PBS has always been political, it's just the unfortunate reality that conservatives are upset over the past 80 or so years of progress and want a 'great reset' to try and reorganize things to benefit them. When the very notion of empathy is deemed to be woke, it's unfortunately no surprise that they would target PBS immediately.

Mr. Rogers frequently pushed the envelope in terms of welcoming Black individuals during a period where segregation was still very publicly affecting people even after the civil rights act. We look back on these episodes and don't see anything radical, but at the time they were very much so.