Like most kids, I grew up watching Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, back when most TVs could only get 4 channels. They weren't my favorite shows even then but the recurring gag with the baker who dropped everything on his way down the stairs always made me laugh. It was more 3 Stooges than Big Bird.

I also used to listen to NPR back in the 90s during the Clinton years. The shows about politics were clearly coming from a reliably left perspective. It was home turf for what were then known as liberals in Washington, DC. 

There were always calls to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting but it never happened. As soon as conservatives would start talking about media bias and cutting CPB's budget, liberals would roll out Big Bird as the symbol of what conservatives wanted to cut. Of course this only proved the point. Conservatives weren't against Big Bird, they were against the news bias that routinely permeated the adult fare. Painting conservatives as anti-Big Bird was sort of par for the course at CPB.

With the 2nd term of Donald Trump and Elon Musk running DOGE, there's a possibility that defunding CPB could actually happen this time around. And of course, the NY Times frames it as Elon vs. Elmo.

In his new role advising President-elect Donald J. Trump, Mr. Musk has floated sweeping cuts to the federal government, including the elimination of entire departments and the firing of agency leaders. One of the most concrete proposals on his list is eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding that the government funnels to PBS and NPR stations, home to cultural touchstones like Elmo, Big Bird and “Fresh Air.”

For decades, NPR and PBS have overcome similar threats. But this year, “the attention and intensity” of the calls to defund public media seem greater, said Michael Isip, the president and chief executive of KQED, which operates NPR and PBS stations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

NPR and PBS stations are bracing for the fight. After the election, leaders of NPR’s biggest member stations circulated a report that warned “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past,” with regard to their federal funding. PBS received an update on the situation from political consultants at a board meeting in early December. And station directors in some states are already making their case to legislators.

I'm willing to bet we'll see Elmo and Big Bird being trotted out fairly soon with a special message for Elon. This is a very old playbook at this point. PBS has been doing this since at least the Nixon administration.

Fred Rogers, the kindly TV host behind “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS, testified in defense of public media during an attempt during the Nixon administration to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an entity that received $535 million from the government this year and provides funds to PBS and NPR stations.

I'm not sure having Elmo badmouth Elon in his high chirpy voice is going to work this time around. Elon is already the target of every left-wing attack you can imagine and his position isn't reliant on fundraising or the voters. Plus, I just think Elon is less likely to fold under pressure.

Legacy media must die https://t.co/At02Y9lJKJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2024

But never underestimate the left. I suspect we haven't yet seen the depths of personal attacks on Musk that will be coming in the next year.