Jimmy Kimmel, as a late-night television host, has had a couple of different personas. When he and Adam Carolla were co-hosts of, “The Man Show,” he was a bit edgy. Now, in retrospect, there are a couple of cringeworthy elements in every episode of that program. It has not aged well overall, but some segments are still funny. Yet, when Kimmel started hosting a late-night show on ABC, he came across as a lot more mellow, mature, and honestly a bit milquetoast. The thing about fascism, however, is that it cannot stand any resistance, even if it’s moderate and minimal. Hence, Jimmy Kimmel has found himself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration via the FCC.
I honestly did not have Jimmy Kimmel on my bingo card for 2025 as becoming the sudden late-night champion of free speech against Trump. Colbert has definitely stood against Trump and his show was canceled after this last season in response (supposedly it was all for financial reasons CBS claims). however, on Monday’s show Kimmel pointed out in his monologue that MAGA has continued to try to claim the person who killed Charlie Kirk was somehow a far left-wing person which does not seem to be the case. Still, the right wing has continued to exploit this idea. It’s not an especially controversial statement, and it did not even dismiss the tragedy of anyone dying from gun violence, be they Charlie Kirk or anyone else. Trump and his allies seem to have taken this death and run with it as some sort of excuse, however, to go after anyone who doesn’t paint Charlie Kirk as anything but a saint.
As I said in my previous post, I did not really follow Kirk because whenever I saw clips of him, his views seemed to be a complete 180 from mine. From the bits I’ve seen, he seemed quite rude towards those who debated him, and he said some really racist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-feminist things. He had every right to his views, but to paint him as some sort of civil rights hero that we should be honoring is silly. He was a man with opinions, and he stated them often via his Turning Point USA platform. The fact that Trump has been grifting on this idea of him as some sort of martyr says more about MAGA opportunism than anything else. We as a nation have a chance for a sincere reaction to Kirk’s death, but politicians have said, “Nah.” Enacting some common-sense gun reform would be a smart choice, for example. Yet, conservatives are choosing to go after anyone who doesn’t say only glowing things about Kirk. One big irony is that this is the complete opposite of the free speech absolutism that many conservatives claim to believe in. I guess when all that freedom of speech is questioning the right-wing, then they want to go after people for their words. Hence, even someone whose comedy is a bit bland, Jimmy Kimmel, becomes a target merely for stating facts that are inconvenient for a would-be fascist empire that is the Trump administration.
After Kimmel made his obvious and unquestionable observations about Republicans taking advantage of Kirk’s death, the FCC threatened ABC. A number of ABC affiliates are trying to get approval from the FCC for various things, so they reacted by pulling Kimmel and replacing his show with other programming, one planned thing being a big Charlie Kirk memorial special. Apparently, Kimmel cannot plan on having his show reinstated until after he meets with ABC, pens some sort of apology to Kirk‘s family, and donates money to Turning Point USA. I honestly don’t think Kimmel lacks enough of a spine to do any of that, especially because he didn’t do anything wrong! He pointed out how MAGA is engaging in their time-honored tradition of taking advantage of something tragic, like a death, and using it to their advantage to go after any political enemies, even if it doesn’t make sense.
As I said, I would not have expected Jimmy Kimmel to become the symbol of standing against Trump’s fascism and the Administration’s quashing of speech that goes against Trump’s fascist empire, but here we are in 2025. God help us, this year just keeps getting weirder. Even the smallest bit of speech against someone who wants absolute power has to be crushed, that is power of words. Kimmel has become a victim of a tyrant (Trump) and his tools (the FCC). It is disgusting, but as I just said, that's 2025 for you. God help us get through this year without a World-ending war breaking out, too, please.
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