We’ve been seeing a lot of censorship this week. Indeed, it’s more than a little troubling what’s happening.

But we’ve apparently now moved on to going after books part of this tragicomedy.

Antifa expert journalist Andy Ngo has a book coming out, Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. Everyone should try to get a copy, you can get it now on preorder.

This is the book antifa is trying to get banned: https://t.co/WEc6SGDAaM

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 11, 2021

Naturally, Antifa folks didn’t like it. So they showed up at Powell’s Books in Portland to demand that they not sell Ngo’s book. They protested outside the store, forcing the store to close early.

Police respond to the area by the #antifa protest outside @Powells bookstore. Antifa had shut down the store today demanding they ban my upcoming book. pic.twitter.com/xjnFd5r789

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 11, 2021

"We will shut down the store every day!"

It looks like @Powells bookstore in downtown Portland has evacuated its customers after #antifa showed up to demand that my book, Unmasked, be banned. pic.twitter.com/ZIXcujVHCL

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 11, 2021

"STOP SELLING ANDY NGO'S BOOK"
"HELL NO, WE WON'T NGO"

A crowd of #antifa have gathered outside @Powells bookstore in downtown Portland to demand they pull my book from their website. The store has already announced it won't stock the book on shelves. pic.twitter.com/bsX5HMGDSW

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 11, 2021

The bookstore had already partially caved and said they would not be carrying the book in their store but they did say people could buy it from them online.

Here’s their statement.

From Townhall:

At Powell’s, a lot of our inventory is hand-selected, and hand-promoted. And a lot of our inventory is not. With several million titles available online at any given moment, complete hand-curation is not possible. Unmasked by Andy Ngo came to us through an automatic data feed via one of our long-term and respected publishers, Hachette Book Group. We list the majority of their catalogue automatically, as do many other independent and larger retailers. We have a similar arrangement with other publishers.

This book will not be on our store shelves, and we will not promote it. That said, it will remain in our online catalogue. We carry books that we find anywhere from simply distasteful or badly written, to execrable, as well as those that we treasure. We believe it is the work of bookselling to do so.

Decades ago we received credible bomb threats for selling the work of Salman Rushdie, and yet we carried on. We cannot behave any differently today when we feel differently about the book or writer in question.

Pretty weaselly response if you ask me. If you want to stand for free speech. Stand. Don’t give Antifa any ground. Halfway measures to appease them only embolden them. Which of course it did. But of course they likely fear their shop being smashed.

One person compared the book to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, claiming this was about stopping fascism.

"We have to show up every day until they stop selling that f—king book"

An #antifa protester outside @Powells Books explains that stopping the release of my upcoming book would be like stopping the historical publication of Hitler's "Mein Kampf." pic.twitter.com/8NVTtQwYNz

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 11, 2021

Can we say lunatic to even go there?

Here’s one making what sure sounds like threats, promising to destroy Ngo.

"Andy Ngo, this is my personal mission to f—king destroy your career."

Portland antifa militant, Dustin Ferreira (@2lesslegs), has released a series of videos laying out threats to get my book on #antifa banned. He's been angry I publicized his riot arrest info last year. pic.twitter.com/A6AQBAprRH

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 11, 2021

There are few things more classically fascistic than trying to shut down books, shutting down speech. But then the “anti-fascists” have always shown that name was a misnomer, taken to make them look better to media, when they are in fact the fascists.