In the aftermath of the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, the American media quickly identified a story it felt truly worthy of moral outrage. It was, of course, not the murder of a peaceful political actor, nor the widespread celebration of his death, or even grotesque attacks on a young widow and two young children, but rather the temporary suspension of one of their own: Jimmy Kimmel.
If one were to give the corporate press some grace, his temporary leave does evoke some troubling questions regarding state power. Though thorough reporting from the Wall Street Journal identified concerns from the Walt Disney Company regarding comments made by Kimmel in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s death, implying that the assassin was a supporter of Donald Trump, and fears that a planned response from the late-night host would only further inflame the resulting controversy; the broader context of the decision cannot be separated from comments by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr suggesting that Kimmel and ABC should be held accountable for his statement.
Of course, a heavy-handed approach to policing “political speech” is baked into the DNA of the Federal Communications Commission. One of FDR’s many political monstrosities, from its inception, the FCC played a role in stifling the use of “public airwaves” to promote popular dissent from the president’s agenda.
As historian David Beito has noted, after the creation of the new agency:
It did not take long for broadcasters to get the message. NBC, for example, announced that it was limiting broadcasts “contrary to the policies of the United States government.” CBS Vice President Henry A. Bellows said that “no broadcast would be permitted over the Columbia Broadcasting System that in any way was critical of any policy of the Administration.” He elaborated “that the Columbia system was at the disposal of President Roosevelt and his administration and they would permit no broadcast that did not have his approval.” Local station owners and network executives alike took it for granted, as Editor and Publisher observed, that each station had “to dance to Government tunes because it is under Government license.”
This practice far outlived the presidency that created the FCC, primarily through wielding the ironically named “Fairness Doctrine.” As Bill Ruder, Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Kennedy administration, admitted:
Our massive strategy [in the early 1960s] was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.
While the abolition of these tools in later decades removed some of the federal government’s powers in policing political speech, modern technology created new pressure points. During covid, for example, state actors pressured social media platforms into deplatforming various actors who criticized the government’s narratives. The playbook was so effective that it was similarly utilized for other regime-desired ends, most prominently with the deplatforming of President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which Kimmel himself supported.
While it is probably wise to resist the schadenfreude one may naturally feel from an advocate of censorship being the recipient of the same treatment, and while it is impossible to determine precisely what role any federal pressure played in the ABC’s handling of Kimmel, or the resulting decision by local affiliates to continue to preempt his show after his reinstatement, the episode should serve as a reminder of the dangers of the continued escalation of Washington’s power to be used as a weapon for political domination.
Regrettably, however, there appears to be little in the form of a broader consensus for the sort of radical change to America’s governing ideology necessary to abolish these tools. While Democrats will claim Carr to be a “radical,” there should be little doubt that they will once again seek to use similar pressures in the future for their own ends.
The sad truth about the Jimmy Kimmel story, however, lies in what it reveals about a deeper aspect of America’s underlying cultural landscape, which has been shaped by an increasing demand for political domination.
After all, the origin story of Jimmy Kimmel Live! is now tragically ironic. The show, created in 2003, was an attempt by ABC to distance itself from the entire realm of politicized comedy. In 2002, ABC canceled Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect in the aftermath of 9/11 for stating, “[The US government] have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, [it’s] not cowardly.”
Maher himself was threatened by the Bush administration, in this case by press secretary Ari Fleischer, and advertisers lost their appetite for the broadcast. The show ended the following June and was briefly replaced by a hard news show Nightline. To restore a comedic presence to their late-night lineup, ABC brought in the non-political Kimmel, riding on the success of two non-political shows on Comedy Central and a regular comedy bit on Fox’s NFL pregame show.
A little over a decade later, America was a different place, and Kimmel’s show became increasingly dominated by political commentary. In 2017, a pop culture blog dubbed the former host of The Man Show “Our Cronkite” for taking on Donald Trump, and speaking out on issues such as gun control and healthcare reform. In 2020, he had presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg guest-host an episode. In 2021, he suggested hospitals should refuse to treat unvaccinated Americans.
While Kimmel’s increasing embrace of unrelenting political commentary has, as is the case with other late-night hosts, corresponded with deteriorating ratings—particularly with the younger demographic he was initially brought in to appeal to—it serves as a broader reflection of modern America’s cultural output. Professional clowns are not immune to the political derangement of the modern American clown world.
