I agree with the basic conclusion of this piece, so I’m just laying out my perspective here. It’s not meant as criticism.
Even if you take the worst interpretation of left wing cancel culture, it’s not plausible to claim that it interfered with the Republican Party’s ability to compete in free and fair elections.
But in the context of this administration, state directed right wing censorship clearly does threaten the ability of Democrats to fairly compete. I hope that threat doesn’t become reality, but I think the probability is in the 20-30% range.
Additionally, even during the height of cancel culture, there were plenty of centrist Democrats who pushed back; today though, my guess is that some Republicans may performatively object, but ultimately the GOP will yield to Trump in a way that Democrats ultimately didn’t yield to their own cancellation mobs.
Consequently, left wing cancel culture - even during the height of the Anti-Zionist insanity on college campuses - never threatened the ability of America’s culture and politics to make necessary adjustments.
Today, things are very different, and incomparably worse.
This is correct, but I think the deeper and uncomfortable point here is that ordinary people don’t care as much about “free and fair elections” as they do about not being harassed by busybodies for having basically normal/conservative views on race/gender/immigration. If we want to preserve democracy it’s best not to make people choose between the two and let them have both. If we make people choose between the two we might indeed end up somewhere dark.
If you take this "libertarian" viewpoint that everyone should be able to identify as whatever gender/sex they want, well that's great if that really was limited to just a "self understanding". But obviously that will inevitably lead to people demanding official recognition of their "self understanding" because aspects of identity inevitably factor into a lot of laws and rules - which is exactly what happened.
In the end what is "normal" is simply what society at large finds normal. And as far as I'm aware society at large still doesn't think it's normal that people can "self understand" from one sex to another and force the rest of society and the government to affirm that understanding with all the consequences for the rest of society that comes with.
If people are allowed to self understand that Jesus talks to them in their head without worrying that it is inevitable that government has to validate it and do what head Jesus says, then i think we can strike the same balance with gender nonconforming people. Consider that a male saying they are a woman is probably mostly often a claim similar to "I have a personal relationship with Jesus". Sounds like an empirical claim with propositional content but probably isnt really. I find it strange that people cantsee religious freedom is the model we should use with this. The existence of theocrats doesn't mean we just cancel religious freedom.
I think it's plausible to say that the FBI, by some combination of pressure and duplicity, influenced Twitter and Facebook in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, which interfered with the Republican Party's ability to freely and fairly compete in the 2020 election.
There were documented instances of PRESSURE by the Biden administration on Meta to remove or suppress certain COVID posts. There were no "commands," or anything close - No trump admin "easy way or hard way" threats by government officials on Trump-world podcasts.
This was directed mostly, but not exclusively, against posts originated by unhinged falsehood "superspreaders;" Organized campaigns spreading conspiracies alleging vaccines were dangerous and untested, "depopulation weapons," intended as biowarfare agents, etc. - some being propagated by foreign troll factories.
The situation wasn't ideal, but then again, those pressure efforts began under Trump-1.
I would argue that the pressure put on twitter to "disappear" the Hunter Biden laptop story two weeks before his father's election had significant impact on Republican politics. Not sure that's 'cancel culture" but it was extremely sketchy.
I'm not sure that counts as a "lie" from Kimmel. At best, I think you can say it was factually correct but some people were going to infer a likely false implication from it.
It was a statement about what the MAGA gang was doing. "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them".
That said I think a lot of people would probably infer from the context that Kimmel probably thought they were wrong and that the killer was really "one of them".
Anyway, we are splitting hairs here. But my view is he was only wrong in a third-degree sense.
Slight update: as far as I can tell, the claims that Tyler Robinson is left-ist and not a groyper is pretty thinly sourced. HIs mother said he moved left on LGBT issues, but that was it. She probably does not know what a groyper is. The memes on the bullets are probably not super definitive either way. It's probably still more likely than not he's left than a groyper.
Though, can't say I'm an expert. Would be happy to be proven wrong.
(2) The governor of Utah said he was a leftist, citing interviews with family members and other persons of interest in the case
(3) The Utah County DA's office said he and his father had "very different political views," with his father being "diehard MAGA" according to Robinson and a registered Republican.
(4) He inscribed anti-fascist memes into his ammunition
(5) He was dating a transgender person and was active in furry/queer/transgender online subcultures
(6) According to both his parents and his texts, his motive for the killing was Charlie Kirk's "hate," which can be considered leftist terminology in political contexts
(7) A verified high school friend said he was a leftist, although he or she later retracted his or her statement
Evidence Tyler Robinson was a groyper:
(1) He was photographed in a gopnik Halloween costume; according to his mother he was dressed as a "guy from a meme," which may have been a gopnik Pepe the Frog. A "groyper" is originally a different Pepe the Frog meme.
(2) A remix of the anti-fascist song he inscribed into his ammunition was featured in an obscure Groyper-themed Spotify public playlist
Kash Patel’s FBI is asserting that the governor of Utah asserted that Robinson was leftwing? None of the assertions I listed came from the FBI; they are sourced from either the Utah County DA’s office or independent media reporting.
On (1), his mother only cited his LGBT+ views. Nothing else.
(2) The FBI report cited nothing else than #1. FBI report also interestingly dropped the trans part, but don't know what to make of it.
(3) It's correct he inscribed an anti-fascist meme, but also an anti-Gay meme and potentially Groyper meme into the bullets. On the whole I don't think the bullet engravings are super definitive.
(4) clearly he was in a relationship with a gay or trans dude. So, on that particular issue, he was definitely left.
Thus, I still think there's a lot we don't know but of course I think it's more likely than not he leaned left.
It wasn't "anti-gay" actually but more so a lgbt trolling method to "own" conservative on twitter by saying they are closeted homosexual. So even that is definitely left wing
It seems likely to me that he was a groyper, or groyper-adjacent, who discovered he was gay and then that his boyfriend was trans, leaving him with an unresolved ideological conflict but with additional reasons to hate Charlie Kirk.
We talk about "left" and "right" as though they're cohesive, consistent ideologies, but they're not. They're bundles of vaguely-related ideas and many people do hold some leftish beliefs alongside some rightish beliefs. Expecting clear, party-aligned beliefs from an unstable kid struggling to reconcile a Mormon upbringing with homosexual feelings is the height of foolishness.
He literally carved antifa messages on his bullets. And there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever he was groyper or groyper-adjacent (Bella Ciao being on Nick Fuentes playlist isn't evidence to me)
Hmm. I thought people were splitting hairs but this is correct. In the press conference, they said “I hoped it wasn’t one of us” when they found out the killer was a white Mormon raised guy from Utah. And it is EVEN more true because since Kirk was shot they screamed that it was a transgender antifa member that did it, or some Muslim and/or immigrant. The claim that “their attempts to point to someone other than them” couldn’t have been more true.
I wonder if suing is an option because this could be argued in court, though not in front of a mob, hence why woke (mob “justice”) is terrible for social responsibility.
Agreed. Kimmel said that over the weekend, when the motivation of the shooter was still unclear, the MAGA folks were desperately pointing their fingers at others and doing their best to make political hay out of the situation. Completely true.
Absolutely. Also, some of the specific straws they were grasping at (LGBTQ+ markings on the bullets) indeed were false. So they were making up false statements to show he wasn't a right-winger, even though it looks like they were probably correct based on what we know now.
My impression is that Kimmel's implication that Kirk's killer was MAGA was due not to an intentional attempt to deceive on his part, but rather from himself incorrectly believing that the killer was MAGA.
MAGA is exposing itself to be *against* almost everything it once claimed to be. And I still believe it will pay for it. Ultimately, it won because it convinced enough independents they cared about limited government, free markets, and individual rights (such as free speech). That laws needed to be enforced against criminals, and migrants who committed crimes needed to be kicked out seemed another extention of this common sense.
Trump 2.0 has conclusively proved this was all BS. They didn't care about any of these things, MAGA was only using them to score points against The Left. Legal asylum migrants were scooped up at court and even in schools, people who were largely productive and had been living here peacefully for years, because MAGA just hates immigration as such. It is hateful a movement as anything on The Left, and as time goes on, it even appears to ape many of the priorities of the Left such as taxing and regulation (MAGA is so dumb you can illegally pass taxes and they cheer because they don't know what a tariff is or who pays it).
All this, and the economy itself stagnating, points to serious issues in next years mid-terms. They are building an impossible case against themselves.
Keep pretending that there aren’t millions of economic migrants who filed fraudulent asylum claims knowing that it would give them years of freedom in the U.S., along with access to benefits.
How do we know what is fraudulent or not if they don't get a hearing? That's why they go to court! For ICE to grab someone at court following the rules of the process says *volumes* about the real motivation. It isn't about legal or illegal - they just want foreigners kicked out and dislike them.
Everything else they say; benefits, cultural assimilation, crime, etc all - is all a cover for the fact that they just hate people who are different than them. That's why they hate Indian Americans that even agree with them! They hid it awhile (a little) for the election, as soon as they felt safe it's all bubbling up - they upping fees on even productive immigrants that unquestionably are an assest.
If the Left is the party of envy, the Right is the party of hate. They're both, ultimately, parties of *fear*. And they're totally un-American no matter what they claim. America is the country of *the free and the BRAVE*. That's what LIBERTY requires. People who have goals and meaning in their own lives don't constantly worry people stealing their jobs. They make things happen. They're working, busy, and moving with a purpose. Not waiting for some asshole blaming others to hand them shit. MAGA is ultimately as lame and pathetic as the Left; they want State sponsored thugs, the Left wants to excuse petty criminals. Every reason to loathe both.
What you are missing is that top-down cancel culture can descend into authoritarianism much more easily than bottom-um.
Putin and Kim Jong don't need grassroot support to silence the critics.
It might be easier to escape at first, as the government focus on the most prominent critics. But eventually it can pervade the whole public discourse.
You may feel more comfortable online than you did a few years ago, but that may not last. The more cultural power and victories the right gains the more they will keep pushing. That’s what happened with the left. They won fight after fight and thought the tide was forever turning in their favor. The right is giving every indication that they feel the same way.
I think you're underselling the risks when you use "Getting banned from Twitter" as your only threat model. I agree that getting banned from Twitter seems less likely now, as there seems to be no real attempts being made to moderate the platform for content at all.
But there are many bad things that can happen as a result of right-wing speech restriction!
-Elon can change the algorithm so that you're still allowed to post, but no one sees your posts and you have no reach. This seems to happen regularly on Twitter with lefty trending topics and individual users being silenced. This is highly effective in the algorithmic world.
-The FCC can intimidate stations into banning your TV broadcasts, as happened to Jimmy Kimmel.
-You can be personally investigated on made-up charges by the government if your speech is a problem for the regime, as recently happened to Lisa Cook or Letita James.
-You can have your home raided by the FBI, as recently happened to John Bolton.
-You can be arrested and imprisoned, as frequently happens to dissidents in authoritarian regimes.
Is there reason to believe we're at the height of right-wing authoritarian cancel culture now, such that you would never be at risk from these things? Would you have predicted, back in January, that multiple late-night shows would be taken off the air under direct and open government pressure, or that the FBI would raid the home of John Bolton? If you wouldn't have predicted it then, do you think you're accurately predicting the extent of the authoritarian threat now?
On X, I observed posts celebrating Kirk's death get more like and reaction than the other ways around.
All of the examples you listed are the dear leader's enemies or getting in his way. Not a lot of normal people will get trampled by this.
Both are example of limitation of top-down oppression when the elites are against you. Elon and Trump only have limited attentions and will be opposed along the way. Meanwhile, in the previous regime, there are millions of little Elon and Trump eager to exercise their power.
If you haven't lived in totalitarian regime, the key difference is that, the regime, at that point, has control pretty much everything. The dissident is used as example when needed for propaganda purpose, not because it amounts to anything. There is no opposing force at all.
I don’t like the C word, or the R word, so I won’t use them. But I do remember when Elon cracked down on maga accounts who were against skilled immigration, and you celebrated his decision using that kind of language.
To be clear, I don’t fault you for taking joy in the cancellation of your opponents, because that’s a fairly universal emotion among online Americans nowadays; but Elon’s crackdown was arbitrary and illiberal, and as the culture of right wing authoritarianism intensifies, it’s easy to imagine broader crackdowns in the future which are similarly celebrated by a substantial portion of Americans.
“Freedom of reach” and targeting of bots have been two ways to surpass that tension. This will only get more amplified as the time goes and he will through power determine the knowledge dispersed into people’s feeds. Remember how they (Kirk complicit too) suppressed Minnesota story that the killer was actually RW. Future is bleak.
I mostly agree with this, but lets not overstate the Democratic politicians' supposed restraint. It was just over two years ago Schumer and Jeffries were demanding in writing that Murdoch censor Fox News.
There's a huge difference, though, in sending a strongly worded letter demanding that Fox News stop peddling falsehoods, without any indication that they even can offer any threat if Fox doesn't comply, and an FCC chair threatening to yank ABC's license for Kimmel making fun of Trump and alluding to some BlueAnon nonsense.
It's the difference between impotently shaking an empty fist and brandishing a truncheon.
I'll grant that there is a difference, although I'm not sure I'd characterize it as huge. The threat is implied, particularly when their NGO allies are soon after petitioning the FCC to revoke Fox licenses.
A couple points. First, Fox News probably should be more factual than a late night monologue, if we are going to treat the "News" moniker as non-orwellian.
Two, they weren't proposing legislation or government action. So, its closer to a political action than a government action.
MAGA's "power is power" ethos reflects a turn to Yarvinism. That's how I interpret it. I wrote on this yesterday and how it's a form of surrender. https://jeffgiesea.substack.com/p/maga-yarvinism
I disagree that Carr's (and by extension Trump's) actions with respect to Kimmel are lawless, corrupt, authoritarian, a First Amendment violation, etc.
There is no secret "independent" fourth branch of government. The FCC is part of the Executive and thus beholden to Administration policy. Through the FCC, the Executive manages the broadcast spectrum, a public good. Broadcasting is a privilege via license, not a right. If Trump / Carr believe that a licensee has strayed from Administration / FCC policy (which may reasonably include penalizing the broadcast of knowing or reckless lies that risk materially exacerbating social conflict), it is reasonable for the FCC to act. Congress has passed no law preventing Kimmel from expressing incendiary political opinions--he simply may not do so over the public's airwaves. Kimmel's seat belongs to ABC, not Kimmel, so Kimmel has no First Amendment claim.
I am equally untroubled by the implication that Kimmel was fired to smooth FCC approval of a pending merger. Regulated businesses routinely adjust their practices to better conform to Administration policy while seeking regulatory approvals. Kimmel's infantile determination to double down on his Kirk commentary made ABC's decision a no-brainer. Big business doing big business things maximizes shareholder value, benefiting everyone who owns index funds.
The FCC is empowered by the Communications Act…of Congress. 1A say “Congress shall make no law” …that infringes on speech etc. Making a law that empowers a body to restrict speech seems pretty close to what 1a prohibits, even if there is an intermediary involved.
Also, the FCC did not propose a fine of Kimmel or ABC. Carr essentially said cancel him…or wouldn’t it be a shame to see your broadcast licenses go bye-bye. All that was missing was an Italian accent and “Capiche”.
Sinclair and other network affiliate owners, along with advertisers, were tired of Kimmel and his continued efforts to make his ever-shrinking audience even smaller.
Most of the people complaining about his show getting canceled haven’t watched more than an hour total of Kimmel clips on social media in the last ten years.
His show lost way more money than a lot of popular shows did before they got canceled for financial reasons.
Kimmel was living on borrowed time We know this because Colbert, a direct competitor of Kimmel, was losing over $30M per year before they decided not to renew his show.
I don’t dispute the financial reasons for why Kimmel’s show should have been cancelled. The issue is why now? He was unprofitable last month, and he would’ve been unprofitable next month.
The issue is proximate cause. But for Carr and the FCC going full Mafia (“we can do this the easy way, or the hard way”), this would not have happened this week. That’s not a financial issue. That’s an issue with flouting the constitution.
If you kill somebody on their deathbed, you’re still guilty of murder. “They were gonna bite it imminently anyhow” would not be a very effective defence.
Sinclair group told ABC that Kimmel needed to issue an apology and walk it back or they were going to show something else in that time slot in the markets they owned ABC affiliates in. I believe that means they also would not be airing the commercials advertisers had paid for during that hour. Sinclair apparently was not alone in this demand.
Kimmel refused , so ABC had the choice of pulling his show, or facing a rebellion from affiliates. Kimmel created a situation where he was a massive business liability right now.
The FCC had nothing to do with it. Trump is foolishly taking credit, but it was the ultimatum from Sinclair and other affiliates that forced ABC to ditch Kimmel.
You have your “alternate theory”. Which is great. But since you weren’t in the room, it’s just a theory. And your theory matters not one iota.
Cuz even if your theory is correct, it still doesn’t absolve Carr, the FCC, and the Trump admin, from flouting 1A and using an agency of the federal government (to threaten) to squash free speech.
It’s really a test of principles. Do you support the constitution, or don’t you?
It doesn't absolve the FCC or Trump, but I don't think it was the egregious violation of the 1st amendment that you're claiming it is.
They didn't tell YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, BlueSky, etc. to shut down Kimmel. The guy who runs the agency that controls access to the airwaves made an inappropriate threat to ABC regarding Kimmel's statements.
When it comes to D.C., the ongoing violations of the 2nd amendment and 4th amendment are far bigger concerns of mine.
Something that's underappreciated is the extent to which media organizations are using Charlie Kirk-related complaints to justify firing people who they've been wanting to fire for unrelated reasons.
For example, note the reference to "documented performance concerns" in WaPo's termination letter to Karen Attiah (https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1967766824897900866). Documenting "performance concerns" takes the HR department much longer than a week to do.
Yep. Businesses are clearing unprofitable cost centers off their books.
People crying about Kimmel and Colbert didn’t actually tune in to watch either of them on TV…..which is why their expensive shows were hemorrhaging money for the network.
Add in pressure from companies like Sinclair, who own a bunch of CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliate networks in flyover country, being fed up with programming that deliberately insulted half the potential audience, directly impacting potential advertising revenue, and it’s easy to understand why media orgs are jettisoning these “popular” figures.
My understanding is people think Carr was poised to torpedo the Nexstar Tegna merger if Nexstar hadn’t pull Kimmel from the air. Essentially giving Nexstar $6.2 Billion reasons to do a personal favor for President Trump.
Kimmel losing somewhere north of $15M a year and refusing to listen to his employer is the simpler, and more correct explanation. (Colbert was losing somewhere north of $40M per year)
Affiliates and advertisers have been complaining for years about high costs to advertise to an ever-shrinking audience while watching Kimmel and Colbert double down on making that audience even smaller.
Advertisers buying TV spots don’t care about 30 second Kimmel clips being shared on Bluesky or Facebook.
Except he didn't issue that specific threat. You are stating something that he didn't say.
Carr said:
That the FCC “has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC, and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.”
He argued Kimmel “appeared to be making an intentional effort to mislead the public that Kirk’s assassin was a right-wing Trump supporter.”
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Yes, there's an implied threat there. If you're not aware, government operates on implied threats...and explicit threats. I don't consider it to be much of a 1a violation because it's the head of the agency that supervises the airwaves, and they weren't telling social media companies and web hosts to stop showing content from Kimmel. (That was the Biden admin that coordinated that sort of utter assault on the 1a)
Nexstar and Sinclair then had a conversation with ABC where they threatened to stop airing Kimmel's show if he didn't apologize and walk back from the ledge. Kimmel refused.
Kimmel got himself fired for refusing to do what his boss told him to do. That's on him.
In my opinion it’s the White House picking winners and losers based on who can better honor the whims of the MAGA King.
It’s even more arbitrary, corrupt and bad than Lina Khan and the other braindead Biden people blocking the JetBlue and Spirit merger to appease the self-righteous Twitter mob while at almost the exact same time allowing the Alaska and Hawaiian merger to sail through unopposed.
So to me while it’s fundamentally the same style of stupidity and bad. The difference is the scale and shamelessness of the Trump Administration. It is wild to watch.
Your argument implies Carr can pull licenses for refusing to have ABC pundits endorse Trump and is obviously short sighted (and inconsistent with first amendment jurisprudence).
There is a reason the government using its power to enforce (or disfavor) a particular viewpoint is sharply restricted by law. When that viewpoint is literally “say nice things about the current administration and don’t say bad things about” the violation is obvious.
Ever since Nixon the right has been muddying the waters with unitary executive theory, as if the president is a CEO who can do whatever he wants. Sadly, many SCOTUS justices have gone along with it.
The purpose of the executive branch is to *execute the laws* passed by Congress, which after all is the first and longest article of the Constitution
Leftwingers being scared of government would be my dream come true, but I am very sure it is only temporary, and they will learn no (correct) lessons whatsoever from all of this.
I do think there's a future here where the Left is specifically scared (or angry at) Federalism. After the federal government sends military troops into your cities to kidnap people, it's going to be a much harder sell to left-oriented types to say "But the federal government might also one day give you health care."
I think an increasing view among the Left and liberals is that the federal government is captured either by moneyed interests, intransigent rules, or backwards hill-folk, with the main point of contention being whether all this is fixable or not. I do think the extent to which the federal government under Trump have become the barbarian invaders raiding our peaceful cities is likely to have a permanent impact on how Democrats and educated people view federalism more generally and the US government in particular.
I think we're probably going to continue to want Big Government for ourselves, in terms of health care and social services. But I could easily see that big government moving more to the state/local level and an overall desire to weaken the federal government coming out of this whole situation. Speaking personally, before Trump 2.0, I would have prioritized state/local governance that could solve state/local issues like taxes and roads. Now, I'd want to pick a state Governor who will actively fight against Trump invasions and build blue-state compacts to protect ourselves, and this seems much more important than any local issue. I expect my next Governor vote will be based on this.
Democrats have traditionally been the party that wants a stronger form of Federalism, so I'm not sure exactly what happens if both parties want Federalism to be weaker.
The other option is that rich Democratic cities get more serious about trying to capture the Federal government more permanently in order to prevent another invasion of the hill-folk kidnappers, and they elect a blue-state Trump who breaks a bunch of norms in order to achieve that end.
> I’m sure that being a professor opposed to Trump today is a lot easier than being one who wanted to speak out against the concept of systemic racism five years ago.
Recently, a professor at a large public university said that there were more than two genders. As a result, the professor was fired, the head of her department and the dean of her college were removed, and the president of the university (who was a beloved member of the community and a 4 star general of the US Air Force) was forced to step down.
What did professors who spoke against the concept of systemic racism fear that's worse than not only getting fired, but also getting the head of their department, the dean of their college, and the president of their university removed?
Note that in 2019 a professor at a large state school spoke out against diversity statements, and came "under fire" for it:
However, she is still a professor at her university, and as far as I can tell, not the head of the department, nor the dean of the college, nor the president of the university have been removed for this.
I think this is both fair and appropriately nuanced.
Re "liberals actually do believe in this democratic norms stuff they’re always talking about"; maybe in the US. In Germany they've frozen out the AfD despite them having won nearly 25% of the seats in the Bundestag. One can argue the merits of the AfD (I do not support them) but ignoring the expressed wishes of 25% of the voters doesn't seem very democratic to me.
Not saying it’s right, but after what happened 1933-1945 I imagine the political elite in Germany feels they should be more aggressive than the Weimar era.
Agree. I don't know enough about the AfD to know if they're really reincarnated Nazis or simply anti-socialists tarred with that brush. Or something in between. (For all I know - not much - they're libertarians.)
Accusing your opponents of being Nazis is a popular and effective tactic, but that doesn't mean they really are.
(FWIW the Nazis *were* socialists, so anti-socialists are by definition not Nazis.)
I’d bet there was something else up with Kimmel and his show at the network. Like, it was losing money, he was tough to deal with, he had pissed somebody off, etc. and this was a good excuse to get rid of him. (Not to mention he was no longer within a mile of being actually funny/entertaining, and was using his platform as a personal soapbox—but of course that had been going on for a long time, and likely contributed to the show losing money.) Similar to when a company restructures, it uses that opportunity to get rid of poor performers that it’s insufficiently motivated to deal with during status quo times.
If that was the case they could easily have waited for this to blow over to cancel the show. Disney has explicitly stayed that it pulled the show because of concern over his comments and was trying to find a way to reinstate him
I don't think it's fair to say that leftist censorship was bottom up when the government implemented a ton of policies like DEI that encouraged and enforced it's preferred brand of restricted and compelled speech in schools and corporations. That was both more insidious and on a much greater scale than the president individually targeting people (which is also bad).
What is happening in the wake of the tragedy does not offend me because the behavior that society is punishing is abhorrent. I view what is happening as a healthy display that Society understands that violence is unacceptable as a means of settling disagreements, that people that extol that publicly must be shown the errors of their ways and that it has zero patience for any other treatment.
The Left enjoyed cultural dominance through the actual silence of free speech. They have every ability to engage with X and to defend their positions. They are retreating to echo chambers because they feel unable to do so effectively, because they lose the argument as their ideas are not the stronger ones. That is what happens in debate, it is obvious to people who are capable of understanding that.
Rather than show introspection and look at their ideas, at the ideas they seem to be losing to and to understand if perhaps the other side's positions have merit, they isolate and console each other. And the more they do this while the marketplace of ideas functions as it should again, the more they speak to an ever increasing minority. That is what happens when free speech works as it should. You either win through merit, with all the hard work that changing minds entails, or you lose and sharpen your positions and ideas.
They can continue to talk to themselves while society starts to function again without them and not a tear will be shed as they bring no value to the discussion at the moment. The issue here is that the Right are not moderating their own opinions now that the tide has shifted, so arguments in general are becoming one sided and less sharp as a result.
The Right have all sorts of terrible beliefs percolating on their side after years of isolation and they need to show their own responsibility and start tackling and dealing with them, otherwise their time at the top will be short lived. The Left can only continue to fumble this ball for so long before they find their brains again.
The fact that censorship and tyranny allowed for bad ideas to take hold briefly, and that the Left has not accepted that fact, is not a cause for concern. I have no ill will to people on the Left as there are hundreds of reasons why people feel they way they do, much as there are hundreds of reasons on the Right. Debate involves disagreement, it involves a battle for supremacy of the idea and its the key to not having violence as the only force in which society can be shaped.
'Cancel culture' will always exist. It is society enforcing its values onto dissidents. If you agree with the society, you see no issue. If you disagree with it, you claim victimhood. When society is wrong, it is indeed distressing but how else do those who decry it expect for behavior to change if there is absolutely no enforcement of anything, if there are no repercussions at all?
Both parties need to become adults again. They both need to start dealing with their extreme views and the opinions that have no place in a functional society. The enemy is the bad ideas that people hold, not the people that hold them.
The loss of a job is an unfortunate thing. I take no pleasure in it. However, those people are responsible for their own actions and actions do have to have consequences. The more we can moderate all discussion, the less harsh those consequences will be as there will be more space and room for other mechanisms to deal with them.
In the meantime, the hammer should and will come down on those endorsing violence, and the responsible people will understand why and support it. Do not defend every single person in your party, pick carefully and do so when it is appropriate. Kimmel deserves no sympathy and will gain the Left no traction.
In short - we all need to remember what responsibility means again. To ourselves, to our families, to our communities, to our countries.
I realize you play the game of chasing clicks Richard and it sparks discussion so it is what it is, but in general there needs to be less inflammatory opinion and more reasoned opinion that establishes its case and allows for understanding and transformation of opinion through discussion to occur. Violence is never an acceptable answer.
> cancel culture was never a mobilization strategy for the political left, but rather a bottom-up phenomenon
I have a hard time squaring this idea with your other thoughts on wokeness (https://www.richardhanania.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights), viz., that suppressing anti-woke speech (point (2) under "Government Policy" in that article) emerged because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent lawmaking/EOs. Federal government fiat is inherently centralized and top-down, so even if randos end up directly calling for cancellations, it's still wrong to describe that as bottom-up. Lyndon Johnson didn't cancel Dr. Seuss "in the same way that Putin didn’t personally march into Ukraine in a tank" (https://www.richardhanania.com/p/please-find-less-stupid-ways-to-defend).
I agree with the basic conclusion of this piece, so I’m just laying out my perspective here. It’s not meant as criticism.
Even if you take the worst interpretation of left wing cancel culture, it’s not plausible to claim that it interfered with the Republican Party’s ability to compete in free and fair elections.
But in the context of this administration, state directed right wing censorship clearly does threaten the ability of Democrats to fairly compete. I hope that threat doesn’t become reality, but I think the probability is in the 20-30% range.
Additionally, even during the height of cancel culture, there were plenty of centrist Democrats who pushed back; today though, my guess is that some Republicans may performatively object, but ultimately the GOP will yield to Trump in a way that Democrats ultimately didn’t yield to their own cancellation mobs.
Consequently, left wing cancel culture - even during the height of the Anti-Zionist insanity on college campuses - never threatened the ability of America’s culture and politics to make necessary adjustments.
Today, things are very different, and incomparably worse.
This is correct, but I think the deeper and uncomfortable point here is that ordinary people don’t care as much about “free and fair elections” as they do about not being harassed by busybodies for having basically normal/conservative views on race/gender/immigration. If we want to preserve democracy it’s best not to make people choose between the two and let them have both. If we make people choose between the two we might indeed end up somewhere dark.
A normal view on gender is libertarian, not conservative. People's self understanding isn't the state's business to either affirm or squash.
If you take this "libertarian" viewpoint that everyone should be able to identify as whatever gender/sex they want, well that's great if that really was limited to just a "self understanding". But obviously that will inevitably lead to people demanding official recognition of their "self understanding" because aspects of identity inevitably factor into a lot of laws and rules - which is exactly what happened.
In the end what is "normal" is simply what society at large finds normal. And as far as I'm aware society at large still doesn't think it's normal that people can "self understand" from one sex to another and force the rest of society and the government to affirm that understanding with all the consequences for the rest of society that comes with.
If people are allowed to self understand that Jesus talks to them in their head without worrying that it is inevitable that government has to validate it and do what head Jesus says, then i think we can strike the same balance with gender nonconforming people. Consider that a male saying they are a woman is probably mostly often a claim similar to "I have a personal relationship with Jesus". Sounds like an empirical claim with propositional content but probably isnt really. I find it strange that people cantsee religious freedom is the model we should use with this. The existence of theocrats doesn't mean we just cancel religious freedom.
I think it's plausible to say that the FBI, by some combination of pressure and duplicity, influenced Twitter and Facebook in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, which interfered with the Republican Party's ability to freely and fairly compete in the 2020 election.
Biden admin delivered commands to social media companies to censor covid posts.
There were documented instances of PRESSURE by the Biden administration on Meta to remove or suppress certain COVID posts. There were no "commands," or anything close - No trump admin "easy way or hard way" threats by government officials on Trump-world podcasts.
This was directed mostly, but not exclusively, against posts originated by unhinged falsehood "superspreaders;" Organized campaigns spreading conspiracies alleging vaccines were dangerous and untested, "depopulation weapons," intended as biowarfare agents, etc. - some being propagated by foreign troll factories.
The situation wasn't ideal, but then again, those pressure efforts began under Trump-1.
Completely and utterly wrong. Wtf do you think “pressure” is?
America has a left wing? I thought it was like, center right and far right?
There's plenty of actual communists in America.
What do you mean by that?
Trump also has wrecked the idea that one cannot use federal power to attack one's enemies on grounds of pure personal loyalty.
If Team D were to return to office, they will surely respond with the same.
I would argue that the pressure put on twitter to "disappear" the Hunter Biden laptop story two weeks before his father's election had significant impact on Republican politics. Not sure that's 'cancel culture" but it was extremely sketchy.
I'm not sure that counts as a "lie" from Kimmel. At best, I think you can say it was factually correct but some people were going to infer a likely false implication from it.
It was factually correct to say he was “one of them”?
It was a statement about what the MAGA gang was doing. "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them".
That said I think a lot of people would probably infer from the context that Kimmel probably thought they were wrong and that the killer was really "one of them".
Anyway, we are splitting hairs here. But my view is he was only wrong in a third-degree sense.
I made that inference, though I can now see the alternative explanation.
Slight update: as far as I can tell, the claims that Tyler Robinson is left-ist and not a groyper is pretty thinly sourced. HIs mother said he moved left on LGBT issues, but that was it. She probably does not know what a groyper is. The memes on the bullets are probably not super definitive either way. It's probably still more likely than not he's left than a groyper.
Though, can't say I'm an expert. Would be happy to be proven wrong.
Evidence Tyler Robinson was a leftist:
(1) His own mother said he was a leftist
(2) The governor of Utah said he was a leftist, citing interviews with family members and other persons of interest in the case
(3) The Utah County DA's office said he and his father had "very different political views," with his father being "diehard MAGA" according to Robinson and a registered Republican.
(4) He inscribed anti-fascist memes into his ammunition
(5) He was dating a transgender person and was active in furry/queer/transgender online subcultures
(6) According to both his parents and his texts, his motive for the killing was Charlie Kirk's "hate," which can be considered leftist terminology in political contexts
(7) A verified high school friend said he was a leftist, although he or she later retracted his or her statement
Evidence Tyler Robinson was a groyper:
(1) He was photographed in a gopnik Halloween costume; according to his mother he was dressed as a "guy from a meme," which may have been a gopnik Pepe the Frog. A "groyper" is originally a different Pepe the Frog meme.
(2) A remix of the anti-fascist song he inscribed into his ammunition was featured in an obscure Groyper-themed Spotify public playlist
All of these assertions are coming from Kash Patel’s FBI.
I don’t believe this necessarily makes them false, but let’s just say I’ll believe them when they’re independently corroborated.
Kash Patel’s FBI is asserting that the governor of Utah asserted that Robinson was leftwing? None of the assertions I listed came from the FBI; they are sourced from either the Utah County DA’s office or independent media reporting.
On (1), his mother only cited his LGBT+ views. Nothing else.
(2) The FBI report cited nothing else than #1. FBI report also interestingly dropped the trans part, but don't know what to make of it.
(3) It's correct he inscribed an anti-fascist meme, but also an anti-Gay meme and potentially Groyper meme into the bullets. On the whole I don't think the bullet engravings are super definitive.
(4) clearly he was in a relationship with a gay or trans dude. So, on that particular issue, he was definitely left.
Thus, I still think there's a lot we don't know but of course I think it's more likely than not he leaned left.
It wasn't "anti-gay" actually but more so a lgbt trolling method to "own" conservative on twitter by saying they are closeted homosexual. So even that is definitely left wing
He was a fellow alt-centrist (!)
It seems likely to me that he was a groyper, or groyper-adjacent, who discovered he was gay and then that his boyfriend was trans, leaving him with an unresolved ideological conflict but with additional reasons to hate Charlie Kirk.
We talk about "left" and "right" as though they're cohesive, consistent ideologies, but they're not. They're bundles of vaguely-related ideas and many people do hold some leftish beliefs alongside some rightish beliefs. Expecting clear, party-aligned beliefs from an unstable kid struggling to reconcile a Mormon upbringing with homosexual feelings is the height of foolishness.
He literally carved antifa messages on his bullets. And there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever he was groyper or groyper-adjacent (Bella Ciao being on Nick Fuentes playlist isn't evidence to me)
Memes from weirdo Discord groups, and the only picture I've been able to find shows what looks to be Sharpie writing.
It's pretty fucked up that there's still no official statement or pictures of just what was written or inscribed into these revelatory bullets.
Him being a groyper is even more thinly-sourced imo
Hmm. I thought people were splitting hairs but this is correct. In the press conference, they said “I hoped it wasn’t one of us” when they found out the killer was a white Mormon raised guy from Utah. And it is EVEN more true because since Kirk was shot they screamed that it was a transgender antifa member that did it, or some Muslim and/or immigrant. The claim that “their attempts to point to someone other than them” couldn’t have been more true.
I wonder if suing is an option because this could be argued in court, though not in front of a mob, hence why woke (mob “justice”) is terrible for social responsibility.
Agreed. Kimmel said that over the weekend, when the motivation of the shooter was still unclear, the MAGA folks were desperately pointing their fingers at others and doing their best to make political hay out of the situation. Completely true.
Absolutely. Also, some of the specific straws they were grasping at (LGBTQ+ markings on the bullets) indeed were false. So they were making up false statements to show he wasn't a right-winger, even though it looks like they were probably correct based on what we know now.
How do you know? Nobody, as far as I know, has seen the bullets or the markings, apart from the FBI.
My impression is that Kimmel's implication that Kirk's killer was MAGA was due not to an intentional attempt to deceive on his part, but rather from himself incorrectly believing that the killer was MAGA.
Can’t believe that I had to scroll this far to see the correct interpretation.
MAGA is exposing itself to be *against* almost everything it once claimed to be. And I still believe it will pay for it. Ultimately, it won because it convinced enough independents they cared about limited government, free markets, and individual rights (such as free speech). That laws needed to be enforced against criminals, and migrants who committed crimes needed to be kicked out seemed another extention of this common sense.
Trump 2.0 has conclusively proved this was all BS. They didn't care about any of these things, MAGA was only using them to score points against The Left. Legal asylum migrants were scooped up at court and even in schools, people who were largely productive and had been living here peacefully for years, because MAGA just hates immigration as such. It is hateful a movement as anything on The Left, and as time goes on, it even appears to ape many of the priorities of the Left such as taxing and regulation (MAGA is so dumb you can illegally pass taxes and they cheer because they don't know what a tariff is or who pays it).
All this, and the economy itself stagnating, points to serious issues in next years mid-terms. They are building an impossible case against themselves.
Keep pretending that there aren’t millions of economic migrants who filed fraudulent asylum claims knowing that it would give them years of freedom in the U.S., along with access to benefits.
They are technically legal, but they are frauds.
Andy Blank did not do that. Keep Straw Manning.
How do we know what is fraudulent or not if they don't get a hearing? That's why they go to court! For ICE to grab someone at court following the rules of the process says *volumes* about the real motivation. It isn't about legal or illegal - they just want foreigners kicked out and dislike them.
Everything else they say; benefits, cultural assimilation, crime, etc all - is all a cover for the fact that they just hate people who are different than them. That's why they hate Indian Americans that even agree with them! They hid it awhile (a little) for the election, as soon as they felt safe it's all bubbling up - they upping fees on even productive immigrants that unquestionably are an assest.
If the Left is the party of envy, the Right is the party of hate. They're both, ultimately, parties of *fear*. And they're totally un-American no matter what they claim. America is the country of *the free and the BRAVE*. That's what LIBERTY requires. People who have goals and meaning in their own lives don't constantly worry people stealing their jobs. They make things happen. They're working, busy, and moving with a purpose. Not waiting for some asshole blaming others to hand them shit. MAGA is ultimately as lame and pathetic as the Left; they want State sponsored thugs, the Left wants to excuse petty criminals. Every reason to loathe both.
MAGA is a cult of personality. Nothing more.
This article reminds me of why Hanania is one of the most interesting essayists out there.
Hear hear!
What you are missing is that top-down cancel culture can descend into authoritarianism much more easily than bottom-um.
Putin and Kim Jong don't need grassroot support to silence the critics.
It might be easier to escape at first, as the government focus on the most prominent critics. But eventually it can pervade the whole public discourse.
You may feel more comfortable online than you did a few years ago, but that may not last. The more cultural power and victories the right gains the more they will keep pushing. That’s what happened with the left. They won fight after fight and thought the tide was forever turning in their favor. The right is giving every indication that they feel the same way.
But Elon owns Twitter now. Why can we all still criticize him and his movement as much as we want there?
I think you're underselling the risks when you use "Getting banned from Twitter" as your only threat model. I agree that getting banned from Twitter seems less likely now, as there seems to be no real attempts being made to moderate the platform for content at all.
But there are many bad things that can happen as a result of right-wing speech restriction!
-Elon can change the algorithm so that you're still allowed to post, but no one sees your posts and you have no reach. This seems to happen regularly on Twitter with lefty trending topics and individual users being silenced. This is highly effective in the algorithmic world.
-The FCC can intimidate stations into banning your TV broadcasts, as happened to Jimmy Kimmel.
-You can be personally investigated on made-up charges by the government if your speech is a problem for the regime, as recently happened to Lisa Cook or Letita James.
-You can have your home raided by the FBI, as recently happened to John Bolton.
-You can be arrested and imprisoned, as frequently happens to dissidents in authoritarian regimes.
Is there reason to believe we're at the height of right-wing authoritarian cancel culture now, such that you would never be at risk from these things? Would you have predicted, back in January, that multiple late-night shows would be taken off the air under direct and open government pressure, or that the FBI would raid the home of John Bolton? If you wouldn't have predicted it then, do you think you're accurately predicting the extent of the authoritarian threat now?
On X, I observed posts celebrating Kirk's death get more like and reaction than the other ways around.
All of the examples you listed are the dear leader's enemies or getting in his way. Not a lot of normal people will get trampled by this.
Both are example of limitation of top-down oppression when the elites are against you. Elon and Trump only have limited attentions and will be opposed along the way. Meanwhile, in the previous regime, there are millions of little Elon and Trump eager to exercise their power.
If you haven't lived in totalitarian regime, the key difference is that, the regime, at that point, has control pretty much everything. The dissident is used as example when needed for propaganda purpose, not because it amounts to anything. There is no opposing force at all.
I don’t like the C word, or the R word, so I won’t use them. But I do remember when Elon cracked down on maga accounts who were against skilled immigration, and you celebrated his decision using that kind of language.
To be clear, I don’t fault you for taking joy in the cancellation of your opponents, because that’s a fairly universal emotion among online Americans nowadays; but Elon’s crackdown was arbitrary and illiberal, and as the culture of right wing authoritarianism intensifies, it’s easy to imagine broader crackdowns in the future which are similarly celebrated by a substantial portion of Americans.
“Freedom of reach” and targeting of bots have been two ways to surpass that tension. This will only get more amplified as the time goes and he will through power determine the knowledge dispersed into people’s feeds. Remember how they (Kirk complicit too) suppressed Minnesota story that the killer was actually RW. Future is bleak.
Maybe that stays true but maybe not. I’ve given up on trying to predict the future, but things are moving very fast.
I mostly agree with this, but lets not overstate the Democratic politicians' supposed restraint. It was just over two years ago Schumer and Jeffries were demanding in writing that Murdoch censor Fox News.
https://x.com/AlexanderPayton/status/1968697912499573027/photo/1
There's a huge difference, though, in sending a strongly worded letter demanding that Fox News stop peddling falsehoods, without any indication that they even can offer any threat if Fox doesn't comply, and an FCC chair threatening to yank ABC's license for Kimmel making fun of Trump and alluding to some BlueAnon nonsense.
It's the difference between impotently shaking an empty fist and brandishing a truncheon.
I'll grant that there is a difference, although I'm not sure I'd characterize it as huge. The threat is implied, particularly when their NGO allies are soon after petitioning the FCC to revoke Fox licenses.
Where was their letter demanding that MSNBC stop peddling falsehoods?
Adam Schiff got promoted to Senator for repeatedly going on pro-DNC networks to lie about Russiagate.
A couple points. First, Fox News probably should be more factual than a late night monologue, if we are going to treat the "News" moniker as non-orwellian.
Two, they weren't proposing legislation or government action. So, its closer to a political action than a government action.
MAGA's "power is power" ethos reflects a turn to Yarvinism. That's how I interpret it. I wrote on this yesterday and how it's a form of surrender. https://jeffgiesea.substack.com/p/maga-yarvinism
I disagree that Carr's (and by extension Trump's) actions with respect to Kimmel are lawless, corrupt, authoritarian, a First Amendment violation, etc.
There is no secret "independent" fourth branch of government. The FCC is part of the Executive and thus beholden to Administration policy. Through the FCC, the Executive manages the broadcast spectrum, a public good. Broadcasting is a privilege via license, not a right. If Trump / Carr believe that a licensee has strayed from Administration / FCC policy (which may reasonably include penalizing the broadcast of knowing or reckless lies that risk materially exacerbating social conflict), it is reasonable for the FCC to act. Congress has passed no law preventing Kimmel from expressing incendiary political opinions--he simply may not do so over the public's airwaves. Kimmel's seat belongs to ABC, not Kimmel, so Kimmel has no First Amendment claim.
I am equally untroubled by the implication that Kimmel was fired to smooth FCC approval of a pending merger. Regulated businesses routinely adjust their practices to better conform to Administration policy while seeking regulatory approvals. Kimmel's infantile determination to double down on his Kirk commentary made ABC's decision a no-brainer. Big business doing big business things maximizes shareholder value, benefiting everyone who owns index funds.
The FCC is empowered by the Communications Act…of Congress. 1A say “Congress shall make no law” …that infringes on speech etc. Making a law that empowers a body to restrict speech seems pretty close to what 1a prohibits, even if there is an intermediary involved.
Also, the FCC did not propose a fine of Kimmel or ABC. Carr essentially said cancel him…or wouldn’t it be a shame to see your broadcast licenses go bye-bye. All that was missing was an Italian accent and “Capiche”.
Sinclair and other network affiliate owners, along with advertisers, were tired of Kimmel and his continued efforts to make his ever-shrinking audience even smaller.
Most of the people complaining about his show getting canceled haven’t watched more than an hour total of Kimmel clips on social media in the last ten years.
His show lost way more money than a lot of popular shows did before they got canceled for financial reasons.
Kimmel was living on borrowed time We know this because Colbert, a direct competitor of Kimmel, was losing over $30M per year before they decided not to renew his show.
I don’t dispute the financial reasons for why Kimmel’s show should have been cancelled. The issue is why now? He was unprofitable last month, and he would’ve been unprofitable next month.
The issue is proximate cause. But for Carr and the FCC going full Mafia (“we can do this the easy way, or the hard way”), this would not have happened this week. That’s not a financial issue. That’s an issue with flouting the constitution.
If you kill somebody on their deathbed, you’re still guilty of murder. “They were gonna bite it imminently anyhow” would not be a very effective defence.
Sinclair group told ABC that Kimmel needed to issue an apology and walk it back or they were going to show something else in that time slot in the markets they owned ABC affiliates in. I believe that means they also would not be airing the commercials advertisers had paid for during that hour. Sinclair apparently was not alone in this demand.
Kimmel refused , so ABC had the choice of pulling his show, or facing a rebellion from affiliates. Kimmel created a situation where he was a massive business liability right now.
The FCC had nothing to do with it. Trump is foolishly taking credit, but it was the ultimatum from Sinclair and other affiliates that forced ABC to ditch Kimmel.
You have your “alternate theory”. Which is great. But since you weren’t in the room, it’s just a theory. And your theory matters not one iota.
Cuz even if your theory is correct, it still doesn’t absolve Carr, the FCC, and the Trump admin, from flouting 1A and using an agency of the federal government (to threaten) to squash free speech.
It’s really a test of principles. Do you support the constitution, or don’t you?
It doesn't absolve the FCC or Trump, but I don't think it was the egregious violation of the 1st amendment that you're claiming it is.
They didn't tell YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, BlueSky, etc. to shut down Kimmel. The guy who runs the agency that controls access to the airwaves made an inappropriate threat to ABC regarding Kimmel's statements.
When it comes to D.C., the ongoing violations of the 2nd amendment and 4th amendment are far bigger concerns of mine.
Something that's underappreciated is the extent to which media organizations are using Charlie Kirk-related complaints to justify firing people who they've been wanting to fire for unrelated reasons.
For example, note the reference to "documented performance concerns" in WaPo's termination letter to Karen Attiah (https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1967766824897900866). Documenting "performance concerns" takes the HR department much longer than a week to do.
Yep. Businesses are clearing unprofitable cost centers off their books.
People crying about Kimmel and Colbert didn’t actually tune in to watch either of them on TV…..which is why their expensive shows were hemorrhaging money for the network.
Add in pressure from companies like Sinclair, who own a bunch of CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliate networks in flyover country, being fed up with programming that deliberately insulted half the potential audience, directly impacting potential advertising revenue, and it’s easy to understand why media orgs are jettisoning these “popular” figures.
My understanding is people think Carr was poised to torpedo the Nexstar Tegna merger if Nexstar hadn’t pull Kimmel from the air. Essentially giving Nexstar $6.2 Billion reasons to do a personal favor for President Trump.
Kimmel losing somewhere north of $15M a year and refusing to listen to his employer is the simpler, and more correct explanation. (Colbert was losing somewhere north of $40M per year)
Affiliates and advertisers have been complaining for years about high costs to advertise to an ever-shrinking audience while watching Kimmel and Colbert double down on making that audience even smaller.
Advertisers buying TV spots don’t care about 30 second Kimmel clips being shared on Bluesky or Facebook.
FCC Chairman Carr threatened to torpedo the Nexstar and Tegna merger if they didn’t cancel Kimmel.
Then they canceled Kimmel.
It’s very simple.
Except he didn't issue that specific threat. You are stating something that he didn't say.
Carr said:
That the FCC “has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC, and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.”
He argued Kimmel “appeared to be making an intentional effort to mislead the public that Kirk’s assassin was a right-wing Trump supporter.”
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Yes, there's an implied threat there. If you're not aware, government operates on implied threats...and explicit threats. I don't consider it to be much of a 1a violation because it's the head of the agency that supervises the airwaves, and they weren't telling social media companies and web hosts to stop showing content from Kimmel. (That was the Biden admin that coordinated that sort of utter assault on the 1a)
Nexstar and Sinclair then had a conversation with ABC where they threatened to stop airing Kimmel's show if he didn't apologize and walk back from the ledge. Kimmel refused.
Kimmel got himself fired for refusing to do what his boss told him to do. That's on him.
Maybe he can start a substack.
In my opinion it’s the White House picking winners and losers based on who can better honor the whims of the MAGA King.
It’s even more arbitrary, corrupt and bad than Lina Khan and the other braindead Biden people blocking the JetBlue and Spirit merger to appease the self-righteous Twitter mob while at almost the exact same time allowing the Alaska and Hawaiian merger to sail through unopposed.
So to me while it’s fundamentally the same style of stupidity and bad. The difference is the scale and shamelessness of the Trump Administration. It is wild to watch.
Your argument implies Carr can pull licenses for refusing to have ABC pundits endorse Trump and is obviously short sighted (and inconsistent with first amendment jurisprudence).
There is a reason the government using its power to enforce (or disfavor) a particular viewpoint is sharply restricted by law. When that viewpoint is literally “say nice things about the current administration and don’t say bad things about” the violation is obvious.
Ever since Nixon the right has been muddying the waters with unitary executive theory, as if the president is a CEO who can do whatever he wants. Sadly, many SCOTUS justices have gone along with it.
The purpose of the executive branch is to *execute the laws* passed by Congress, which after all is the first and longest article of the Constitution
Leftwingers being scared of government would be my dream come true, but I am very sure it is only temporary, and they will learn no (correct) lessons whatsoever from all of this.
I do think there's a future here where the Left is specifically scared (or angry at) Federalism. After the federal government sends military troops into your cities to kidnap people, it's going to be a much harder sell to left-oriented types to say "But the federal government might also one day give you health care."
I think an increasing view among the Left and liberals is that the federal government is captured either by moneyed interests, intransigent rules, or backwards hill-folk, with the main point of contention being whether all this is fixable or not. I do think the extent to which the federal government under Trump have become the barbarian invaders raiding our peaceful cities is likely to have a permanent impact on how Democrats and educated people view federalism more generally and the US government in particular.
I think we're probably going to continue to want Big Government for ourselves, in terms of health care and social services. But I could easily see that big government moving more to the state/local level and an overall desire to weaken the federal government coming out of this whole situation. Speaking personally, before Trump 2.0, I would have prioritized state/local governance that could solve state/local issues like taxes and roads. Now, I'd want to pick a state Governor who will actively fight against Trump invasions and build blue-state compacts to protect ourselves, and this seems much more important than any local issue. I expect my next Governor vote will be based on this.
Democrats have traditionally been the party that wants a stronger form of Federalism, so I'm not sure exactly what happens if both parties want Federalism to be weaker.
The other option is that rich Democratic cities get more serious about trying to capture the Federal government more permanently in order to prevent another invasion of the hill-folk kidnappers, and they elect a blue-state Trump who breaks a bunch of norms in order to achieve that end.
That is also a best case that I would welcome with arms open! But I'm not so optimistic, I don't see any signs of this ?
> I’m sure that being a professor opposed to Trump today is a lot easier than being one who wanted to speak out against the concept of systemic racism five years ago.
Recently, a professor at a large public university said that there were more than two genders. As a result, the professor was fired, the head of her department and the dean of her college were removed, and the president of the university (who was a beloved member of the community and a 4 star general of the US Air Force) was forced to step down.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/18/texas-am-university-president-mark-welsh-resigns/
What did professors who spoke against the concept of systemic racism fear that's worse than not only getting fired, but also getting the head of their department, the dean of their college, and the president of their university removed?
Note that in 2019 a professor at a large state school spoke out against diversity statements, and came "under fire" for it:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/uc-davis-professor-under-fire-for-opposing-required-diversity-statements/
However, she is still a professor at her university, and as far as I can tell, not the head of the department, nor the dean of the college, nor the president of the university have been removed for this.
I think this is both fair and appropriately nuanced.
Re "liberals actually do believe in this democratic norms stuff they’re always talking about"; maybe in the US. In Germany they've frozen out the AfD despite them having won nearly 25% of the seats in the Bundestag. One can argue the merits of the AfD (I do not support them) but ignoring the expressed wishes of 25% of the voters doesn't seem very democratic to me.
(See https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/07/03/germanys-bundestag-bars-afd-mps-from-its-football-team)
Not saying it’s right, but after what happened 1933-1945 I imagine the political elite in Germany feels they should be more aggressive than the Weimar era.
Agree. I don't know enough about the AfD to know if they're really reincarnated Nazis or simply anti-socialists tarred with that brush. Or something in between. (For all I know - not much - they're libertarians.)
Accusing your opponents of being Nazis is a popular and effective tactic, but that doesn't mean they really are.
(FWIW the Nazis *were* socialists, so anti-socialists are by definition not Nazis.)
I’d bet there was something else up with Kimmel and his show at the network. Like, it was losing money, he was tough to deal with, he had pissed somebody off, etc. and this was a good excuse to get rid of him. (Not to mention he was no longer within a mile of being actually funny/entertaining, and was using his platform as a personal soapbox—but of course that had been going on for a long time, and likely contributed to the show losing money.) Similar to when a company restructures, it uses that opportunity to get rid of poor performers that it’s insufficiently motivated to deal with during status quo times.
If that was the case they could easily have waited for this to blow over to cancel the show. Disney has explicitly stayed that it pulled the show because of concern over his comments and was trying to find a way to reinstate him
If that were true they would just decline to renew his contract, like CBS did with Colbert.
Aukams razor or however you spell it
I don't think it's fair to say that leftist censorship was bottom up when the government implemented a ton of policies like DEI that encouraged and enforced it's preferred brand of restricted and compelled speech in schools and corporations. That was both more insidious and on a much greater scale than the president individually targeting people (which is also bad).
What is happening in the wake of the tragedy does not offend me because the behavior that society is punishing is abhorrent. I view what is happening as a healthy display that Society understands that violence is unacceptable as a means of settling disagreements, that people that extol that publicly must be shown the errors of their ways and that it has zero patience for any other treatment.
The Left enjoyed cultural dominance through the actual silence of free speech. They have every ability to engage with X and to defend their positions. They are retreating to echo chambers because they feel unable to do so effectively, because they lose the argument as their ideas are not the stronger ones. That is what happens in debate, it is obvious to people who are capable of understanding that.
Rather than show introspection and look at their ideas, at the ideas they seem to be losing to and to understand if perhaps the other side's positions have merit, they isolate and console each other. And the more they do this while the marketplace of ideas functions as it should again, the more they speak to an ever increasing minority. That is what happens when free speech works as it should. You either win through merit, with all the hard work that changing minds entails, or you lose and sharpen your positions and ideas.
They can continue to talk to themselves while society starts to function again without them and not a tear will be shed as they bring no value to the discussion at the moment. The issue here is that the Right are not moderating their own opinions now that the tide has shifted, so arguments in general are becoming one sided and less sharp as a result.
The Right have all sorts of terrible beliefs percolating on their side after years of isolation and they need to show their own responsibility and start tackling and dealing with them, otherwise their time at the top will be short lived. The Left can only continue to fumble this ball for so long before they find their brains again.
The fact that censorship and tyranny allowed for bad ideas to take hold briefly, and that the Left has not accepted that fact, is not a cause for concern. I have no ill will to people on the Left as there are hundreds of reasons why people feel they way they do, much as there are hundreds of reasons on the Right. Debate involves disagreement, it involves a battle for supremacy of the idea and its the key to not having violence as the only force in which society can be shaped.
'Cancel culture' will always exist. It is society enforcing its values onto dissidents. If you agree with the society, you see no issue. If you disagree with it, you claim victimhood. When society is wrong, it is indeed distressing but how else do those who decry it expect for behavior to change if there is absolutely no enforcement of anything, if there are no repercussions at all?
Both parties need to become adults again. They both need to start dealing with their extreme views and the opinions that have no place in a functional society. The enemy is the bad ideas that people hold, not the people that hold them.
The loss of a job is an unfortunate thing. I take no pleasure in it. However, those people are responsible for their own actions and actions do have to have consequences. The more we can moderate all discussion, the less harsh those consequences will be as there will be more space and room for other mechanisms to deal with them.
In the meantime, the hammer should and will come down on those endorsing violence, and the responsible people will understand why and support it. Do not defend every single person in your party, pick carefully and do so when it is appropriate. Kimmel deserves no sympathy and will gain the Left no traction.
In short - we all need to remember what responsibility means again. To ourselves, to our families, to our communities, to our countries.
I realize you play the game of chasing clicks Richard and it sparks discussion so it is what it is, but in general there needs to be less inflammatory opinion and more reasoned opinion that establishes its case and allows for understanding and transformation of opinion through discussion to occur. Violence is never an acceptable answer.
> cancel culture was never a mobilization strategy for the political left, but rather a bottom-up phenomenon
I have a hard time squaring this idea with your other thoughts on wokeness (https://www.richardhanania.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights), viz., that suppressing anti-woke speech (point (2) under "Government Policy" in that article) emerged because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent lawmaking/EOs. Federal government fiat is inherently centralized and top-down, so even if randos end up directly calling for cancellations, it's still wrong to describe that as bottom-up. Lyndon Johnson didn't cancel Dr. Seuss "in the same way that Putin didn’t personally march into Ukraine in a tank" (https://www.richardhanania.com/p/please-find-less-stupid-ways-to-defend).