Trump FCC Tries To Bully Comcast Away From Its Already Flimsy Dedication To Civil Rights
Since his appointment by Trump in 2017, the FCC's Brendan Carr has never stood up to telecom giants on any issue of substance to consumers. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the company's destruction of net neutrality, privacy violations, bullshit hidden fees, or its technically unnecessary usage caps, there's nothing a company like Comcast could do to get Brendan Carr to give a damn.
But some flimsy support for civil rights on a website? Now that's just a bridge too far for Brendan.
Carr this week leaked word to right wing propaganda mill Newsmax that he's tasked the FCC's enforcement bureau with launching an investigation into whether Comcast is breaking any laws (they're not) by still having references to diversity initiatives on their website:
I am writing to inform you that I have asked the FCC's Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation into Comcast and NBCUniversal. In particular, I want to ensure that your companies are not promoting invidious forms of discrimination in violation of FCC regulations and civil rights laws."
If you're new to authoritarian bullshit, Trump's lickspittles are trying to eliminate popular civil rights reforms because they're racist assholes. Trump propagandists have glommed on to flimsy corporate DEI" initiatives as a bogeyman so they can get the press and public to conflate often hollow corporate inclusivity policies with popular civil rights and normalize bigotry. Under the pretense of efficiency.
The added lie that eliminating civil rights reforms is solving invidious discrimination" is a nice bit of dipshit doublespeak from the kind of right wing chuds who make savvy references to George Orwell's 1984, but clearly never actually read the book or understood any of its warnings.
Carr's singling out Comcast because Comcast owns NBC, and he wants the company to soften its journalism coverage of Trump. It's part of his broader effort to leverage the FCC to bully media companies into kissing Trump's ass, and pretty typical tactics for weak-kneed authoritarians. Because so many U.S. companies are amoral feckless self-serving chickenshits, it's working pretty well so far.
Carr has also been taking a hatchet to the FCC's civil rights reforms, including the recent, long-overdue acknowledgement that the U.S. has a long history of discrimination in broadband deployment (mirroring our longstanding discrimination history on energy and highway construction). Trump orbit simpletons all believe they can bully the world into pretending systemic racism doesn't exist.
There's some irony here: Comcast has a long history of using its flimsy dedication to civil rights as cover for underhanded lobbying initiatives. For example the company has long co-opted some civil rights groups to get mergers approved or regulations they don't like (we'll pay you money for a new events center if you support the assault on net neutrality, for example) scrapped.
Comcast's former top lobbyist David Cohen used to call himself the company's Chief Diversity Officer" to skirt around steadily eroding U.S. lobbying restrictions. They used to get really mad at me for pointing it out. Cohen would have Comcast bring broadband to a few marginalized neighborhood schools, then leverage that attention to extract favorable policy concessions.
Traditionally, the GOP and telecom giants are in corrupt lockstep, and the GOP historically rubber stamps telecom monopolies' every attempt to screw over consumers. But Trump's dullard authoritarianism ads a new wrinkle to the mix, potentially alienating former political allies who helped enable this whole mess because they wanted some tax cuts, merger approvals, and mindless deregulation.
It's extremely unlikely there's ever an actual legal case brought related to this. Comcast could easily afford to stand up to the FCC given the shaky footing Carr's on. But as we're seeing all over the country, big companies would rather be feckless invertebrates, lest showing any backbone result in an unfavorable regulatory environment" for their business ambitions.
Still, the more enemies Trumpism makes (and they seemingly have no reservations about making enemies everywhere, constantly), the tougher sledding they're going to have over the longer haul. It may take time, but the pendulum always swings back around. When it eventually does (after U.S. companies get their extended tax cuts, I suspect), it will likely take more than a few heads with it.