from the weirdos-and-zealots dept
Last week, Republican FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington abruptly announced that he would be stepping down from the FCC. Simington gave all of two-days notice of his departure, which was odd not only because of the short notice, but because it delays Trump Republicans from getting a voting majority allowing them to actually do anything real.
In his wake, right wing media outlets like Fox News are suggesting that Simington may be replaced by Gavin Wax, a far right wing MAGA cheerleader. Wax has absolutely no serious qualifications for the role, but right wing outlets like Fox News are already busy pretending otherwise:
“Gavin Wax is being seriously considered by the White House to fill the vacancy that will be left by Commissioner Simington’s departure,” a source close to the FCC told Fox News Digital. “He’s seen as a strong conservative voice on tech and media policy, with close ties to key figures in both the policy and political arenas.”
Wax, an unabashed Trump earlobe nibbler, was promoted as Simington’s Chief of Staff a few months ago. If confirmed by the Senate, the 31-year-old Wax would be the youngest FCC Commissioner to ever serve. Wax has no meaningful experience in media and telecom policy outside of occasionally whining about media companies that don’t kiss Donald Trump’s ass:
“Once President Trump is back in office,” Wax said at the 2023 NYYRC annual dinner, according to Politico, “we won’t be playing nice anymore. It will be a time for retribution. All those responsible for destroying our once-great country will be held to account after baseless years of investigations and government lies and media lies against this man.”
Wax has been criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center for, among other things, overseeing a private right wing Facebook chat from 2014-2017 where members “frequently used racial slurs, made jokes about the Holocaust and discussed topics like ‘race realism.’”
Wax is clearly being considered to help FCC boss Brendan Carr’s campaign to launch bogus investigations into media and telecom companies the administration either deems not suitably racist enough, or for the cardinal sin of occasionally doing journalism loosely critical of Trump.
In recent months, Wax has been co-writing ignorant op-eds with the softer-spoken Simington calling for the DOGE-like obliteration of whatever is left of the FCC’s consumer protection and corporate oversight capabilities, and the elimination of any government programs that help minority communities or the poor (such as helping poor rural schoolkids get online to do homework).
We’ve noted how the Trump administration’s effort to lobotomize regulatory independence will ultimately leave the FCC without any authority to do much of anything real, outside of grievance-fueled tirades and fake investigations by the kind of people who get angry that Star Wars now has more black people.
Simington himself was never qualified for his role. Wax is somehow worse; a radical MAGA zealot with a long history of dodgy bedfellows (including white supremacists), who has less-than-zero qualifications to be making important choices about absolutely any of this. In other words: perfect for the Trump administration and it’s bizarre (and often illegal) war on equity and corporate oversight.
The selection of Wax is particularly insulting to actual adults, given the 2023 railroading of the FCC nomination of popular consumer advocate Gigi Sohn in 2023. Sohn’s nomination to the agency was scuttled after a joint GOP and telecom/media industry homophobic smear campaign falsely accused her of being a “radical extremist” who “hated police.”
That attack, if you recall, was aided by key Democrats like Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly, and successfully left the Biden FCC without a voting majority for the better part of two years. It’s worth highlighting the speed at which unqualified zealots and rank corporatists get confirmed to the agency, compared to the blockades and slowdowns seen for those, like Sohn, who actually represent the public interest.
Whether Wax can survive the Senate nomination process and get the needed 51 one vote majority remains an open question, but the very fact he has a very good chance is an embarrassing joke.
Filed Under: brendan carr, broadband, consumer protection, donald trump, fcc, gavin wax, journalism, media, meritocracy, nathan simington, policy, racism, telecom
