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Conservatism has largely been unpopular outside of rural townships, and the nation continues to undergo a process of urbanization as young people continue to move to cities.
Normally, a healthy response to this would be to realign and target a more popular set of messaging and policy objectives. Instead the American Right has decided instead that this popularity (and the reflection in media) is a threat to its ability to continue serving a shrinking pool of wealthy benefactors.
It should come as no surprise that the moment they were handed the power, they began to push the boundaries of what is acceptable when it comes to censoring media they see as a threat. Republicanism doesnt work for anyone but the wealthy, it will do everything in its power here.
People who responded as "very conservative/conservative" was 36% in 1992 and 37% in 2024. https://news.gallup.com/poll/655190/political-parties-histor...
"Very liberal/liberal" has increased though (at the expense of moderates).
Language changes over time, and I remember recent memes where a cute girl says something like "claiming you're moderate means you know conservatives don't get laid" (presumably because of abortion politics). It makes me wonder if the moderates actually became liberal or if they just don't want to use that word any more.
After all the polarism in "reality show politics", my diehard liberal friends seem less liberal to me, but they'll state which team they're on more fervently than ever.
> It should come as no surprise that the moment they were handed the power, they began to push the boundaries of what is acceptable when it comes to censoring media they see as a threat.
To be clear, they were “handed power” by decisively winning a national election, which sort of undercuts your opening statement about how unpopular they are.
Well the problem I see with this is that the population means very little in terms of national politics in comparison to most modern democratic nations.
So you can be California which in terms of population and GDP will surpass most of central America combined and it still just gets two representatives. Now I get that the idea here was to avoid a dictatorship of the majority that can just ignore smaller states, but the way it is now it is a dictatorship of the minority, even if you ignore all the blatant ways of voter disenfranchisement.
Sorry to all Republicans on here, but if your party needs to prevent people from voting to win, that also hurts you. Ideally you'd want a party to have to listen to their voters. Gerrymandering, predicting voter behavior and throwing out the ones who might not vote for you are all the shameful behavior of traitors to democracy.
This has to be stopped and punished on every political level, as long as you still have a say.
> Sorry to all Republicans on here, but if your party needs to prevent people from voting to win, that also hurts you.
Isn't their main assertion that only citizens should vote?
(something like 80% of people claiming allegiance to both parties said the same, last i saw, but numbers surely fluctuate from poll to poll)
>you can be California which in terms of population and GDP will surpass most of central America combined and it still just gets two representatives
Doesn't California have 54 reps, out of 485? And 90 out of ~800 Article III judges (lifetime appointment). It also collects $858 billion a year in state and local taxes that it gets to do mostly what it wants with
Well, it's two days later now, and it turns out Colbert just lied. He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time, and didn't extend an offer to Jasmine Crockett.
Then he lied about it and the network corrected him.
But okay, yeah they pushed the boundaries and all that bullshit.
> Well, it's two days later now, and it turns out Colbert just lied. He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time, and didn't extend an offer to Jasmine Crockett.
How did Colbert lie? And do you have a source for the supposed lie? The equal-time rule does not obligate proactive actions from the broadcaster such as invitations or "extend[ing]" an offer. The equal-time rule requires an equal opportunity for political opponents to use a broadcast station, and it is up to each political opponent to reach out and assert their intent to use the equal-time rule. Jasmine Crockett did not request to be on Stephen Colbert's show, much less was denied such a request.
> Then he lied about it and the network corrected him.
No, CBS lied about what the equal-time rule requires.
> He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time
Don't pretend that the "law about equal time" is the same in 2026 as it was in the 95 previous years [1]:
> Late-night and daytime talk show interviews were long considered to be bona fide news segments until FCC chair Brendan Carr issued new guidance in 2026 signaling that these types of shows would no longer be automatically granted the bona fide news exemption.
[break to avoid mixing quotes from different parties]
> He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time
Could you explain how you reached the number 95? I don't get 95+-1 from 2026-1927 or 2026-1934 [1].
> and didn't extend an offer to Jasmine Crockett.
CBS didn't want to air the Talarico interview because CBS didn't want to be forced to provide equal time in case Jasmine Crockett would have used the equal-time rule to get her own interview. Colbert did not oppose and has not opposed having Crockett on in relation to the equal-time rule.
I get the feeling that you're pretending to be angry on Jasmine Crockett's behalf. What's more, it seems like you want to be angry at Colbert and are projecting your feelings onto Jasmine Crockett. But why does Jasmine Crockett seem to have no issue with Colbert's actions [2]?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule#Details
[2] https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/jasmine-cro...
Conservatism is a set of political principles and values, which somebody like Trump overtly does not possess, and never did. The whole Republican party feels like a country wide gaslighting operation at this point. They claim to be conservative and Christian, but are clearly neither.
While I agree with much of what you say, there are a lot of urban, educated, socially left, economically right people (including myself) who complicate some of this analysis. Many economically right-wing people believe a free market is the most effective and helpful path to improve the standard of living for the working class and the poor. ("Progressive neoliberal social democracy", one might call it.)
The issues with Republicans right now go far, far, far beyond "they care more about the wealthy than the poor" (though that is definitely one of their core problems). They're basically destroying the rule of law, the country's internal and international reputation and credibility, all of our most important institutions, our ability to discern what is true, our sense of decency, our civil liberties, our basic respect of human rights... The class stuff is secondary or tertiary to the bigger issues, in my opinion.
This is why I find Social Media regulation to be so dangerous.
We shouldn't give our[1] government too much leverage over any company that controls what people can say. If we do, we may be solving a very serious problem, but creating one which is even more serious. If the government can apply large fines to social media companies, and also has a large amount of discretion about which companies it prosecutes, it's very easy for them to make a deal where a company won't be prosecuted if they remove speech that the government doesn't like.
[1] Use whichever definition of "our" you like, the point is equally valid regardless of country.
This is higly abusive. Talks shows have been generally considered exempt from the Equal Time provision since the Regan administration. It it was applied consistently Fox News is basically violating it 24 hours a day.
Fox News is doesn't use airwaves, so it's not subject to this requirement.
Conservative talk radio hosts then. Still hypocritical and clear evidence for further politicalization by Carr
Fox News affiliates do, and the FCC also regulates cable TV, satillite, telephony and even internet (to different extents) so this could be construed to apply quite broadly.
[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049426
I think it’s funny that while GOP supporters are investing tens of $billions to take over popular broadcast and social media brands to privilege their point of view, Brendan Carr threatens to invoke the equal time rule, which would completely negate their structural advantage.
This is kind of like when conservatives spent years wrapping their advocacy in the banner of free speech, and then Brendan Carr announced that free speech is over, actually, because Jimmy Kimmel was mean. Oops! Nevermind.
> which would completely negate their structural advantage.
You think it’s going to be enforced against their side ?
Read the room
My favorite dictator quote:
> To my friends everything, to my enemies the law
> I think it’s funny that while GOP supporters are investing tens of $billions to take over popular broadcast and social media brands to privilege their point of view, Brendan Carr threatens to invoke the equal time rule, which would completely negate their structural advantage.
Why assume the rule would be applied fairly? Carr said they would not enforce it against right wing radio.
It is unlikely Carr will be FCC chair past January 20, 2029. (If he makes it that long.)
However, all those conservative billionaires will still own their media companies. Expanding the coverage of the equal time rule would hand the next Democratic administration a big club to swing at them.
Hey maybe for his next act, Carr will revive the Fairness Doctrine that was repealed under Reagan.
It's worth remembering that CBS is now run by a right-wing billionaire. It's the reason 60 Minutes stories that would anger the Republican administration keep getting pulled.
This is how a country slides into oligarchy. Quiet threats, regulatory scrutiny, tax audits, license reviews aimed at TV networks and newspapers until they decide it’s safer to stay quiet. And once the media falls in line, you have to ask what else is being forced into compliance behind closed doors, long before the public realizes what’s happening. What's next? Protesters swept up under sweeping surveillance and detention policies, speech narrowed in the name of "public safety", certain narratives becoming untouchable, etc.
You copy pasted this comment[0] then when I clicked reply it was slightly edited. What exactly are you doing?
Had the wrong thing in my clipboard, my bad. Was writing the comment in notepad first
based on this users comments in a similar story from earlier, this seems like a bot.
This. We are in very serious trouble people.
What're you going to do about it?
Could have just invited Ken Paxton if all he wanted to do was inform voters.
Dems haven't even had their primary yet. He'd have had to been open to all the other Dems, before even getting to the Republicans.
Use publicly owned airwaves, expect to have to abide by the campaign finance rules. Can't just donate excellent coverage to just one candidate.
It just says they have to give equal time, not prevent someone from coming on the show completely. But the other candidates have to make a request to be included and no-one made any requests.
Don’t act like this FCC’s actions should be taken in good faith.
> not prevent someone from coming on the show completely.
No, they weren't prevented from coming on, as the article poorly points out. It appears that CBS sees equal airtime as a very serious threat to their programming. This makes complete sense, if you've watched an intentionally biased show like Colbert.
edit: downvotes, please explain. This is the stated reason from TFA!:
> "CC Chairman Brendan Carr recently issued a warning to late-night and daytime talk shows that they may no longer qualify for the bona fide news exemption to the equal-time rule, and subsequently opened an investigation into ABC’s The View after an interview with Talarico."
> Colbert played audio of a recent Carr interview in which the FCC chairman said, “If [Jimmy] Kimmel and Colbert want to continue to do their programming, they don’t want to have to comply with this requirement, then they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming service and that’s fine.”
> Colbert said he “decided to take Brendan Carr’s advice” and interviewed Talarico for a segment posted on his show’s YouTube channel.
Help me understand if I'm missing something here. And the show is, clearly, intentionally biased. It targets a left wing audience, with its jokes specifically written around that (always has, that's fine), and nearly exclusively, has left wing political guests.
Alright, then apply the rule to talk radio as well.
This is obviously true. The real challenge here is that this rule is only going to applied to one party.
Well, see, the problem is that the race is currently at the primary election stage. So both candidates are Democrats.
So, if you give coverage to one candidate, that is favoring that candidate over the other. That doesn't seem fair.
But if you give both candidates air time, then you're giving air time to two Democratic candidates and zero Republican candidates. That can also be viewed as unfair (never mind that the Republican candidate is not in an election until November).
The only other option is to give neither candidate air time. That results in a less-informed electorate, and that's not a good outcome either.
All in all, the "give both candidates air time, even if they're both from the same party, as they will be in a primary" seems like the best answer, especially if it's applied to primary candidates from both parties. But it's not quite as straightforward a question as it appears at first glance.
Doesn't apply to late night shows.
Reference?
This says it now does (and parent is right): https://www.mediainstitute.org/2026/01/22/fcc-late-night-sho...
To me, this seems reasonable, since I could imagine all the networks skirting the intent in any way possible.
Doesn't apply to news shows. The key question is whether late night shows are news shows.
They just now changed how they enforce the rules. Of course they have a legal pretense for their action; everyone has a legal pretense.
These rules have generally not been enforced this broadly because the expectation is that they wouldn't actually stand up to First Amendment scrutiny, should it make it to the Supreme Court. Of course, CBS is at no risk of suing the administration if Paramount wants any chance of buying Warner, so in this case they can restrict as they please.
I think you were downvoted for tone, but I think your general point is valid.
I am sure, however, that we have some lawyer folks on HN. Hopefully one of them can weigh in on whether or not this is accurate interpretation of the law as it is currently written.
I find the death of 2016 conservatism and the advent of the extremist, more violent and hateful republicanism very interesting. It's like how the minority of Left-leaning people who burn cars and shoot public speakers are what most on the Right see the entire democrat party as. Now the Right has their own form of that in those who scroll on Twitter and attack immigrants behind their backs. I feel like, within the next year or so, there will be a vast swath of former republicans who are so violently radicalized that they will do the same thing those protesting George Floyd's death in 2020 did. It's just interesting how cyclical it all is.
I'm not sure this is a fair comparison.
The radicals on the far-right control three branches of the federal government. The George Floyd protestors were barely able to influence their local boards.
> It's like how the minority of Left-leaning people who burn cars and shoot public speakers are what most on the Right see the entire democrat party as.
That's the result of well known disinformation tactics by certain media in concert with police forces: wait or provoke a violent outburst in a otherwise peaceful protest, often triggered by carefully planned repetitive police charges, then be ready to film when protesters discharge their frustration against what they have nearby like shops windows and cars, make a enraging video out of it and show only that in prime time to families dining.
Not saying this is the case, but I heard an argument made about this on the other side. Saying the ICE situation is manufactured by the Democratic party by not playing ball like they did in the Obama times. Instead they encourage protests and and "wait or provoke a violent outburst" that's "often triggered by carefully planned repetitive" tactics like blocking ICE vehicles "then be ready to film when" an inevitable violent act happens then "make a enraging video out of it and show only that in prime time to families dining".
Again, not saying that's the case, I'm not from the US so I don't much care, but it's funny to me that both side accuse each other of the same strategy.