In the minds of today’s political activists, the objects of their fixations represent an existential threat. This is how opposition to an arcane, bureaucratic decision by the Federalඣ Communications Commission transformed from a liberal cause into an obsession.
This is also h🐈ow the FCC’s chairman, Ajit Pai, became the subject of almost daily persecution.
The source of great consternation on the left is the FC🍌C’s decision to scrap an Obama-era rule implemented in 2015 deemed “net neutral🐻ity.” The end of net neutrality will allow internet service providers to, if they choose, privilege the content𝓰 of providers that they own or support.
Over this, Pai has been the target of a campaign of harassment that🥂 amounts to a national scandal.
HBO host John Oliver was among the first mainstream cultural figures to organize a net-neutrality campaign, which he dubbed “Go FCC Yourself.” He encouraged followers to bombard the FCC’s web🌳site with comments ✅supporting the regulation, and so they did.
Those comments were peppered with claims that Pai was a pedophile, a “dirty, sneaky Indian” who should self-deport and reminders that anonymous online hordes maintain the “power to murder Ajit Pai and his family.” Oliver was eventually compelled to release a video u🅷rging his followers to dial back the racism and death threats.
This episode would prove to 🎃be just the beginning of Pai’s ordeal. By May of last year, Pai’s tormentors b🎀egan a campaign to ensure that the FCC chairman could enjoy no peace — not even in his own home.
“Resistance” groups began distributing fliers and door hangers around Pai’s Arlington, Va., neighborhood, featuring a black-and-white photo of Pai with his vital stats (height, weight, age and professional background) and accusing him of selling the internet out to corporations. “Have you seeಞn this man?” the fliers read.
Leftists didn’t stop there. They organized “vigils” in Pai’s driveway — a tactic that net-neutrality activists deployed in 2014 against then-FCC chairm🌳an Tom Whee🍨ler.
They “come♛ up to our front windows and take photographs of the inside of the house,” . “My kไids are 5 and 3. It’s not pleasant.”
“Is this really the world you want Annabelle and Alexander to inherit,” read a handmade sign affixed to a lamppost outside Pai’s residence in November, making a point to emphasize the names of Pai’s two children. “They will com𓂃e to know the truth: Dad murdered democracy in co🐽ld blood,” read another.
The Pai family’s doorbell reportedly rang every half-hour, according to National Journal’s Brendan Bordelon, with pizza deliveries tಌhat they had not ordered. “It was a little nerve-racking, especially for my wife, who’s not involved in this space,” Pai told Fox News Channel. “Families,” he continued, “should remain out of it and stop harassing us at our homes.”
But it didn’t stop, and the threats to Pai’s 🤡safety have only become more cred🌸ible. In December, ahead of the commission’s vote to formally nix the controversial 2015 regulation, a specific bomb threat forced the FCC to halt proceedings and🦋 clear the building.
Last week, Pai was forced to cancel a scheduled appearanc💧e at the Consumer Electronics Show after receiving credible death threats. A Recode reporter confirmed that the organization that hosts the annual gathering of business and technology experts had also been “subject to vicious and direct attacks an🅘d threats” for even daring to associate with the FCC chairman.
Pai’s treatment is an outrage and a disgrace. It💯 would be a national scandal in the press but for the fact that so man🙈y of the country’s opinion-makers and media professionals agree with the activists’ cause, if not their methods.
Pai’s record is that of a competent steward of the FCC, and h♍e e💞asily won a second term at his post in October with the support of four Democratic senators.
What’s more, he has demonstrated both indepe🌺ndence and a commitment to free and unfettered expression, going so far as to scold President Trump for suggesting that his r🐻egulatory organ should yank the licenses of broadcasters with which the president disagreed.
The activist left is incubating the kind of potentially violent radicalism it can’t control. If Democrats truly fret for the norms of civil conduct that are supposedly being lost in the Trump era, they might devote some attention to their own supporters.
Noah Rothman is associate editor of Commentary, where this first appeared.