Not all that long ago, I went against my better judgement and had a little bit of a debate with a MAGA supporter. But he is an old college buddy, and thus it feels a little bit different. He really is not as dumb as many MAGA members seem to be, and never was the type who you could picture driving a toy pickup truck adorned with pro-Trump flags and bumper stickers.
Nevertheless, he has a clearly stubborn side. And again, that pro-MAGA mentality is one built on anger, which he was known for even during his college days. At that point, it was directed against the Student Government, and we all shared some disdain for them, if not quite on the level of passion which he frequently displayed.
Since then, however, all of that passionate anger seems to have been directed towards being pro-Trump. He is pretty much the only college friend - or guy in my circle of friends from the old Bergen days - who turned out to be pro-Trump.
I don't know why.
Now, he's about the only "MAGA" guy I even bother debating with anymore in recent years. For a while, I tried with other people, form total strangers to old high school classmates and others. Frankly, however, I found these experiences to be largely pointless. Facts really do not matter to most of these people. All that matters is their hatred and fear and distrust of the "other," which usually is directed at "illegals." When you mention anything critical of Trump, either they would claim that this is "fake news" or ask if you prefer communism under Clinton or Obama or Biden. If, after being told that something is "fake news" and I would prove that it was not - like when I mentioned to a MAGA moron how Trump had boasted about being greedy and grabbing all the money that he could when first announcing his candidacy for the 2016 White House race and the providing video proof when that MAGA moron claimed that this was "fake news" - all that happened was...well, nothing. Silence. Not acknowledgement or concession. Not even some half-baked explanation as to why he said it, or how maybe I had taken it out of context. It was just silence. And that has been my experience when debating (if these even actually qualify as anything remotely resembling debating) pro-Trump people. Facts do not matter. Nothing matters but how much they like Trump.
That is just one example, but it was like that with pretty much every MAGA person I debated. They would reach a point where it was just radio silence. Some would figuratively storm off. A couple of people (at least) unfriended me on Facebook, with some suggesting that I was a "communist" or some such nonsense. But these debates proved pointless and lacked any substance. It felt like they were exercises in futility. It felt inevitable that there reached a point where I lost all interest.
Anyway, yeah, I had largely stopped bothering arguing or debating with pro-MAGA people, with this one college friend as an exception. Even then, I only do it on occasion.
However, we were debating a few months ago. And somehow, the debate began to gravitate towards censorship. I explained my belief that Trump's White House quite clearly seems to be in favor of censorship, and pointed to how Trump would make clear that he wanted certain people off the air (like Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert) and resto, they would be taken off the air. To me, that's quite clearly censorship. He disagreed. And he showed off his former credentials with the FCC (he worked with radio back in the old college days) and seemed to imply that I did not know what I was talking about. That his credentials gave him the inside knowledge of what, exactly, constituted censorship.
That, however, did not change my mind then, and news headlines since have not changed my mind. Trump took a play from Rick Scott, the former Florida Governor and now Congressman, who outright censored any mention of the term "climate change." Trump also censored any discussion on the topic of "climate change." That, to me, plainly constitutes censorship.
Any if there were any debate about that (or Kimmel or Colbert, for that matter), there was this snippet from Trump's FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who made quite clear that he took pride in Trump's blazing the path of eradicating political resistance on the airwaves. Here is some of what Carr said, as taken from an article by Todd Spangler of Variety last month (see link below):
“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote on March 14. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr continued: “And frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters. The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves. It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.”
Carr then made clear what he perceived qualifies as "fake news" that apparently, according to him, do not "operate in the public interest." That included defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and taking late night comedians like Kimmel and Colbert - both of whom openly and often mock President Trump - off the air.
Of course, Trump voiced his approval. From the same article:
Trump, in a post Sunday on Truth Social, gave an atta-boy to Carr about the FCC chairman’s threat to rescind the licenses of “fake news” broadcasters — and for good measure he threw in a jab at another of his regular targets, late-night TV hosts.
“I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations,” Trump wrote. “They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED.'”
Again, to me, that is censorship, plain and clear. Dear Leader objected to viewpoints critical of him, and he demanded to get them off the air. And presto, they were taken off the air. How can you even contend that this is not censorship?
I suspect that it would be clear to MAGA if it were, say, Clinton or Obama or Biden doing it. But when it's Trump, they seem to use the convenient MAGA blinders that make any kind of bad or compromising news about their guy largely invisible, or perhaps necessary due to some kind of a "crisis" facing the country (as if that justifies across the board censorship).
That debate about censorship with my college buddy took place before Carr made these comments. And no, I have not brought this to his attention or asked what he thinks about it, mostly because I suspect that he would then become a sounding board for those same exactly opinions expressed by both Carr and Trump.
To me, however, this is a clear cut case of censorship, pure and simple. And there is a reason why all of this seems to be happening under this particular presidential administration.
Fascism has come to the United States.
And to me, that means that we have to keep fighting it, even if we risk offending (or even losing) friends along the way. Some things are just too important.
Below is the link to the article which I used in writing this particular blog entry, and from which I obtained all quotes used above:
Why Trump’s FCC Chairman Is Threatening to Pull Licenses of TV Networks That Air ‘Fake News’ About Iran War by Todd Spangler , Mar 16, 2026:
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/fcc-chairman-brendan-carr-troll-liberals-tv-network-licenses-1236689682/
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