The right, has for the past decade or so taken a moral high ground with regards to cancelation. Seems that now they've adopted a "turnaround is fair play" mentality.
Keep in mind that Kimmel has been hinting about retiring for a couple years now, his contract was up in the air, the "late night television show" category is evaporating (if there's still even a Tonight Show in 10 years, it'll be purely for nostalgia), and this sends Kimmel out in a blaze of glory.
I think it's too easy to sort of anthropomorphize these kinds of conflicts --- Kimmel's show has a large staff, and he's responsible for their livelihoods --- but it wouldn't be totally out of the question that Kimmel steered right into this.
There's nothing new about this, though: ABC also took Bill Maher off the air, 20 years ago, almost identical circumstances. Maher wound up at HBO. Kimmel will wind up on a podcast, and, like Conan, probably gain in relevance.
Moments later
I think some people here might be too young to immediately get the Maher reference, but the point there was: he was forced off the air for political reasons as well.
What's the end game of these right-wing legacy media? The median age of TV viewers is like 65. How do they expect to maintain any viewership once all the elderly people die off? The only thing people watch anymore are live sports and local news, and even those are showing signs of declining.
This state of things, Kimmel's show being canceled for entirely normal and non-offensive statements, is kind of funny when you try to imagine the steps that had to happen to get here from his start on "The Man Show". The least suprising aspect of this story is that ABC has fascist leanings.
I'm unsure where we as a society go from here. The left's cancel culture resulted in the firing of private citizens from their jobs, or at least some reprimand. The right's cancel culture is the full weight of the federal government brought down against opposition, in stark violation of the First Amendment; that is, until the Supreme Court can find some new carve-out for why this isn't protected speech.
Realistically, how could anyone be okay with the level of power this administration is wielding? I struggle to see a peaceful transfer of this specific set of powers. Unless the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly."
> Realistically, how could anyone be okay with the level of power this administration is wielding? I struggle to see a peaceful transfer of this specific set of powers. Unless the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly."
As with all authoritarian regimes, their assumption is that this is the end of history and those in power today will be in power forever. You're also right that they believe liberals will never do what they're doing now.
But the old guard is dying. Trump, Bush, Biden, Clinton, Obama are all boomers+ who will be dead sooner rather than later. The younger generation realizes the pendulum is about to swing, power will be ours to take, and you can be damn sure we will not behave like our parents and grandparents did.
So me personally, when I see them take Kimmel off the air for "not serving the public interest", all I hear is permission for the first progressive millennial president to shut down all of right wing AM talk radio on that same basis. And you know who else sees it that way? Right wing AM talk radio hosts, who have been the only ones on the right asking MAGA to pump the brakes on what they're doing (see: Tucker Carlson).
Society's failure was taking gamergaters seriously. It was the beginning, slippery slope into full on totalitarian censorship but because basic human respect was framed as oppression it served as invitation for tit for tat retaliation. This tactic has been ridiculously successful in turning extremest ideas mainstream, and it was obvious to many people even back then, however because it exploits human nature it's hard to fight. You can find the most ridiculous crazies that present as "other side" and use it to justify whatever you want, and if you keep repeating "this is totally normal" some people just start to believe. If you are interested in finding the peaceful way to oppose this, I invite you to try and come up with the answer to this "totalitarian ratchet" because no one so far figured it out and it is a foundational part of modern authoritarian playbook.
Wow, I will have to check out his comments. All around me everyone is becoming more anonymous on social media, if not deleting it. It is fascinating to see the cultural reverberations of this motivated killing!
Nexstar, who initially threaten to pull Kimmel's show from all (200) of its stations and started this ball rolling, owns ALL THREE OF OUR LOCAL network affiliate stations. All 3 in one market. Remember when this was illegal?
It took 2 seconds after Jimmy and a few others meanwhile the right has been screaming about cancel culture for 10 years and didn't call it a 1st amendment issue. Lol
Republicans are continually outraged by cancel culture, and Republican hypocrisy is (without hyperbole) sociopathic.
News just today--
Republican DoJ censored longitudinal study previously published by DoJ which revealed that far and away the most U.S. political violence is perpetrated by... Republicans! Both internally and internationally.
Utah Republicans put a suicide watch on Kirk-shooting suspect because they want the pleasure of killing him themselves.
Noem is bragging that she shot the family hunting dog because he was "worthless"; all he would do is "massacre chickens" at her hunting lodge, and tried to bite her. She also put down a "disgusting, musky billy goat" that lived around her compound. She said wanted to come clean and show how she can "responsibility". She bragged that the story of shooting her dog got her the top slot at ICE.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 96.4 ms ] threadThe real danger here is that ABC did it before the White House ordered or told them too.
Fascists rise in power the more scared we are to speak.
We've sure come a long way from The Man Show.
I think it's too easy to sort of anthropomorphize these kinds of conflicts --- Kimmel's show has a large staff, and he's responsible for their livelihoods --- but it wouldn't be totally out of the question that Kimmel steered right into this.
There's nothing new about this, though: ABC also took Bill Maher off the air, 20 years ago, almost identical circumstances. Maher wound up at HBO. Kimmel will wind up on a podcast, and, like Conan, probably gain in relevance.
Moments later
I think some people here might be too young to immediately get the Maher reference, but the point there was: he was forced off the air for political reasons as well.
Realistically, how could anyone be okay with the level of power this administration is wielding? I struggle to see a peaceful transfer of this specific set of powers. Unless the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly."
As with all authoritarian regimes, their assumption is that this is the end of history and those in power today will be in power forever. You're also right that they believe liberals will never do what they're doing now.
But the old guard is dying. Trump, Bush, Biden, Clinton, Obama are all boomers+ who will be dead sooner rather than later. The younger generation realizes the pendulum is about to swing, power will be ours to take, and you can be damn sure we will not behave like our parents and grandparents did.
So me personally, when I see them take Kimmel off the air for "not serving the public interest", all I hear is permission for the first progressive millennial president to shut down all of right wing AM talk radio on that same basis. And you know who else sees it that way? Right wing AM talk radio hosts, who have been the only ones on the right asking MAGA to pump the brakes on what they're doing (see: Tucker Carlson).
This is a 1st amendment issue.
News just today--
Republican DoJ censored longitudinal study previously published by DoJ which revealed that far and away the most U.S. political violence is perpetrated by... Republicans! Both internally and internationally.
Utah Republicans put a suicide watch on Kirk-shooting suspect because they want the pleasure of killing him themselves.
Noem is bragging that she shot the family hunting dog because he was "worthless"; all he would do is "massacre chickens" at her hunting lodge, and tried to bite her. She also put down a "disgusting, musky billy goat" that lived around her compound. She said wanted to come clean and show how she can "responsibility". She bragged that the story of shooting her dog got her the top slot at ICE.
Republicans:
- Bullying - Bigotry - Censorship - Election interference - Gerrymandering - Blackballing - Targeting for death - Persecuting - Trafficking - Inciting & agitating - Grifting
The beat goes on.
As W used to say "You're either with us..."