WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic senators on Wednesday hammered the Federal Communications Commission’s leader for pressuring broadcasters to take ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air, suggesting that Brendan Carr was politicizing an independent agency and trampling the First Amendment.
The FCC chairman refused to disown his comments about Kimmel and, when questioned by Democrats about an agency long considered autonomous, suggested it was not insulated from Trump’s pressure.
“The FCC is not an independent agency,” Carr said.
Carr later sidestepped questions about whether he considered the Republican president to be his boss and whether he had taken orders from Trump or his inner circle.
“President Trump has designated me as chairman of the FCC,” Carr added later. “I think it comes as no surprise that I’m aligned with President Trump on policy.”
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., noted that the FCC’s website described it as an “independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.”
Soon after, with the hearing still underway, the website changed, removing “independent” from a section describing its mission.
You just realised that now? This is what others have been saying for a long time! As an outsider looking at American politics, the Democratic party is the opposite cheek of the same ass, in which the other cheek is the Republican party. It’s unbelievable that many Americans refuse to see this. I get that the US has first past the post and has to vote for “lesser evil”, but other countries also have the same system, and yet these countries have third parties gaining seats and influencing policies massively. Heck, even one hundred years ago, third parties are getting elected in Congress and Senate.
Why are third parties aren’t getting elected anymore? The American public has been pacified by corporate mass media to think within a narrow and curated worldview. To quote Noam Chomsky: the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. Americans have been conditioned to think it’s only liberals versus conservatives, and Democrats versus Republicans. Meanwhile, both parties are in the pocket of the oligarchs.
It’s good that more and more Americans have been waking up, in an unironic sense, to think outside the corporate narrative, because the No Kings protests is a start for the mass mobilisation and activism. But this is useless if the movement does not translate to substantive electoral changes. Even many Americans still assume that the next presidential election will be establishment Democrats versus the far right Republican. And those who make assumption repeat the Democratic party thought terminating cliché of “vote for lesser evil” and “perfect is the enemy of good”. That said, it is good that many Americans gradually turning away from the corporate establishment worldview, and starting to become more politically active by now discussing to primary progressives into power to circumvent the first past the post system.