Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr apparently isn’t content just to be the comedy and talk show police. With the zeal of a hall monitor a little too eager to please the principal, Carr digs up archaic regulations and flagrantly threatens to use regulatory power for nakedly partisan purposes. And now it seems he’s taking on the role of patriotism cop, too.
In a statement released last Friday, the trollish MAGA culture warrior called for broadcasters to “pledge to provide programming that promotes civic education, national pride, and our shared history” as part of the FCC’s Pledge America campaign — itself a part of President Donald Trump’s Salute to America 250 Task Force.
Some of Carr’s suggestions for patriotic content seem like they’re from the mind of a 150-year-old.
Carr, whose earlier threats to Disney and ABC over a Jimmy Kimmel monologue led Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to liken the FCC chairman to a “mafioso” straight out of “Goodfellas,” indicated in the statement that this “patriotic, pro-America content” would be seen by the broadcasting regulator-in-chief as “fulfilling their public interest mandate.” This, presumably, would help inoculate broadcasters from punitive investigations like the ones Carr has already made a habit of launching. (An addendum to the FCC’s press release notes that it is “voluntary” for broadcasters to “choose to indicate their commitment to the Pledge America Campaign.”)
Now, to be very clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with “pro-America” content or expressions of patriotism — especially in celebration of America’s semiquincentennial. But as I’ve written previously, the idea that patriotism should be a “my country, right or wrong” monolith — or defined by support of President Donald Trump — is as absurd as it is dangerous.
Some of Carr’s suggestions for patriotic content seem like they’re from the mind of a 150-year-old, such as “starting each broadcast day with the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ or Pledge of Allegiance” or “airing music by America’s greatest composers, such as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, or George Gershwin,” who died in 1932, 1990, 1974 and 1937, respectively. (Is it un-American to think there might be some exceptional American composers who lived and created great music this century?)
Other Carr suggestions teem with irony, such as “segments during regular news programming that highlight local sites that are significant to American and regional history, such as National Park Service sites.” Trump’s slash-and-burn federal cost-cutting will deprive the National Park Service of more than $1.2 billion over the next year, and NPS has lost nearly a quarter of its previous workforce, according to a data analysis by the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association.
One wonders if Carr would consider it patriotic if local broadcasters called for more funding for NPS sites. More likely, he’d consider such criticism of Trump administration policy to be an unpatriotic violation of broadcasters’ “public interest mandate.”
Carr cited classic civics-oriented children’s fare like “Schoolhouse Rock!,” which was mostly produced in the 1970s, as the kind he’d like to see broadcasters revive. But I can’t help but wonder how the 1976 pro-immigration song “The Great American Melting Pot” would be received by an administration that’s not only engaging in a brutal crackdown on illegal immigration, but is also trying to end the constitutional birthright to citizenship and openly seeking legal avenues to denaturalize foreign-born U.S. citizens. (The 1975 song “No More Kings” is about resisting British tyranny, but could easily be adopted as a resistance anthem at a moment when America arguably has its most monarchical-inclined president ever.)
The FCC may have thrown the word “voluntary” in its statement, but you can’t have it both ways. Carr’s FCC wields the “public interest mandate” as a cudgel, and only occasionally pretends it’s doing so as a nonpartisan body insisting all parties “follow the law.”
Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, in a post on X, responded to Carr’s missive, saying, “Nothing is more American than defending our constitutional rights against those who would erode our civil liberties. If broadcasters choose to participate in this FCC campaign, they can do so by defending their First Amendment rights and refusing government interference.” That would be something. Present as patriotic heroes the Americans who risked everything to stand up to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare” witch hunts. The people who faced down Bull Connor’s attack dogs to march for civil rights. The gay rights activists whose very existence was criminalized — but who used their voices and eventually won. Those are just a few suggestions for any broadcasters that want to provide some “patriotic, pro-America content” highlighting American bravery in the face of abusive, unaccountable government and showing patriotic gratitude for the awesome, uniquely American superpower of robust freedom of speech. Carr should love that.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider. 
Per Carr’s suggestion for broadcasters to do “Today in American History” segments, for instance, they could highlight moments when the First Amendment was used by ordinary citizens as a bulwark against tyranny.
