Republicans finally seem to have gotten what they’ve wanted for decades as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have pushed through the plan to gut public media.

In yet another indefensible cave-in, the Senate and House voted last week to approve the Trump White House’s proposal to claw back $9 billion in federal funding previously allocated for foreign aid and public broadcasting. The votes, mainly along partisan lines, mean that the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which administers the funds for NPR radio stations and PBS TV affiliates, is on track to lose $1.1 billion that Congress previously appropriated.

NPR is home to flagship shows “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” and PBS for decades has carried “Sesame Street” and Ken Burns documentaries among many programs treasured by local viewers and listeners. (Sesame Street, the home of Elmo and Big Bird, signed a deal with Netflix in May to stream the upcoming 56th season.)

Trump has called NPR and PBS government-funded “left-wing propaganda” and Republicans have long called for cuts to public broadcasting because of the perceived liberal slant of its programming.

Public media supporters, however, say the commercial forces that made television a “vast wasteland” (the phrase used when public media were created) still exist in an era of social media algorithms that reward content, mainly on cellphones and the internet, that attracts the most likes and shares. That’s rarely hyperlocal issues or deep policy discussions that are mainstays of local public television and radio stations, which have their own locally produced programs that run alongside the national shows from PBS and NPR.

Locally, the impact will be felt at KAZU (90.3 MHz), the listener-supported FM radio station and NPR affiliate licensed to Pacific Grove, owned and operated by the California State University, Monterey Bay and serving the Monterey Bay area. The station now has a call for public donations at the top of its web page, saying the “future of public media is at risk” and that donations will be needed as the station faces an “uncertain funding future.”

About 70% of the federal funding goes directly to 330 local PBS outlets and 246 NPR stations. On average, PBS says 15% of its stations’ budgets come from public funding. But stations in larger markets usually get more money through philanthropy and fund drives, while smaller stations depend more on the government. Nearly one in five NPR member stations could close down without federal funding, one analysis found.

In a statement after Congress’s vote, NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher warned of dire consequences for smaller communities that depend on public broadcasting outlets. “Nearly three in four Americans say they rely on their public radio stations for alerts and news for their public safety,” she said.

“These cuts will significantly impact all of our stations, but will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas,” PBS President Paula Kerger said in a statement. “Many of our stations ... will now be forced to make hard decisions.”

PBS and NPR have both filed suit against Trump and other administration officials over the funding cutbacks. They say the order is a case of “viewpoint discrimination” driven by the White House’s unhappiness with the content of public media (not to mention CBS-TV).

The New York Times Editorial Board, hardly a bastion of conservative thinking, conceded that public media often reflects “left-leaning assumptions and biases” and can do better in reflecting a wider spectrum of Americans. They also noted, “a funding cutoff would damage valuable services that have little to do with ideology” and that the cut will “hasten the decline of America’s once robust media ecosystem.

“We are reminded of the excesses of the ‘defund the police’ and ‘abolish ICE’ movements on the other side of the ideological spectrum. They adopted a fatalistic view of vital government services, suggesting that their imperfections justified their elimination. They were wrong, and so are the conservatives who want to defund public media.”