Carr offers a model for what a reformist Trump administration needs, someone resolute in his commitment for a more modest regulatory approach and improvements in federal government efficiency.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rarely draws widespread public focus amid our ongoing political cacophony, its commissioners even less so.  

In today’s increasingly tech-centric and internet-reliant global economy, however, both merit far greater attention.  The FCC through its commissioners exerts a disproportionate influence over the nation’s internet and tech sector, and thereby the nation’s economy and consumer marketplace.  Consequently, under poor leadership, the FCC possesses the power to wreak great havoc on the American economy and consumer welfare.  

Take the destructive “Net Neutrality” movement, which refuses to die.  If not stopped by President-Elect Donald Trump’s FCC in 2017 under former Chairman Ajit Pai and current Commissioner Brendan Carr, it might have made America’s Covid experience and economic performance much more precarious.  

After Barack Obama’s FCC needlessly began regulating internet service under the Title II Net Neutrality regime, private internet investment declined for the first time in history outside of an economic recession.  Had that trend continued into the Covid pandemic, when the population migrated online en masse from schools and workplaces, the consequences would have proven dire.  

Fortunately, we avoided that fate under Chairman Pai’s and Commissioner Carr’s emphasis on free markets and a light-touch regulatory policy.  Instead of straining beneath the burden of suddenly increased online activity, American internet speeds and performance actually improved during the 2020 pandemic year.  In contrast, Europe’s more regulatory-heavy internet service structure did suffer capacity difficulties throughout the pandemic.  

For that, Americans should be grateful to President Trump and his FCC appointees Pai and Carr.  

In that vein, President-Elect Trump merits renewed praise for announcing that he will nominate Commissioner Carr to become the new FCC chairman during his upcoming administration.  

By choosing Commissioner Carr, Trump hits a proverbial home run by signaling a renewed commitment to freedom and innovation in the internet and tech sphere.  Carr offers a model for what a reformist Trump administration needs, someone resolute in his commitment for a more modest regulatory approach and improvements in federal government efficiency.  

For a perfect example, look no further than Carr’s public statement opposing the Biden/Harris administration’s inexplicable decision to resurrect Title II "Net Neutrality" last year:  

The entire debate over whether Title II regulations are necessary or justified was settled years ago.  Indeed, when my FCC colleagues and I voted in 2017 to overturn the Obama Administration’s failed, two-year experiment with Title II, activists and politicians alike guaranteed the American public that the internet would quite literally break without it.  They predicted that prices for broadband would spike, that you would be charged for each website you wanted to visit, and that the internet itself would slow down.  

Did any of those predictions come to pass?  Of course not.  Since the FCC’s 2017 decision to return the internet to the same successful and bipartisan regulatory framework under which it thrived for decades, broadband speeds in the U.S. have increased, prices are down, competition has intensified, and record-breaking new broadband builds have brought millions of Americans across the digital divide.  

In recent days, Commissioner Carr has once again demonstrated commitment to rule of law and an open marketplace of online ideas by speaking out against censorship in an appropriately confrontational open letter to tech industry leaders:  

Over the past few years, Americans have lived through an unprecedented surge in censorship.  Your companies played significant roles in this improper conduct.  Big Tech companies silenced Americans for doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.  They targeted core political, religious, and scientific speech.  And they worked – often in concert with so-called “media monitors” and others – to defund, demonetize, and otherwise put out of business news outlets and organizations that dared to deviate from an approved narrative.  

Congressional investigations, press reports, and other evidence show that in many cases you did not act alone.  Rather, you participated in a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called “fact-checking” organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself.  The relevant conduct extended from removing or blocking social media posts to labeling whole websites or apps as “untrustworthy” or “high-risk” in an apparent effort to suppress their information and viewpoints, including through efforts to delist them, lower their rankings, or harm their profitability.  This censorship cartel is an affront to Americans’ constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled.  Americans must be able to reclaim their right to free speech.  Indeed, our democracy depends on freedom of expression.  

That vividly illustrates the resolute and reformist approach that the Trump administration seeks with appointments like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, among others.  

Carr offers the perfect choice to lead the FCC at a time when closing the digital divide and incentivizing internet growth and innovation is more important than ever.  By selecting him to be FCC Chairman, President-Elect Trump just hit a proverbial home run.