Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., says the federal government should regulate the internet so Americans spend less time alone on Instagram — and are therefore less likely, in his words, “to fall for a bulls— demagogue like Donald Trump.”
Murphy made the case Sunday on the “I’ve Had It” podcast while promoting his book “Crisis of the Common Good.” His argument: unless government intervenes to fix loneliness and powerlessness among Americans, the country will keep producing leaders like Trump.
“Those are the two things I think Americans are going through right now,” Murphy said. “They don’t feel powerful at all, and they feel lonely. And so, government should build a set of rules in which people feel more powerful — that’s why the minimum wage is so important — and people feel so more connected. That’s why, you know, rebuilding healthy institutions in your town should be a project that government is involved in.”
Internet regulation, in Murphy’s telling, belongs on that same list of government projects.
“That’s why regulating the internet so that you’re spending less time alone on Instagram should be an important government project,” he said. “And if people are feeling more powerful and less lonely, then they are going to be less likely to fall for a bulls— demagogue like Donald Trump. And what I say in the book is that if you really think about the things that make you more connected and make you more powerful, they’re not actually super partisan.”
Murphy, one of the Senate’s most consistent Trump critics, framed the stakes bluntly: “The book basically says unless you fix what’s broken with the culture, you’re going to be stuck with people like Trump for a long time.”
The White House did not hold back in response. Spokesperson Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital that “Chris Murphy is a lightweight, anti-American disgrace who lies for a living.”
A Broader Fight Over Tech Regulation
Murphy’s comments land amid a wider, messier fight in Washington over how much authority government should have over technology companies. Lawmakers from both parties have floated scaling back Section 230, the law that shields social media platforms from liability for content posted by users, citing harm to young people.
But on artificial intelligence specifically, some Republicans are wary of handing Congress that kind of power. Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital last week that AI needs some safeguards — “it needs a kill switch” — but argued lawmakers aren’t the ones equipped to set the rules.
“I think the warning is real, and I think that AI is unbelievable — look, AI is going to cure cancer. AI is going to find solutions to get rid of diseases that we never thought we could get rid of, but it does need to have some oversight. It needs a kill switch,” Patronis said. “But again, I don’t think Congress has the expertise to tell an emerging technology what’s the best way to go.”
Murphy’s remarks put him on the other end of that spectrum: not just backing oversight of emerging technology, but explicitly framing internet regulation as a tool to steer voters away from a specific political figure.
