The FCC's 'Patriotic, Pro-America' Scheme Is More Media Intimidation
Trump is turning American history into culture war propaganda in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday. His wingman at the FCC is happy to help.
Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at Indistinct Chatter.
The FCC is pushing for ‘patriotic, Pro-America’ broadcast content about the nation’s 250th birthday. Don’t fall for it. This is yet another attempt to strong-arm and intimidate the media.
Like with everything else, Donald Trump wants to control the media narrative about the country’s 250th. That includes pushing the media to air his version of American patriotism. The one outlined in his widely derided 1776 report that whitewashes our history by warping the role of slavery and racism and diminishing, if not completely erasing, accomplishments by women and people of color.
For months now, Trump has been busy attacking America’s history throughout the entire federal government including censoring displays at our national parks and meddling with exhibits at the Smithsonian museums. Now he’s also pushing to turn American history into culture war propaganda in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday. His wingman at the FCC is happy to help.
In a move right out of the authoritarian playbook, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is calling on media companies to commit to his “Pledge America Campaign,” an effort that would include:
“Airing patriotic, pro-America content that celebrates the American journey and inspires its citizens by highlighting the historic accomplishments of this great nation from our founding through the Trump Administration today.”
MAGA media is excited to take up the mantle. Last week, Nexstar TV stations across the country joined Donald Trump’s effort to whitewash American history. They each posted the identical story on a touring exhibit called ‘Freedom Trucks,’ a so-called mobile museum that was created for the Trump administration by PragerU, one of the biggest names in right wing disinformation.
Of course, the Nexstar story didn’t raise any questions about the questionable content on display in these tricked out semi-trucks, nor did it dig into PragerU’s long history of literally rewriting history to fit a right-wing narrative.
The MAGA-coded truck tour is just one of many taxpayer-funded (yes, we are paying for this drek!)Trump endorsed PragerU efforts to rewrite history with a Christian White nationalist story line. Another is the “Founders Museum” with an exhibit at the White House, complete with AI generated videos of former presidents saying things they never said. As NPR reports, the John Adams animated video says, “Facts do not care about your feelings.” You know who did say that? Right-wing broadcaster Ben Shapiro and the late Charlie Kirk — but not the former president.
A traveling version of this fiction is showing up at Republican-run state capitols like the one in Lincoln, Nebraska. MAGA media is giddy reporting on all of it.
This type of skewed history and biased coverage of America’s 250th birthday is exactly what FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is aiming for with his latest pressure campaign aimed at all of the country’s broadcasters.
Carr’s goal isn’t getting broadcasters to produce content about America. It is to intimidate broadcasters to produce Trump friendly, PragerU-style propaganda for the administration. And every broadcaster in the country knows that Carr is ready to weaponize the FCC to get what he wants. (Just ask Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Colbert.)
This is Autocracy 101: control the message by controlling the media. So far, Trump has been frighteningly successful at it. In just 14 months, his administration has pressured 35 media companies and counting to compromise or outright abandon their editorial independence, fire Trump’s perceived enemies, self-censor critical Trump content, install MAGA-coded leaders like CBS’ Bari Weiss, and arrest journalists like Don Lemon and Georgia Fort on flimsy charges.
The Trump administration has also used its regulatory powers to regulate mergers to install Trump-friendly owners in major media companies, and to make sure the algorithms of social media are controlled by his allies.
The only Democratic FCC commissioner, Anna Gomez, responded to Carr’s latest state media-style tactic on social media. She wrote:
“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.”
Journalist Tim Karr added: “The notion that Trump censorship czar Brendan Carr will determine what is and what isn’t “pro-America” broadcasting content is itself anti-American.”
Former local news manager Willie Chriesman told me: “It seems highly unusual for the government to make ‘suggestions’ about content. But really, what isn’t unusual these days?”
All of this comes as broadcasters are already actively producing high quality content about our 250th without government coercion. There are already a variety of news stories, travel tips, and documentaries about this historical milestone. That includes the stellar “Ken Burns’ The American Revolution” documentary series for PBS and a NPR series called “America in Pursuit,” that focuses on the promise of America.
A local news exec I talked to said:
“Like all local and national media, our company has already started covering stories reflecting on America’s history, present day and future. We are showcasing Americans from all walks of life who’ve devoted themselves to protecting our freedoms — whatever that looks like.”
RadioWorld reports that the National Association of Broadcasters responded to the Carr missive by pointing a long list of existing America 250 projects. The NAB also has plans to introduce “new spots and tools for stations that choose to participate, building on the work already underway to inform, engage and serve audiences across the country in celebrating this momentous milestone for our country.”
Sounds like they’ve got it covered. So the FCC needs to back off this pressure campaign and let broadcasters get back to work telling fact-based stories about America at 250.
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Just concluded Black History month which the regime tried downplaying. With all their chaos they did a job of it. Now, welcome to Women's History month. Gals and girls, we need not be silenced. Speak loud and clear. They have declared war on all women. Boo/Hiss! Now to our 250th American birthday. We all need to speak up. Where their feeble Christian Nationalist and fascists minds have led them is way beyond the Pale. As pointed out in this article the FCC wingman is so happy to help fictionalize our past history. Excellent article, Jennifer. Clear and concise reporting as always.