C'mon... you didn't think this administration would really choose between changing their policies or facing blowback from them via the press, did you? Please.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:08 AM on April 7 [14 favorites]

Start with Sinclair, right? That's the obvious first application of this anti-distortion ruling?
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:11 AM on April 7 [18 favorites]

Considering the number of examples where "bias against" consists of accurately reporting on various political figures have said, done, voted for or against, or written in to bills ...
posted by Enturbulated at 7:16 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]

Every accusation is a confession.

So they'll start with Fox, right? Right? Oh.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:18 AM on April 7 [22 favorites]

As a practical matter, I was wondering how this would work. CBS has 15 stations that it operates and 228 affiliates in the USA. But the owned-and-operated stations are the ones in major markets (New York, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, etc), so removing their broadcast license would have a relatively big impact.

But only about 1/6th of American homes can receive over-the-air broadcasts at all, and only a fraction of them rely on OTA. So in practical terms, maybe not that big of a deal if CBS' broadcast license were revoked. Going after the 228 affiliates would probably not be worth it to the FCC.

The real goal is not so much to punish as to frighten into submission, I imagine. And considering how many institutions have been "complying in advance," it could be effective in that.
posted by adamrice at 7:23 AM on April 7 [26 favorites]

I wonder what the correlation is between voting patterns (part affiliation) and households that rely on OTA.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:28 AM on April 7 [4 favorites]

With apologies for once again beating my "look to Hungary" drum, what they did there was to use threats of fines and licenses being revoked to motivate the changes they wanted. In some cases, the financial backers of the media orgs would replace leadership with people more aligned with the administration's goals and worldview, so as to preserve their businesses. In others, they opted to just sell the stations/newspapers/etc. to flee the industry. The government would then only approve sales to ideologically compliant people of their choosing.

The mass media in Hungary now mostly says what Fidesz wants it to say.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:29 AM on April 7 [39 favorites]

maybe not that big of a deal

let's give it some time, I'm sure it's not that big of a deal. see what happens, play things out a little more, I'm pretty sure they'll go a little too far and the electorate will really give them hell. or the Dems will swoop in and save us. any day now.
posted by ginger.beef at 7:33 AM on April 7 [59 favorites]

I really don't know how people who are pro-Fanta Fuhrer think that this qualifies as "freedom."
posted by Kitteh at 7:36 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

I really don't know how people who are pro-Fanta Fuhrer think that this qualifies as "freedom."

It's freedom for THEM to say what they want without anyone disagreeing with them, see?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:43 AM on April 7 [34 favorites]

It's almost trite to point it out at this point, but you know what "freedom" is to these folks. It's freedom to be racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/anti-immigrant/openly Christian nationalist. It's freedom to know none of their tax dollars are being used to help anyone they think is beneath them. instead, they're being used to create the right environment so that they, the temporarily embarrassed millionaires, will somehow soon be restored to their correct place in the social hierarchy.

It's freedom to make a pile of their lessers for them to stand on so they can be tall.

I mean you know. I know you know. And I know why you present the question and that it's rhetorical. But still.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:44 AM on April 7 [41 favorites]

Even if you figure it's only maybe one out of every six Americans who even get broadcast TV, and maybe only half of those who uncritically get their opinions from it, and maybe only half of those who actually vote, you're talking about a highly useful 4% swing toward the GOP delivered in a way those voters probably won't even track is happening. It's not nothing.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:51 AM on April 7 [13 favorites]

One thing I don't understand is how this looks if you're a right-wing broadcaster. Doesn't it just create more competition for advertiser dollars? If 60 Minutes is forced to be an hour-long Trump worship session, what happens to your viewers in that time slot?

Obviously logic--even market logic--is not foremost in the minds of these decision-makers, but I feel like if I owned a right-wing station, I'd be pretty mad about this?
posted by mittens at 7:58 AM on April 7 [8 favorites]

I really don't know how people who are pro-Fanta Fuhrer think that this qualifies as "freedom."

True MAGA believers 100% believe any thing critical of 45/47 is unfair news coverage and lies. They believe the news media, in reporting anything negative about him, are not treating him fairly. So they see this as being a fair application of law.
posted by Atreides at 8:08 AM on April 7 [7 favorites]

This is terrible but I thought the last 16++ months was already rehearsal, if you're against genocide. So expect more of the same but with a wider net and actual government teeth.
posted by cendawanita at 8:09 AM on April 7 [7 favorites]

Yeah, this is not the time to "best of all possible worlds" Pollyanna this bullshit. Likewise don't give me any "the American media is corporate propaganda so this is fine" accelerationist garbage, either. This is about establishing one-party state control. It's destroying the last vestiges of free speech and in particular about calling the 1% and 0.1% to heel. This is extremely bad, especially because it does not fall into an "orange man bad" box of bad things happening. This is about the revanchist ultra right as a movement specifically looking to places like Hungary as an example. You can get rid of the ersatz orange il Duce, but this will still be a problem. Peter Thiel and his ilk are all about it. It fits in just fine with Yarvin's techno-royalism and the nakedly oligarchic vision of Project 2025. It's very, very bad.

@mittens, they think they'll be on top of the media pyramid, and they may well be right about that.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 8:10 AM on April 7 [36 favorites]

How can anybody say that this is nothing? It¡¯s everything! With every little removal of freedom of choice you get closer and closer to no freedom of choice. No newspapers, no art, no theatre, no tv, no movies, no television, no online streaming, no online websites that will be able to criticize the government. DirtyOldTown is 100% correct that this playbook is exactly like Hungary¡¯s.
posted by ashbury at 8:12 AM on April 7 [21 favorites]

> One thing I don't understand is how this looks if you're a right-wing broadcaster.

Money is power and power is money, and in a corrupt regime you cannot have money without political power.

"Competition" is only a threat if the other party has power to stand against you; if it doesn't, you just strangle them into submission.
posted by NotAYakk at 8:16 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

One thing I don't understand is how this looks if you're a right-wing broadcaster.

It launches a contest to see who can out-bootlick whom, a feedback loop of fuckery, which serves the ruling party just fine.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:18 AM on April 7 [10 favorites]

how long is this stage going to last, where people are still hung up on things like consistency..

"oh so NOW freedom of speech is no longer important" yeah, you sure got Fox News with that one
posted by ginger.beef at 8:24 AM on April 7 [10 favorites]

This is about establishing one-party state control.

I agree.

It launches a contest to see who can out-bootlick whom

Exactly.

Unlike DoT, I am still not American, and do actually still live in such an authoritarian media ecosystem. I hope I'm not the one being described as accelerationist. But what I have been saying, since November 2023, is that once you take off the brakes for one marginalized group on your way to destroying your own norms much less regulations, then all bets are off once an actual gang of criminals comes in with the buffet of broken systems at their disposal now.
posted by cendawanita at 8:25 AM on April 7 [19 favorites]

Welp, Newsmax and Fox News are fucked. /s
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:28 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

For anybody thinking this is less of a deal than it sounds because broadcast television is a minority medium compared to cable:

What makes you think they *won't* regulate cable? Precedent means nothing when it inconveniences them.
posted by at by at 8:32 AM on April 7 [12 favorites]

I mean, look. Let's get real. This is signaling broadly that the power of the state will be exercised against media that is critical of the regime in power. This starts with using laws on the books, but once those institutions are brought to heel, then who will report if and when the administration starts using extralegal means to crack down on alternative media, or pushes through new, draconian laws defining "critical" speech in any context as illegal.

This -- and fascism generally -- is not about technicalities like "what is the law." You know what it's about. I know what it's about. Mf'n rich people better wake up and smell what it's about, or they'll all be stuck in it with us.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 8:42 AM on April 7 [22 favorites]

This is about establishing one-party state control.

Absolutely. And there is no right or left in anti-liberal totalitarianism once total authority is established. There is no longer need for an opposition debate metaphor or any political language, simply a source of thought crime versus the supreme leader.
posted by Brian B. at 8:44 AM on April 7 [3 favorites]

These guys are overplaying their hand so massively it's incredible to watch. Even if this succeeds and works to its intended purpose, all it accomplishes is the permanent isolation of broadcast TV as some sort of new visual AM radio. They think they are going to permanently win a battle of ideas by locking down the physical battlefields. They are too caught up in this excitement to have any concept of what unintended consequences are going to result not only directly from these actions but from the unreal extent to which they are overplaying their hand
posted by feloniousmonk at 8:52 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

Also, instead of focusing on major corporate media which has largely already stepped in line, or will be willing to do so once shareholder value is at risk -- give a thought to the public broadcast networks, which have been a target of the right wing for decades and are almost guaranteed to be shut up or shut down by this.
posted by at by at 8:54 AM on April 7 [7 favorites]

Samizdat ever was.
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 8:56 AM on April 7 [21 favorites]

Brian B.: "there is no right or left in anti-liberal totalitarianism once total authority is established. There is no longer need for an opposition debate metaphor or any political language, simply a source of thought crime versus the supreme leader."

The current US presidential administration is not (not currently anyway) going for that kind of fast autocracy. They're going for the slow autocracy model. (See this post for more on that distinction.) The goal isn't to completely eliminate dissent. It's to disempower it until it is ineffectual/irrelevant.

In Hungary, for instance, it is still technically possible that the left may overthrow the ruling party in the next election because of growing dissatisfaction with economy. But this would be their to-do list: convince voters that the data coming from the government describing how the economy is doing is manipulated and not representative of reality (they might have this one licked, FWIW); connect with voters without no assistance from (and often direct antagonism from) the media, which is state controlled/directed/influenced across nearly all major outlets; get these voters to the polls despite widespread, ongoing policies that disenfranchise the "wrong" kinds of voters; do so to levels that would overpower the built-in advantages that Fidesz has installed for themselves, such as extensive gerrymandering, out-of-district voting, voting by people who are not and have never been residents but have (fairly easy to obtain) Hungarian passports, etc.; force these results through challenge/vote disqualification systems meant to impede opposition votes; survive any legal challenges presented by Fidesz and adjudicated by their handpicked judges and courts.

It's not like in Russia where the opposition is either symbolic or essentially fugitive and at perpetual risk of assassination. There is a real opposition in Hungary. They have not been disappeared or entirely silenced. Instead, the entire political system has been reworked to make every individual step harder for them. They can still tip the scales in their favor, they would just have to do it with a big fat thumb on the scale working against them. And if they prevailed, they would have reduced and diminished tools to make lasting, substantive changes to conditions, limited chances to undo things Fidesz has already done, and a news media ready to excoriate them for any perceived failures, real or imagined, with the previous ruling party ready to take the wheel again when this doesn't prove wonderfully effective.

If anything, you could argue this last part describes the transition we have just gone through in the US...
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:11 AM on April 7 [26 favorites]

The immediate answer, I think, is to report everything dripping with sarcasm. Something something plausible deniability something.

"What? We said the tariffs were a SPECTACULAR idea. We did. That's what we said."
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 9:12 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

I feel like there¡¯s not enough beating of the ¡°look to Hungary¡± drum - that¡¯s the playbook, we need it.
posted by Selena777 at 9:18 AM on April 7 [6 favorites]

The current US presidential administration is not (not currently anyway) going for that kind of fast autocracy. They're going for the slow autocracy model. (See this post for more on that distinction.) The goal isn't to completely eliminate dissent. It's to disempower it until it is ineffectual/irrelevant.

Not sure when the train is scheduled to derail. This all depends on the "weaknesses" in a targeted political system, many of which are undiscovered. The playbook is simply money derived from a mafia state, currently led by Nazi subscribers and supported by end-of-times evangelicalism. Possibly a fast track there, and they do not want to risk future prosecution by the old system.
posted by Brian B. at 9:51 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

But only about 1/6th of American homes can receive over-the-air broadcasts at all

That seems astonishingly low, if true. I mean, I¡¯ve been in some seriously secluded in-the-middle-of-nowhere places that could absolutely pull-in OTA tv with a tall enough antenna.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:57 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

I agree that we are currently in an Autocracy on the Fence (as per that post DirtyOldTown cited), but there are potential transition points in the future.

On April 20th, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security will submit a report on whether or not Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. The stated purpose is security at the southern border but I think you'd be nuts to assume it won't a) recommend invoking the Insurrection Act and b) recommend actions all over the country.

The Insurrection Act allows Trump to deploy the military inside US borders for the purpose of suppressing insurrection (widely defined) and "obstruction to the laws." It suspends the Posse Comitatus Act, and allows the military to become involved in civilian law enforcement.

I am not predicting that this will be the tipping point into true autocracy, but it is certainly a potential one.
posted by Bryant at 10:05 AM on April 7 [8 favorites]

I¡¯ve been in some seriously secluded in-the-middle-of-nowhere places that could absolutely pull-in OTA tv with a tall enough antenna.

It probably means 1/6 of homes have an antenna and tuner (i.e. already own the equipment).
posted by ryanrs at 10:07 AM on April 7 [3 favorites]

Even that is a loose adaptation of Hungary, where Orb¨¢n was granted emergency powers during COVID that he is apparently never giving back.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:11 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

"Working for the Clampdown"

We have to figure out a way to fight this bullshit.
posted by Windopaene at 10:11 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

I didn't quote properly, but the above was in reply to Bryant discussing the possible invocation of the Insurrection Act.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:11 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

Thorzad, maybe that just means only 1/6th of US households have a TV with an antenna or other over-the-air receiver?

A quick google search says, 80% of the US population lives in a metropolitan area. Those must be covered by broadcast, maybe I'm wrong on that.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:27 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

On April 20th, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security

i.e. a rapist, Christian-nationalist, war-crime-defending alcoholic (Hegseth) and a puppy-killing sadist (Noem)
posted by jedicus at 10:29 AM on April 7

Thorzdad: "But only about 1/6th of American homes can receive over-the-air broadcasts at all

That seems astonishingly low,"

FWIW, I got that figure from Nielsen. I assume it refers to households that have digital antennas. At one point, I bought an indoor digital antenna and couldn't pull in a signal with it, so I returned it. So, if my assumption is correct, I'm among the group that "can't" receive OTA broadcasts. I'm guessing if I put an external antenna on my house, I could.
posted by adamrice at 10:30 AM on April 7

18% of households currently receive broadcast TV. Most television models today have stopped supplying tuner cards inside their sets, requiring a cheap box to translate the signal from antennae, also available for computers. Most older sets easily tune to these free signals if one uses their remote to scan for broadcast channels inside one of their settings selections. I've encountered many people who claim they cut cable and only watch some subscriber channels, wishing they had some free channels, when in fact they do. Even old rabbit ears will work.
posted by Brian B. at 10:38 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

This is not counting people who have TV and radio on in their workplaces, at the cafe or bar, in the waiting rooms and lobbies of wherever they¡¯re at.
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:46 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

It's a bit of ideological whiplash to see a lot of MeFites enthusing about the virtues of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the one side and then lamenting the problems of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the other side.
posted by vitia at 10:47 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]

> This is not counting people who have TV and radio on in their workplaces, at the cafe or bar, in the waiting rooms and lobbies of wherever they¡¯re at.

Also the people who watch broadcast TV on cable. This would include all local TV outside of major cities and I'm guessing also a pretty hefty volume of ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox network programming.
posted by at by at 10:50 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

"Both candidates are equally bad, my conscience won't allow me to vote for either of them." -- Someone who probably thought they were very clever, six months ago
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 10:53 AM on April 7 [9 favorites]

Soooo¡­ what happened to Hungarians whose social media and web forum posting histories were critical of the regime? Asking for a friend.
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:55 AM on April 7

Nothing will happen because they'll all comply, like they've always done.
posted by jy4m at 11:07 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

Doesn't it just create more competition for advertiser dollars?

Well it removes the opportunity for someone to create basically the same thing, an unapologetically ultra-partisan PR machine masquerading as journalism, only pandering to the left. So in that sense of "competition" it stifles it.
posted by ctmf at 11:09 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

It's a bit of ideological whiplash to see a lot of MeFites enthusing about the virtues of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the one side and then lamenting the problems of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the other side.

There is right and there is wrong. There is good and there is evil. One must fall, and there can be no compromise.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:09 AM on April 7 [3 favorites]

> it¡¯s a bit of ideological whiplash to see a lot of mefites enthusing about the virtues of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the one side and then lamenting the problems of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the other side.

so i think there¡¯s this widespread tendency to fall into what I¡¯ve named — right now! I just named it! — means fetishism. one is engaging in means fetishism when one starts with the old chestnut ¡°the ends don¡¯t justify the means¡± and then goes on to claim, implicitly or explicitly, in good faith or otherwise, that means are the only thing that matters.

in practice, the ends toward which one acts are vastly more important than the means by which one carries them out in almost all scenarios, and the scenarios wherein the means are as important as or more important than the ends are scenarios wherein the use of specific means undermines the attempt to achieve the desired ends.

talking about means fetishism and the problems that arise from it is very difficult in our contemporary social/medial environment, though, for a couple of different reasons:

1. that silly ¡°the ends don¡¯t justify the means!¡± clich¨¦ operates as a thought-terminating device
2. we¡¯re all a little drunk still on claims that the liberal public sphere exists/has ever existed. under this concept, a specific means — debate in public between people understood to be formal equals — becomes understood as the only admissible means toward any end, and failure to work using these means is seen as inherently bad

anyway. in this case what you perceive as ideological whiplash is not real even if one takes the establishment/preservation of the hypothetical liberal public sphere for debate and the associated concept of ¡°free speech¡± as the proper end, since there is a valid case for the argument that the suppression of certain types of mercenary speech is necessary to preserve that hypothetical public sphere in which debate happens. there is no immediately obvious argument — correct me if i¡¯m wrong — for the claim that the state suppression of speech against this particular government, party, or president is necessary for the preservation of the space in which hypothetically free speech happens.

are there scenarios in which state suppression of specific speech acts against a government, party, or politician is necessary or good? yes indeed! — but the determinative factor is the end toward which these means are applied rather than the means themselves.

who decides what ends are good and what are bad? you do! every day! and you have to refine your sense of what¡¯s right and what¡¯s wrong every minute of every day, and you have to fight for your moral/political beliefs regardless of whether or not you¡¯re certain they¡¯re correct, because we find ourselves forced to live, think, and act in an uncertain universe or else die.
posted by Sperry Topsider at 11:12 AM on April 7 [12 favorites]

I think it's about more than what it's about. It's the final test of whether the constitution is enforceable or not. This is so clearly regulating speech based on content and viewpoint I don't know how anyone could even pretend it's constitutional. The question is, do we care? Enough?
posted by ctmf at 11:13 AM on April 7 [6 favorites]

They're living in an alternate reality where for the past 50 years Evil Leftists have controlled everything from the FBI to the TV news, where Trump was a lion brought down by jealous Biden who weaponized law enforcement against him out of sheer malice and political vengeance.

So of course all the Trump voters will believe that every news channel except FOX (and possibly not even FOX if they're deep enough into the rabbit hole that OANN or the like are the "real" news) has been a propaganda operation by Democrats and is in dire need of a return to fact based, neutral, reporting. Like FOX does!

They see this not as an assault on an essentiall iberty, but as the preservation of freedom in the face of a vast and powerful cabal operated by shadowy elites who want to destroy the family, eradicate whiteness by mongrolizing white people, and destroy America basically just because they're elementally evil and love doing evil things for evil reasons.

And if you disagree? If you suggest that maybe Trump just commited crimes and the justice system was doing its job? Or that the media they consume is so biased they confuse real neutrlaity with bias? Well then you're, at best, part of the sheeple who need to take the red pill [1], or at worst you're one of THEM! Or maybe just a paid schill.

What really worries me is that the MAGA Six on the Supreme Court seem likely to back up the (truly) weaponized FCC and tear down the First Amendment.

[1] The fact that a movie made by two trans people in 1999 has somehow become the metaphor of choice for far right wingers who would doubtless hate the Wachawskis if they knew anything about them is another of those "JFC the writers are lazy' moments.

Also, I just want to add the irrelevancy that in her video about conspiracy I really loved how Contrapoints mangled that so it became "take the rabbit pill and find out just how deep Dorothy's hole goes".
posted by sotonohito at 11:22 AM on April 7 [10 favorites]

Trump is scary as hell, but, let¡¯s face, he¡¯s old and will pass away at some point in the near future. What¡¯s absolutely pants-shittingly terrifying is contemplating who might come after him. He¡¯s setting us up so that whoever is next can take us down.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:24 AM on April 7 [3 favorites]

I'd ALSO really fucking like to see some high ranking Democrats, like Schumer for example, standing up and telling the Republicans that whatever they do we will return unto them ten times worse.

Y'all going to say that since Dear Leader declared DEI to be evil and is punishing anyone with "improper ideology"? OK, fine, next time we're in power we'll fucking well decide that anyone who isn't advocating for trans rights and eradicating racism is using "improper ideology" and we'll ruin them.

Y'all going to say that DEI is evil and therefore you're eradicating all mention of Black people? Dude, we'll say white people are the recipients of reputational welfare, rename everything named after any white man after a trans Black woman, mandate the destruction of all pro-Confederate monuments, pass a law that say no military base can ever be named to anything that even sounds like the name of a Confederate leader, and rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Donald Trump Is a Pedophile and Cheats At Golf and Reagan Sucked Too.

Whatever you do, we'll do it back and ten times worse so back the fuck down now while you've still got a chance.

But they won't.

JustSayNoDawg The problem has never been Trump personally. Without all the Fascist sympathizers who vote for him he'd just be a random asshole with an opinion. The problem, is that there's a whole fuckton of Amricans who (correctly) see that we've got problems here, and (incorrectly) decide that Fascism is a great solution.

Mind you, the part where the Democrats were all "lulz no the economy is doing great, who are you going to believe your own lying eyes or this line going up. Also Biden is vigorous, fully mentally competent, and anyone who points out that he's feeble and senile is lying" didn't really help much.

It was obvious to everyone that the Democrats were bullshitting America about two kind of important things (the economy and the President being medically capable of the job), and while for very close to half of America the part where the alternative was Fasicsm meant we put up with it, for the low information and frankly just generally Nazi sympathetic voters it was enough to make them think Trump was totally a great idea.

And that's the problem.

The Democrats STILL don't have a message to run on other than "lulz orange man bad" and the social/economic conditions that lead people to dive into conspiracism and Fascism are still present and growing.

Trump could have a heart attack tomorrow and that wouldn't actually make anything better. Because the flaw is in ourselves, not in our politicians.

Trump is a reflection of a sick and dying country, not a supervillain who singlehandedly ruined America.
posted by sotonohito at 11:33 AM on April 7 [9 favorites]

80% of the US population lives in a metropolitan area.
I live within 25 miles of the core of my metro area, and can¡¯t get most local stations OTA. Interestingly, my new TV came with a feature where they have internet based versions of the local channels, hosted by the TV manufacturer. But only the news segments, not the network entertainment programming.
posted by funkaspuck at 11:38 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

The Dem message should be "we take care of everyone in this country." I mean, when I go to local events, that is the messaging of the local democratic party. Love everyone and look out for each other.

Kamala Harris had messaging not too far off from that. "We deserve a government that works for all of us."
posted by subdee at 11:52 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]

Trump Will Get His Showy (And Likely Expensive) Military Parade in D.C.
posted by chavenet at 12:11 PM on April 7 [1 favorite]

I'd ALSO really fucking like to see some high ranking Democrats, like Schumer for example, standing up and telling the Republicans that whatever they do we will return unto them ten times worse.

who would believe such a threat?
posted by ryanrs at 12:21 PM on April 7 [6 favorites]

Wow, they even namedrop Grover Norquist as being against this.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:31 PM on April 7 [1 favorite]

How would FCC even enforce such a ruling? Any such ruling will be contested in court, and proving bias will be incredibly difficult. Then would they go physically shut down the transmitters if the court finds in CBS's favor? What's to stop CBS from just turning them back on?
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 12:55 PM on April 7

a lot of MeFites enthusing about the virtues of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the one side and then lamenting the problems of censoring, banning, or restricting media on the other side

This particular MeFite is no more enthusiatic about seeing false equivalences in this thread than in the other. Those who habitually spout them do their own reputations no favours.
posted by flabdablet at 1:00 PM on April 7 [11 favorites]

Just the one swan, actually They could fine CBS for using the frequencies unlicensed, and sell the license for those frequencies to a different outlet (Sinclair would doubtless love to buy it).

I'm sure that the FCC would move lightning fast to get the frequencies licensed to some Trumphumper as an upraised middle finger to CBS.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they just did it while lawsuits were still being processed then it'd be all "Oh we're SO SORRY but thanks to DOGE we move faster than the speed of the outmoded and corrupt judicial system and now any ruling to reverse it would cause irreperable harm to the new owner so I guess CBS is just out of luck, right?"
posted by sotonohito at 1:12 PM on April 7 [1 favorite]

> How would FCC even enforce such a ruling?

Just create a federal political police force in charge of suppressing dissent. Lots of places have them, like the good old USSR; that was the primary purpose of the KGB.

> Any such ruling will be contested in court, and proving bias will be incredibly difficult.

Your institutions won't save you; you have to save your institutions.

The other two branches can replace judges, harm or threaten judges, impeach judges, pick which judges have juristiction over cases, etc.

The constitutional order is a gentleman's agreement; it is just a piece of paper. Only if there are people willing to bleed to defend it, it becomes more.
posted by NotAYakk at 1:13 PM on April 7 [10 favorites]

Sperry Topsider, I believe our word for the term "means fetishism" that you've just coined is "democracy."
posted by vitia at 1:28 PM on April 7

The preamble of the constitution is pretty clear as to its purpose. Our democracy has always had limits, such as the bill of rights, to protect the individual from unconstrained majority rule. The end goal isn't just 'we have lots of elections'.
posted by ryanrs at 1:45 PM on April 7 [3 favorites]

Trump is a reflection of a sick and dying country

Yes, from a low interpretation of morality that mocks losers and praises winners. Fundamentalism isn't just literalist dogma, but true belief in absolute authority; personal freedom by heavenly sent wealth only. This is enforced from the bottom up, by the common urge to punish those who assert their rights without acknowledging a divine social ordering (how dare they).
posted by Brian B. at 2:07 PM on April 7

It won't just be news. I'd already been wondering how long Jon Stewart, Seth Myers, et al would be allowed to dunk on Trump before they started getting cancelled (or dying of sudden and highly suspicious "heart attacks.") Months ago I saw a bus billboard for Jimmy Kimmel Live that said WATCH MY SHOW BEFORE YOU-KNOW-WHO PUTS ME IN JAIL. It's one of those jokes that's not really a joke.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:33 PM on April 7 [7 favorites]

I have been thinking today about how April 20th is the day Trump will hear back on whether it's okay to invoke that law that will let him declare an emergency, and use the military to stifle civilian dissent.

April 20th. Hitler's birthday. No way was that not on purpose.
posted by subdee at 4:20 PM on April 7 [7 favorites]

Ha... That wasn't on purpose though...
posted by subdee at 7:43 PM on April 7 [3 favorites]

subdee: "Ha... That wasn't on purpose though..."

Maybe the emergency is a lack of weed
posted by chavenet at 12:56 AM on April 8 [2 favorites]

> There is a real opposition in Hungary. They have not been disappeared or entirely silenced. Instead, the entire political system has been reworked to make every individual step harder for them. They can still tip the scales in their favor, they would just have to do it with a big fat thumb on the scale working against them.

part of this (importantly?) i think is because the EU has a bigger (if less wieldy) thumb helping out the liberal opposition; one reason (besides russia's ukraine war) poland was able to get out from under PiS in 2023.

also btw...
-Hungarians keep up protests against Orban's move to ban Pride
-Hungary plans legislation preventing blockade of bridges during protests, Orban says

the US of course doesn't have a bigger thumb to appeal to...

> I'd ALSO really fucking like to see some high ranking Democrats, like Schumer for example, standing up and telling the Republicans that whatever they do we will return unto them ten times worse.

fwiw...
This Billionaire Democrat Is Ready to Brawl - "Into this fray has stepped Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a progressive billionaire pitching his potent combination of working-class issues, sharp business sense and reputation as a good-natured brawler."

¡°It took Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic,¡± said Pritzker, who is of Jewish and Ukrainian descent. Some Republican lawmakers walked out of the chamber in protest, calling the speech divisive and inflammatory. Pritzker rebuffed the accusation, saying that ¡°I think it is important to talk about the destruction of a constitutional republic.¡±

Pritzker¡¯s chief of staff, Anne Caprara, recently reduced the current split in the Democratic Party to its simplest terms. The division, she said, is not among far left, progressive and moderate, but ¡°between those who want to fight and those who want to cave.¡±

Democratic voters are tired of capitulation. A recent CNN poll showed overall voter favorability for the Democratic Party has sunk to a record low of 29% ¡ª and most of that drop has come from Democrats themselves. Tellingly, the poll revealed that 57% of Democratic voters and independents want representatives who will fight the GOP agenda. Only 42% favored bipartisanship.

Pritzker, a top surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris last fall, has seen voters¡¯ patience with the usual Democratic promises wear thin.

¡°If we want to regain the trust of the voters,¡± he said last week at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank based in Washington DC, ¡°Democrats have to deliver.¡± Pritzker¡¯s record of achievement on that score is good...

posted by kliuless at 1:49 AM on April 8 [13 favorites]