In a stunning move, President Trump has appointed a net neutrality advocate to be special assistant to the chair of the Federal Communications Commission. This announcement came just a week after it was revealed that FCC Chair Ajit Pai plans to revoke many of the rules that ensure net neutrality. The announcement has sparked shock, respect, ire, and confusion, but especially confusion.
When asked about the appointment, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “We may not support net neutrality, but we prefer a policy of net-net neutrality. By this I mean that when you take the supporters of net neutrality in our administration and subtract those who oppose net neutrality, you’ll be left with myself, the president, and everyone else who doesn’t know or care about what net neutrality is.”
A leaked tape from inside the White House reveals that Trump at first thought that net neutrality was about clapping for an upcoming trapeze performance at the White House regardless of whether a safety net is used. Also in the tape, Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway confuses the FCC with the non-existent Football Collegiate Championships. Senior Advisor Stephen Miller can be heard asking, “Can we just confuse people more by calling for net-net neutrality?
Some have expressed outrage over this tape, especially as it shows a lack of knowledge about the issues from the senior counselor and the president and a scheme to confuse the American public by a top advisor. Even still, the story has not seemed to grab attention. It is suspected that many voters have come to expect Trump’s ineptitude, Conway’s incoherence, and Miller’s dirty tricks. Furthermore, recent studies show the trapeze lobby isn’t very powerful anyway.
Democrats fired back at the Trump administration’s announcement of net-net neutrality. A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “The Democrats believe that the politicians of Washington ought to focus on doing their job: settling sexual assault cases and taking money from lobbyists.” When we asked for comments from Republican senators on the subject, the majority of them couldn’t answer, saying that they didn’t know what the internet is.
