Special Report: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Named Policyband’s Player of the Year for 2025
Husband, dad, regulator, tower climber, dog lover, and weekend sportsman with a credible two-seam fastball, Carr is a superpatriot faithful to the American Republic’s democratic credo.
Except for the Wall Street Journal, is there a single varsity media outlet left in America that won’t treat FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as a total pariah? Inside the Beltway especially, Republican Carr is despised by far too many liberal elites as a Trump janissary out to destroy free speech – though the haters never seem to have trouble finding a friendly online forum to spew their anti-Carr insults across the digital firmament.
The caustic rhetoric aimed at Carr is so over the top that it seems as if the far left is just out to derive creepy satisfaction from saturating the public square with pointless exercises in puerile hyperbole.
At this juncture, the ask here is a simple one: Can’t the progressives just relax? What exactly has Carr done to merit leftist ignominy?
So, ABC funnyman Jimmy Kimmel got a fat lip, BFD.
Carr wrote NPR and PBS to find out if they were selling ads in apparent violation of federal law. That’s a First Amendment crisis? As honorable Americans, aren’t we supposed to obey the law?
Carr sent letters to Comcast and Disney about their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) activities, troubled that major corporations regulated by the FCC enforce policies anathema to America’s flowering multiracial society. Just when did it become a civil offense to see corrosion in rigid, numerical quotas?
Comcast and Disney can always engage in self-help if they don’t like the feel of FCC rules prohibiting invidious discrimination. Looks like Disney already has – by purging DEI from its latest annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ditto AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. (More after paywall.)
Assuming Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy can handle the demotion, I was the first to claim that Carr was far from perfect. Don’t you think that the beautiful American flag that he has waving from the rafters in the FCC’s lobby is a little small? Don’t you think it’s about time Carr made FCC Open Meetings purely English-only events, pursuant to Executive Order? And don’t you know he’s holding back some nifty pics from trips aboard Air Force One with our Commander-in-Chief? Hang on – being told all this Carr-bashing could trigger a few truly unwell folks ... like anyone with a byline at Techdirt.
The truth about Carr is that he remains a unique performer in the annals of the FCC. According to ChatGPT, 84 individuals plus Carr have served at the FCC during its 91-year checkered odyssey. Sounds about right. And no one comes even close to matching Carr in at least one fundamental respect.
A few years ago, Carr identified an issue: TikTok and U.S. national security. He used social media tools and traditional media channels to amplify his concerns. Finally, he called for an outright TikTok ban. What happened next? A politically divided Congress – Republican House, Democratic Senate – passed Carr’s ban bill last year. And President Joe Biden, a Democrat, gladly signed it into law allegedly without reliance on the autopen.
Carr celebrated this triumph grinning from ear to ear while bivouacked in his yurt deep within the administrative state. Do you know how many unctuous lobbyists with network hair, expensive teeth, a table at Cafe Milano, orchestra seats at the Kennedy Center, and a Tiffany Rolodex try to pull off what Carr did only to fail year after year after year? Far too many to count, I’m afraid.
Husband, dad, regulator, tower climber, dog lover, and weekend sportsman with a credible two-seam fastball, Carr is a superpatriot faithful to the American Republic’s democratic credo. He wants to see fair play restored at the FCC and speaks about this issue without rancor aimed at the progressive dumpster fire left behind by his woke predecessor. Classy guy. President Trump is in his corner. “I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy,” Trump said in September.
Correctly, Carr views the FCC as the tip of the spear in halting China’s bandit Communist regime from eroding American national security by sowing the stealthy incursions of Huawei Corp. and ZTE Corp. To achieve his ends, Carr will cheerfully absorb the unhinged level of abuse meted out by the likes of the Atlantic, the Guardian, Politico Gesellschaft, the Hollywood Reporter, the New Republic, Taylor Lorenz, Tom Wheeler, Oliver Darcy, Nilay Patel, Brian Stelter, and Dylan Byers. Or anyone with a byline at Techdirt, but I repeat myself.
Craig Aaron merits special mention. He’s the David Koresh-type narcissist who runs Free Press, a vicious left-wing hate cult bent on the immolation of the Republican subspecies.
The insane attacks on Carr are just that – insane. And they procreate in the same cesspool that surfaced the homicidal Net Neutrality lunatic who criminally threatened to kill Ajit Pai’s wife and kids a few days before Christmas 2017. After Charlie Kirk, the left should feel deep shame about embracing violent confrontation as a substitute for peaceful political dialogue.
There’s nothing wrong with @BrendanCarrFCC that a little group therapy for the left can’t cure. Carr is sui generis and that’s Latin for saying he’s doing a helluva job. And that’s why he is Policyband’s Player of the Year for 2025. Project 2026 ought to be something special.
I believe Carr is a disgrace and I suspect that all those ex-FCC officials who signed the petition calling for elimination of the news distortion rule do, too. The officials include ex-chairmen Mark Fowler and Dennis Patrick, Reaganites who believe strongly that the FCC should not police political speech under any circumstances. You can't say that you believe in the First Amendment and condone his attacks on the broadcast networks, PBS and NPR. There is no precedent for such attacks in at least the last half century. Carr is just another of the many sycophants who can't resist the allures of Trump World. For an invitation to Mar-a-Lago and a ride on Air Force One, he has sold out his own principles.