DeSantis is pulling a Trump It’s the old “you can believe me or you can believe your lyin’ eyes”: In remarks last week intended to spin the narrative in his favor, DeSantis accused the “mainstream media, unions and leftist activists” of propagating a “nasty hoax” about classroom libraries being left empty due to a law he passed last year seeking to address the non-issue of “pornography” in schools. “It’s a hoax in service of trying to pollute and sexualize our children,” he said. “A lot of what’s been going on is an attempt to create a political narrative.” For those who’ve dealt with the effects on the ground, DeSantis is the one spreading falsehoods. “It’s complete gaslighting,” Marie Masferrer, a Hillsborough County Media Specialist who’s been campaigning against the law on the ground over the past year, told TPM. “The other thing that’s happening is teachers and librarians are censoring their own library themselves because they’re afraid. Fear is the point.” Don Falls, a Manatee County social studies teacher who’s spoken out against the censorship, said that the government can still ban books even without explicitly saying so. “If you use your position of power to intimidate and threaten someone with the potential loss of employment, civil litigation and criminal charges,” he told TPM, “you successfully ban books without actually banning them.” Jen Cousins, an organizer with the Florida Freedom to Read Project, pointed out that books like And Tango Makes Three, a book about two same-sex penguins in a relationship, and I Am Jazz,…