It is a moment that seems almost too absurd to be real: The United States House of Representatives is not debating war or peace, not inflation or education, but Elmo. About Big Bird, known in Germany as Bibo, the yellow bird from Sesame Street. And about the question of whether a nation that sees itself as a leader in technology and freedom still needs its public broadcasters. By a narrow majority, Republicans passed sweeping cuts on Thursday as part of the DOGE agenda, co-designed by Elon Musk. 9.4 billion U.S. dollars are to be slashed – including one billion for PBS and NPR, the cornerstones of American educational and informational broadcasting. Programs like “Sesame Street,” which have shaped generations of children since 1969, are suddenly on the chopping block. Not because they are irrelevant. But because they no longer fit the worldview of the new Right.
What is being sold as budgetary discipline is in truth an assault on the cultural memory of a nation. Cutting Big Bird does not just cut a television program – it cuts away a piece of collective childhood that once conveyed values like diversity, curiosity, and compassion. And anyone who thinks this is just about numbers fails to grasp the symbolism: Trump, Musk, and their allies are taking an axe to an institution that refuses to conform to their monopoly on meaning.
The president left no doubt that this is not about efficiency, but about reckoning. “PBS and NPR are a radical Left disaster,” Trump wrote. The reaction was loud, but not unanimous: some Republican lawmakers voted no, including Mark Amodei, who warned that such cuts would strip people in rural areas of their “access to the world.” And then there was Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, standing on the floor with an Elmo doll in his hand – delivering a speech that oscillated between absurdity and tragedy. No, this was not just about puppets. It was about what those puppets represent to many: a childhood in which information was shared, not sold. A time when media still served as a bridge, not a club.
It is a culture war, fought with spreadsheets – but aimed at the heart of society. And once again, it is the most vulnerable who are overlooked: children, who cannot vote, but must watch as their window to the world is shuttered. Big Bird has no lobby. But his disappearance says more about the state of democracy than any budget debate ever could.
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