The continuing, organized political harassment of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.

Today's editorial from IBD.

he Media: Something disturbing has been taking place in recent months which, if unchecked, poses a real danger to our democracy, yet has barely been noted by the mainstream media: The continuing, organized political harassment of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.

Pai has been subject to a nonstop campaign of attacks, vilification and outright threats unseen in this country in decades. And why? Because he overturned a ruling by President Obama's FCC imposed on the nation regarding "net neutrality." Net neutrality allows the government to regulate internet carriers like it did the telephone industry and to force them to treat all content providers and their customers the same.

It's a little like forcing car dealers to slap the same price on every car they sell, whether it's sporty or dowdy, convertible or hard top, fast or slow, full of extras or stripped down. Who would ever sell Corvettes if they could only charge the price of a VW Bug?

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Common sense would suggest that's a bad idea. It's unworkable in a free-market economy when the goal is to find the most efficient price for an asset — whether it's cars, internet bandwidth or anything else for that matter. As with other things in life, when people want better or more internet service than others, they should pay for it. Otherwise, the internet will slow to a crawl.

That's why Pai is an advocate of what's known as "light touch" regulation, the kind that prevailed on the internet during its headiest growth years from 1995 to 2015, but disappeared after Obama imposed net neutrality. That's why Pai was wise to get rid of net neutrality. It posed a hindrance to growth and innovation on the internet, in favor of an absurd forced economic equality. Internet socialism.

The Democratic far left and progressive movement have not only opposed this sensible reversal by Pai of a costly and damaging rule, but have made it personal in a very politically sickening, verging on violent, way.

It kicked off when HBO funnyman John Oliver ranted one night and started his own pro-net-neutrality, anti-Ajit Pai campaign. He called it the "Go FCC Yourself," and told those who agreed with him to hit the FCC's website with comments in support net neutrality. And they did.

But things quickly spun out of control, as an internet stunt morphed into an internet mob, and then into a real mob.

Noah Rothman, writing in Commentary, describes what happened: "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.' "

Ah yes, the Democrats, the party of racial tolerance and understanding.

It got worse. Groups claiming to be part of the Democrats' "Resistance" started demonstrating in front of Pai's house in Arlington, Va. They put out mock Wanted posters with a photo of him. They demonstrated and held "vigils" in his driveway. Some even took pictures inside his house.

The house had its doorbell continually rung, and unwanted food ordered for delivery.

"My kids are 5 and 3," Pai told the Wall Street Journal. "It's not pleasant."

But it didn't end with just personal harassment. Pai heads one of the most important regulatory agencies in the digital age, the FCC. Last week he was scheduled to speak at the Consumer Electronics Show. Unfortunately, the organizers of the CES, the premier industry show of its kind, were intimidated by the leftist thugs by being "subject(ed) to vicious and direct attacks and threats." Intimidated and no doubt worried about the seriousness of death threats they received, CES canceled Pai's talk.

This, by the way, was the second such death threat Pai received. The first came when he scheduled the net neutrality vote. That death threat caused the vote to be postponed.

As the National Review's Jonah Goldberg noted, "If the partisan forces went the other way, the demonization and intimidation of Pai would fuel a thousand op-eds and MSNBC jeremiads about the inherent violence and fascism of the Right." Once allowed to get away with this, there will be no end. It may soon be routine for any and all government officials, in the course of doing their duty, to be intimidated or harassed or even violently attacked.

Goldberg is exactly right. That the media have barely mentioned this attempt to hijack democracy by the extremists of a major party suggests they either don't care or, worse, actually support it. Either way, it is damning.

The big U.S. media love to flatter themselves with their moral chest-beating and platitudinous marketing slogans like "All the News That Fits" (New York Times) and "Democracy Dies In Darkness" (Washington Post), to name but two. They style themselves as fearless truth-tellers. But when it comes to actual full-throated support of the rule of law, the most vital plank of our democracy, they can't be bothered. You know, "resistance."

If you seek a reason for why the media have been sliding in public opinion polls for decades you need look no farther than Ajit Pai, and the media's shameful refusal to say anything about the racist far-left campaign of threats, intimidation and harassment against him.