> [Laws] are decided by (hopefully apolitical, public-good-oriented) specialists in the field of interest

This doesn't sound to me at all like how a democratic country is supposed to function. It feels like you're describing China rather than the US.

> Trump can do it at will.

Which is also not how our constitution is supposed to work. The executive branch (which includes both the president and his appointees) is not supposed to be able to make laws, only execute on existing law.

Yes, I know this is how the system works these days. I'm just lamenting how it went so wrong...

There is a level of detail that isn't practical to include in law. It's pretty normal for Congress to sketch the general outline of regulation and require the relevant bureaucracy to fill in the details.

Though in this particular case, unless this is based on a change to the law it seems like an overreach by the FCC.

"This doesn't sound to me at all like how a democratic country is supposed to function."

There is a family of interesting theories, or perhaps if you prefer, simply a way of looking at history in which you don't consider the "United States" as a single governance structure that has existed back to 1776, but as a series of related, but distinct entities with distinct "social contracts" (a term laden with some philosophical baggage, here I just use it in a very general sense of what people expect from each other in various roles), and distinct theories of governance. While the later entities wrap themselves in the 1776 flag the current ruling structure is quite different from that era. From this point of view you can even go back and include the Continental Congress as the starting point of the "United States" and gain some insight into the way governance can fail as well.

I mention this because it may help free your mind up to consider how the systems really work today beyond the at-times jingoistic "Democracy!". There's a lot of flexibility in how you approach this because it's all opinion anyhow, but there is a strong case to be made that this is the "technocrat" era, in which the executive branch has been given a lot more power both by design and by the stresses of history to give more power to "experts" to deal with the radical changes the world has undergone. I think I can say something generally politically agreeable by pointing out that Congress doesn't seem to be particularly good at handling the world right now; how much worse off would it be if we still "representatives per person" numbers from 1776 and had a Congress of many thousands?

The de facto rules haven't really matched the de jure of the 1776 governance in a long time.

I am trying to keep this as neutral as possible. I have as many opinions as anyone else, but I'm just bringing up the general idea. I think it's probably good to initially just ponder based on one's own understanding of history and match it against your own ideas before you find other people handing you a theory on a platter. There's time enough for that.

Administrative law is the (suboptimal) answer to congressional gridlock, which is the real problem. If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow. Regardless the overturning of Chevron deference makes administrative rules like this more susceptible to challenge. Assuming the telcos have the backbone to do so of course.

Hold up: Parent-poster is obviously talking about federal regulations, not federal laws, and there are important differences between them... so why have you altered the quote to say [Laws]?

That's false. You've put your own words into their mouth to create a "sounds like China" strawman.

The intellectual-academic class are having an existential crisis that they've lost the reigns of the unelected bureaucratic apparatus and it is now being wielded against them. They are still confused at how to respond to this as they're certain they couldn't have been wrong about deferring (uh, 'delegate regulatory authority') the power vested in congress and elected representation to themselves. Surprise pikachu when it turns out the "apolitical, public goal oriented specialists' were useful idiots in the process of handing power from congress to the executive.

If you thought the political apparatus was willingly going to leave the reigns to "apolitical specialists" rather than ruthlessly consolidating it toward the hands of the most power hungry self-dealing monsters that can command the executive branch then obviously you have not been living in in reality. Of course by the time the blindfold has been removed, the power is already largely consolidated.