It starts with the comedians

 

One of these guys cares deeply about his family and his country. The other Donald Trump. Photos: ABC, Kristin Callahan/Everett Collection. Source: latenighter.com

In earlier times, court jesters and fools(1) were able to say things the courtiers and commoners could not. It was still a precarious job and required a command of wit, verbal gymnastics, and trafficking in ambiguity to keep your head, but it could be done.

In a democracy that once supported humor and critical insights about the party in power and its representatives, it was taken for granted that entertainers would be able to say what they want. If you didn’t like what this one said, you changed the channel.

No more. We live, not simply in the shadow of authoritarianism, but smack dab in the darkness. When people shrug their shoulders at corporate monopolies growing larger, the reasoning is something along the lines of “so what? Aren’t they entitled to make money?” Of course, the American public is dumber than it has ever been and we are watching the cost of stupidity rise day by day.

Until a few days ago, I had at best, a dim idea of who Charlie Kirk was. Since his murder, like many I learned more. I didn’t like what I found, but he didn’t deserve to be shot and killed for his views.

What happened next was predictable: MAGAland and its leader erupted with accusations that he had been assassinated by the “radical Left” and the Democratic Party labeled as a domestic terrorist organization (coming from Stephen Miller, the 21st century’s answer to Herman Goering, this comes as no surprise). These salvos were launched before the FBI had the shooter in custody.

Until his murder, as I said, I had only a dim idea of who Kirk was. He was lost in the morass of other Right Wing media figure names that cast a pall over the brain once you dive deeper into what they’re about.

Along the way, we incidentally discover how inept FBI director Kash Patel has rendered the bureau (the shooter turned himself in) and rather than dial down their rhetoric, the MAGApparatus continued to traffic in pretzel-logic hyperbole because, surprise, the shooter was white, came from a gun-rights supporting, right-wing family.

Claims that he was “radicalized” in college didn’t hold up, and almost none of the talking points MAGA would like to use, did, either. That Tyler Robinson has a transgender girlfriend is about the only Right Wing talking point and that doesn’t fit neat into the narrative, either.

The Right, of course, doesn’t care about the logical consistency of its arguments - or such consistency, at all - because all that matters is that they now have a martyr. Charlie Kirk is the golem the MAGAng can rally around as their protector from the Shroud if Epstein and more.

In Kirk’s death, they’ve found a truncheon to beat everyone into reverence with. And if not, then silence. Jimmy Kimmel and his show have been pulled from ABC’s  line-up after his Monday night monologue about “the assassination of conservative speaker Charlie Kirk, addressing Trump supporters’ characterization of accused killer Tyler Robinson’s politics and mocking the president’s ordering American flags to half-mast”(2). But this isn’t really the whole of it; it was less about Kirk’s assassination than the exploitation by the regime and its followers of his murder:

“ “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said. He also poked fun at President Trump’s response to a question from the press about how he was mourning Kirk’s death after Trump pivoted to a discussion of the construction of a new White House ballroom.”(3)

Not such a long time ago, the thought of a multimedia conglomerate like Disney-ABC capitulating to the threats of this tin pot dictator might have been waved away (as during his first term when support for Kimmel was widespread as he hammered away at Trump’s idiocy, especially when Kimmel’s son was found in need of life-saving care and Kimmel began questioning why our priorities regarding children’s healthcare were so wrong (2)).

But now? Threatened with having the entire network’s broadcasting revoked by the FCC, the Mouse House caves. 

“Disney’s pulling Kimmel on Wednesday came after FCC chair Brendan Carr said that the commission could potentially revoke ABC’s affiliate licenses, preventing the network from broadcasting entirely. Affiliate groups announced they were pulling the show before the entire network followed suit.”(2)

Of course, Carr’s gambit could and should be challenged- as just about every move this so-called administration has done - should be challenged and should have been from day one.

None of this is about Kirk or his sanctity in the eyes of anyone but his new found supporters in the Regime. Trump likely barely was aware of him. And it’s not only or merely about silencing one the regime’s most vocal critics.

Kirk’s death is the event the regime has been looking for as an excuse to silence all dissent and to ensure that corporations get on board or else the government will ruin you. I’m sure Stephen Miller is experiencing his first sexual ecstasy in decades right now and goose-stepping in his bedroom in Reichstag drag, replete with jodhpurs. 

“But doesn’t Trump and his allies realize the damage this will do to the country?” Of course they do! Getting corporations to tow the line will result in a lack innovation and the competition capitalism touts so highly; consumer confidence will continue to crumble, and if it only stops at a recession, we’ll be lucky.

Look, these people don’t care. About you, about me. MAGA? They don’t care beyond useful idiocy. People who keep writing and protesting, organizing and fighting? They don’t care; in their grand scheme, it’s likely arrest and sentenced to gulags or execution. Their vile rhetoric of demonizing the Democratic Party is prelude to whatever “legal” bending of laws they can do to outlaw it and render the US a single-party state. This is the endgame of totalitarianism.

I often ask people to quit acting shocked. It might be hard, but accept that what’s happening is happening. Rather than ask “why isn’t somebody doing something?”, either find someone who is doing something (& there very often is; “look for the helpers”, as Fred Rogers said) or do it yourself. Be a helper and others will join.

All of this is bigger than just a late show host being canceled; it’s a significant step in the consolidation of power of a corrupt regime. If corporations once owned us, something even worse now surges through the country’s circulation. 

Notes

1. On court jesters,

https://www.thetravel.com/what-is-a-jester-in-medieval-times/

https://www.jesterplanet.com/the-court-jester/

https://historyfacts.com/arts-culture/article/what-did-court-jesters-actually-do/

2. D’Addario, Daniel. “Jimmy Kimmel Sidelined: What’s the Future of Late-Night TV After ABC’s Decision?”. Variety. September 17, 2025. https://variety.com/2025/tv/columns/abc-jimmy-kimmel-late-night-tv-future-1236522762/.

3. Steinberg, Brian. “ABC Pulls ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ Indefinitely After Host’s Charlie Kirk Comments”. Variety. September 17, 2025. https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/nexstar-jimmy-kimmel-abc-charlie-kirk-1236522584/.