RUTHFULLY YOURS

If you hear a strange, high-pitched screeching sound blowing in from the west on the salty Atlantic winds, it’s probably the keening of Blue America. Spare a thought for these souls – they are collectively finding out what it feels like to be on the receiving end of cancel culture. Turns out, it doesn’t feel great.

The most significant example of this new front in the culture war has been ABC’s decision on Wednesday to suspend late-night talkshow Jimmy Kimmel Live! ‘indefinitely’. On Monday night’s show, Kimmel had made false comments about the supposed Republican leanings of Tyler Robinson, the man alleged to have killed Charlie Kirk. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which licenses TV stations, said Kimmel had ‘directly misled the American public’. He also suggested that unless ABC ‘can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel… there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead’. This barely concealed threat seems to have prompted ABC’s decision to take Kimmel off air.

There were also market factors at play. According to the Wall Street Journal, the move came after executives at Sinclair and Nexstar, owners of more than 60 local ABC stations, told ABC management that they did not want to carry the show after Carr’s comments. This will have caused a major headache for ABC and its parent company, Disney.

The Kimmel cancellation perfectly captures how deeply divided America has become. Sinclair and Nexstar, corporations that own the local channels in flyover states, effectively broadcast to folks in America’s blue-collar heartlands. Their Kimmel decision shows that people in those states are done with being slandered and attacked by ultra-wealthy, talentless clowns who have long since stopped entertaining.

Naturally, the luvvies and hacks have gone immediately into victim mode. Soon-to-be-unemployed regime comedian Stephen Colbert called the move ‘blatant censorship’ and claimed, ‘Tonight we are all Jimmy Kimmel’. Hamas-loving hottie Hasan Piker posted, in all caps: ‘EVERY CORPORATION IS INSTANTLY FOLDING TO THE ADMIN EVEN WHEN ITS OVER AN UTTERLY INOFFENSIVE JOKE THE ADMIN DOESNT LIKE! LIBERALS NEED TO WAKE UP.’ Cry me a river, libtards.

Kimmel’s joke wasn’t ‘inoffensive’, whatever Piker says. Because it wasn’t a joke at all. Rather it was a factually incorrect statement. Kimmel told his audience on Monday night: ‘We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterise this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.’

It’s true it had initially been reported that Robinson came from a conservative, Republican-leaning family. But by the time Kimmel’s monologue aired on Monday, it had since been widely reported that Robinson, the suspect in Kirk’s murder, had been inclined to far-left causes, made references to Antifa and was living with his male-to-female trans lover. If Kimmel and his writers were unaware of this, they were not doing their jobs.

This is not even the most objectionable thing the beady-eyed court jester has said recently. During the pandemic in 2021, he effectively wished death on people who hadn’t had a Covid jab. Adopting the perspective of hospital staff, he said:

‘Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in. We’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy.’

This is not the first time ABC and Disney have given the boot to on-air talent for expressing political opinions. In 2021, Gina Carano was fired by Disney for expressing a conservative point of view in some of her social-media posts. Also in 2021, ABC fired the host of The Bachelor, after he defended a former contestant of the show ‘shown in photos attending an antebellum [pre-Civil War] plantation-themed fraternity formal in 2018’. Where were all the free speech-loving leftists and liberals then?

Call me a fascist if you want, but I think it’s objectively far worse to blame MAGA for the assassination of one of its most beloved activists, than it is to defend a lady who dressed up like Scarlett O’Hara at a frat party.

Not everyone on the right is happy with ABC’s decision. They believe that the FCC chair’s comments prior to Kimmel’s removal represent government overreach. The move to cancel Kimmel has even been controversial in some pro-MAGA circles.

Sinclair, which was described by the New York Post as a ‘local TV giant with a conservative bent’, said in a statement that it ‘will not lift the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on our stations until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability’. Sinclair also called on Kimmel to issue a direct apology to the Kirk family and asked him to make a meaningful personal donation to Turning Point USA.

Personally, I think Kimmel should make a public apology and correct his factual error about the alleged shooter on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. And then let Kimmel’s audience decide his fate.

The problem the likes of Kimmel now find themselves in, though, is that if they adopt a conciliatory approach towards MAGA and Trump on their shows, the ‘progressive’ backlash would be fierce. This is largely their own fault. For the past 10 years or so, they have incessantly and dishonestly portrayed their political rivals as the second coming of Hitler and the Brown Shirts. There is little room for reconciliation now. This is their Frankenstein monster, and it might just kill them.

Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter. Visit her Substack here