A while ago, Donald Trump would say anything to disassociate himself from Project 2025. Now that the coast is clear, the convicted president-elect has chosen one of its authors to serve as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
We still have two months before Trump is inaugurated, but already the nation is facing a hellscape of 20th-century fascistic magnitudes that rivals Trump’s own first tenure, with all four years packed into a single week. Whether we’re talking about mass deportations of immigrants in a state of panicked “national emergency,” or the fact that he’s already amassed quite the collection of bigoted fascists to serve in his cabinet, these four years are going to go by in an agonizingly slow fashion.
Now, it’s been revealed that Brendan Carr, who was previously appointed by Trump in 2017 as a member of the FCC, will now be leading the committee with a predominant anti-DEI stance.
Mere moments after the announcement, Carr took to X to write that “we must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.” What’s so interesting about this proposition is Carr’s long-held stance on TikTok and how it “poses a serious and unacceptable risk to America’s national security” just because the government is not in control of it. Carr has campaigned for TikTok to be banned, which also paralleled Trump’s opinion about the platform until he reversed it earlier this year to not damage his demographics.
Carr has accused big tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook of perpetrating this so-called “censorship cartel,” warning them in a letter that the FCC will dismantle the “Orwellian named NewsGuard” during Trump’s second term.
Perhaps most telling of all is Carr’s relationship with Elon Musk, now the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency. The two seem to be thick as thieves, and their interactions on X confirms that the FCC will be tearing down what Carr refers to as the Democrats’ “regulatory lawfare” against Musk’s Starlink. A recent editorial on Politico revealed that Carr’s assignment to the head of the FCC could funnel billions to Musk’s business efforts. Suddenly, all of the billionaire’s relentless campaigning for Trump starts to make sense.
And we’re only just beginning, folk. It’s strange to think that Trump hasn’t even stepped into the role — or re-stepped, I should say — and this nightmare scenario is unfolding right in front of our eyes. Then again, we always knew what Trump was going to do after winning, so this isn’t so much a surprise as it is a confirmation of our worst fears about him.
Ultimately, I think we should remember that Project 2025 has much more devastating implications than just a ban on TikTok or the destruction of DEI. Trump outright denied any association with the initiative, but now he’s blatantly hiring aides and advisors who helped draft it. If this is just a shadow of a glimpse of everything that’s to come in the next four years, then I dread to imagine what it’ll actually be like to live through it.