republicans are attacking school boards and librarians as “woke” intellectual institutions. They remove history books and great literary works and challenge the curriculum in the schools, rewriting the history on slavery as the truth embarrasses their white Republican constituency.

Now I’ll admit that my mother did, on occasion, wear a button that said “Uppity Women Unite” — she was a woman, of course, and she was on the library board. But in a then-left-leaning district in Iowa, she had the credentials to win over some Democratic votes. But instead, the Republican Party chose to double down against its own and fall back into the world of “woke” fears. The message to their followers was they are victims rather than productive participants in a democracy that seeks to solve problems of literacy and learning. What other “woke” fears fester beneath the surface of Republican candidates today?