it would help if the billionaire / centimillionaire classes decided they didn't like what was going on.

I get multiple news notifications within minutes of all these things, that’s pretty different than unfettered authoritarianism where people don’t even know it’s happening.

If everyone is aware of what’s going on and we still elect these people, that’s more on us than them no?

I served in the Navy 40 years ago on a nuclear submarine opposed to the Soviet Union so I had an interest in learning about our enemy. People like Stephen Kotkin have said Stalin and those around him were true believers in communism, while the situation in America feels like early Putinism, which was about money and power. But the suppression of those critical of the regime is the same.

Obviously caught your attention. So it’s made it front page for a reason

There’s a lot of politics happening to us in real life right now too

It's tangential, as most people here aren't involved in traditional media, but this is a government that is interested in suppressing speech it dislikes [1]. Not actively harmful speech, threats and the like, just things they dislike. If this continues it could have significant impact for companies in the US, working with the US, and people working in the US but from other countries. This is the same administration that wants to go through social media posts and comments of people visiting the country to screen them for bad thoughts. Members of the administration are calling on people to rat each other out to their employers for this thoughtcrime.

[1] https://clayhiggins.house.gov/2025/09/15/higgins-calls-upon-... - a recent example, out of Congress. Calling on social media companies to ban users because they said something he dislikes.

Just shows that they want to cave, they’re not being forced, they can fight and win but they want to be threatened and cave. If we get out of this mess I hope these people are also made responsible for the outcomes as enablers.

Simple. The Republicans remember when they were cancelled for not wanting to take a vaccination that was just invented months earlier; when they were deplatformed from Twitter constantly; when Reddit rejoiced at the death of one of their heroes; when "right wing violence is more common" became a meme as Minneapolis was literally burning. They watched a kid who they believed had a legitimate self-defense case get thrown the book in Wisconsin by a prosecutor called out by even the judge for brazen unfairness; with unprecedented levels of online hate rather than openness to discussion. They watched CNN accuse right wingers of exaggerating "mostly peaceful" protests with a car literally burning in the background. They stopped caring about your feelings, because you didn't care about theirs.

There are actually quite a few Republicans, such as Karl Rove, who are irate at the current administration for its attacks on free speech.

But broadly speaking, and this truly transcends partisan divisions, there are very many people whose commitment to free speech only extends insofar as they like the speech being protected. It is actually quite rare to find somebody who will advocate "I think the speech you are saying is reprehensible, but I will stake my life on defending the right for you to say it."

All attempts to justify it logically are in vain, deep down lots of people just want to smash the "others" - the lies are like a depth-first search for the shortest path to finding a point where they can finally just drop all pretense.

I don't think Republicans characterize it that way. I find myself right leaning, and while I like most of Trumps agenda, I often disagree with his tactics. I increasingly have to fact check stuff like this to see if he crossed a line. The problem is there's too much BS, summarizing, and mischaracterising going on. Direct quotes (sometimes requiring context) are needed to get to the bottom of things. It's exhausting. I will say, right or wrong the left brought this on - it is a response to their bad behavior.

Most republicans I know despised Kimmel but think the government overstepped. I’m not a Republican, but I am conservative. I think these moves are inexcusable.

Stupid take. These shows are cheap to produce and still get good ratings. They're profitable. What are they being replaced with?

Lots of right wing people on this platform, evident by the heavy hand moderation if you go against the common grievance of the day.

Which I mean I guess makes sense. Any place that is so feverish about crypto, ai, newFad2.0, or is super into #factsNotFeelinfg always seems like it attracts the same crowd

It's different when they do it.

An issue was that the right was being canceled for views not even 5 years ago and the same people complaining about Kimmel are having their exact quotes replayed justifying those types of cancellations.

From a game theoretic standpoint, tit for tat is exactly what’s supposed to happen to stabilize the situation. This has actually been proven by mathematicians that apply decision making theories to social structures.

It's something that's been eroding for a long time, starting mostly with the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the political desire at the time to put an end to the New deal era style of big government from the 1930s and 40s.

There have been periods of pause, and even reverse, but two terms of the Trump administration trailing on the heels of the tea party movement in the 2010s have really done a lot of damage at all levels of US government.

By now, so many politicians, lawyers, and judges, are compromised it's going to take some pretty extreme changes to the way people are voting to make an impact.

I don't see that happening in the near future, even if I do see it happening in the long term.

The current controversy is related to how to protect free speech.

A man was assassinated holding a mic practicing free speech. Celebrating the assassination can be interpreted as a form of celebrating attacks on free speech, because the murdered mic holder was saying average political views.

Therefore people argue that we have to shame (not imprison or kill) celebrations on attacks on free speech to protect free speech.

We're still a stronghold of democracy and free speech. That doesn't mean threats don't occasionally present themselves. In fact, it should be welcomed, as it gives each new generation the opportunity to re-affirm their commitment to free speech.

Free speech has been under threat at the academic and cultural level for a while now, especially in the 2010's. All of that was a good thing in my opinion, because a generation of college students were able to see firsthand what happens when we try and silence dissent.

This situation is admittedly more dangerous, as the federal government is attempting to suppress speech via governmental subsidies (as far as I can tell, I don't have all the facts).

But this is also an opportunity. It's a moment for those on the political left to see clearly why protecting speech is, in fact, a very good thing. So hopefully the sane people on both sides of the aisle can reflect on where we're at, how we got here, and how we get out of this situation. To me it's clear - we reject both explicit and implicit attempts to suppress speech we don't like, full stop. We don't kill people, we don't get people fired, we don't threaten to withhold funding. We need to collectively agree to do this across the board, for everyone in this country.

There's supposed to be checks & balances, of Congress, the courts, and the President keeping one another in check.

But the GOP holds all three. Even the court system has fallen apart, with the Supreme Court using shadow dockets with no explanation, not establishing any precedent, just overriding lower courts to rule by fiat as they please. The GOP congress is utterly maga whipped, with only very rare signs of protest; deathly afraid of provoking Trump's ire.

Even still there's constant legal losses for the administration. But the shock and awe, the endless acting bad, in bad faith, doing bad things, and disrespecting the constitution, the liberties, the democracy: it's very grinding and very hard to see such pure malice against our history and rights and decency performed so ruthlessly so regularly.

It's been worse before in America and we've returned to normal, so I have hope as an American. See McCarthyism in the 1950's, when people like Kimmel were blackballed from working:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

since the 1970s democratic backsliding is the primary origin story for todays authoritarian regimes. look at turkey, russia, the philippines, venezuela, nicaragua, poland, hungary, india... theres a playbook. you can now add usa to that list. a good counter example is what happened last year in South Korea. the president declares martial law out of nowhere but before he could consolidate power the courts and the people resisted (not easily mind you, he had significant support) but the checks and balances held things together. but in the other examples you can see how when one of those checks fails it essily cascades into a chain reaction that can be hard to stop. that's what you're witnessing in the usa: taking congressional power to the executive, control of the courts, control of the media, using the national guard domestically to control dissent. well you get the idea. it already seems too late. there won't be some red line crossed where people get out their guns to defend their "freedom" if they haven't already noticed how eroded its become. theres still voting -- just like in all those countries above.

What you have here has nothing to do with the law, and has to do with power. Disney willingly pulled Kimmel off their own networks, because a major distributor of their content(Sinclair) threatened to not air it, which accounts for about 20% of the viewership of the show.

> A few individuals can completely takeover the government

That's not what's happening.

When most people serving in positions of government do so in good faith, most forms of government work, including the American one. When most people serve in bad faith, most forms of government do not work, including the American one.

The American system has checks in place to keep what is happening from happening, but those checks aren't working because those who would exercise them aren't doing so, as withholding those checks benefits them personally, at least in the short term. The underlying theory of the American system is that if you distribute power enough, one or a few bad actors can't seize total power.

But, there are just too many people in elected office right now who did not take their oath to uphold the Constitution in good faith. Namely, in Congress which has simultaneously demonstrated that it is unwilling to effectively wield the impeachment check, and is unable to do effective legislative work, leading to a latent desire for a stronger executive. In this circumstance, no form of government will hold up without a correction towards replacing all the bad-faith actors.

> I always thought the US to be a stronghold of democracy and free speech.

Every single story and moral guidance I've ever been told from childhood, whether from movies, books, church, or culture in general is that people like those in power right now are the bad guys.

I no longer have any idea what people on the other side actually think. I don't think they know anymore either. I think they just want to exert power and control and revenge over their personal grievances and boogeymen, and seem to be under a constant bombardment of ideology to convince people to untether themselves from any moral restraint or connection with the out-group.

I am one of the scary minorities they use as a boogeyman, and their rhetoric about the group of people I belong to is so unattached from my daily life, the values that I hold, and my own attitudes that it would be comical if it didn't come out in sideways glances, scowls, and stares of people on the street. Nobody ever even bothers to ask, to even have a moment of conversation to see that there is a real person. I try to walk through life friendly, open, and interested in people. We walk around with conceptions of other people built for us, not ones that we have made ourselves.

The only thing that seems to help is to try to be offline as much as possible, to be in community with people and in real space.

We also found out that Kimmel was planning a second attack on MAGA when the executives at ABC were already on-edge about the timing causing a backlash; simultaneously when Kimmel's ratings have dropped 43% since January to under 1.1M, which is "advertisers bailing out" territory. That's a lot duller than the Brendan Carr theory.

What lie was Kimmel doubling down on? I found his comedic observations pretty accurate, which is why they stung the MAGA faithful.

Can you speak more intelligently to your point. What laws were violated? Why would the FCC care about profitability of a show and advertisers?

HN threads are open to diverse opinions, but deserve more than vitriol

> "It's like I'm living in a world surrounded by aliens."

...

It's neat to learn who had actual principles and who was just borrowing some because they were upset they couldn't use the N word.

That's my take. Its worse this time because it's coming from the government, but in a sense that makes it actually an opportunity to fight it in court (and they absolutely should.) In any case, the rules of engagement have been clear for years: if we don't like you, then we're coming for your livelihood.

I think it hits quite different when the canceling is done by a gaggle of oversensitive Karens as opposed to by members of the government.

It is under fascism.

Historically speaking it might sadly be :/

Don't be naive. There was no jawboning from the previous administration to networks to cancel someone -- especially someone who always made fun of the President.

However, this is a a classic example of violation of 1A. (I agree that the thing that was probably in the grey area was they asked Twitter to remove certain COVID-19 medical disinformation tweets -- But, come on, many people were consuming horse dewormers for COVID and dying. )

The right's cancel culture is a violation of constitution because it's the government that's doing the cancelling.

This is not cancel culture. It is a violation of the First Amendment.

Barr wasn’t cancelled by threats from the Government.

The government didn't step in to threaten ABC over Barr spouting off derogatory racist trash. They weren't jawboned into doing it. They just didn't want to be associated with a trash person.

Jimmy Kimmel being "cancelled" has nothing to do with Jimmy. He is the canary in the coal mine. The real issue is that the federal government is using their power and might to withhold FCC licensing from groups that they do not agree with. The FCC->ABC situation is what is alarming, has nothing to do with Jimmy.

Same shit happened with CBS/Paramount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JQr5W3970

Who was the president when Barr's show was cancelled in 2018? Some woke guy?

I took his statement to be deeper than MAGA vs liberal.

Regardless of the spin, the view that political opponents are existential risks to the republic and thus demand to be killed for the good of all of is what he was suggesting that is shared.

I think the problem is that the FCC is getting involved here.

I do remember that, and it turns out there's so many reasons to have fired TC that people had pages of listicles on why he could have been fired https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... and none of them were cancel culture it turns out. Fox already lied and paid out hundreds of millions on dominion, it couldn't handle paying for any more lies.

Repeal of the Fairness Doctrine created echo chambers. [0] Equal air time to different point of views of a topic turned into 100% or 99% network pushed point of view. This removed a standard person from having quality engagement to content designed an manipulated for personal gain by the networks. It was a good bridge to living together versus living divided.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine

> - What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

Was it really though? Paraphrased, Kimmel said that the killer was a republican. He had a republican background, but it didn't motivate the killing which didn't seem to have any particular ideology beyond (maybe) trans identity politics and/or edgelord memery. So yeah, that was wrong.

But if that's "irresponsible and inflammatory", then isn't it equally so to blame "democrats" or "the left", also groups with which Robinson has no documented affiliation? And we can all agree that this is happening pervasively on the right, at all levels.

The double standard here seems troublesome to me, and likely deliberate. Which, I'll add, what actually the point Kimmel was trying to make.

> now I get to do 3 hours of reading to say "it never really existed in broadcast television and also yes, this is bad, but not nearly as bad as you think" and boom now I'm the fascist

You're not a fascist, but you do seem to be sort of an apologist. Doesn't the linked article directly refute the "not nearly as bad as you think" bit? It's happening again!

> - What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

I agree that we should be disavowing violence.

The problem is that for 10 years democratic lawmakers and media figures are disavowing violence on both sides, while republican lawmakers and media figures are doing the opposite: stoking the flames, promoting the idea of civil war, telling everyone that the country is stolen from them, that immigrants are out to get them, that democrats are out to get them, etc. According to this rhetoric, democrats are to blame for all of this. When something bad happens and it's not democrats who caused it, they come up with a conspiratorial explanation for how it's still democrats.

So when one side keeps constantly disavowing, and the other side keeps constantly attacking, at some point disavowing becomes literally the wrong thing to do. You can't lay down your weapon while the other person just keeps hitting, and expect the hitting to stop.

What we are being shown repeatedly by republicans is that violent, divisive rhetoric actually leads to electoral victories, and grants free license to become "president for one side only" and do whatever that side wants. If democrats continue to disavow and apologize, they will end up simply extinct. This is why some democrats stopped doing that.

Man you are delusional. How many pols and their elk where clamoring for civil war because a YouTuber got shot that they _assumed_ was a leftist? How many of those same people said anything when a democratic state senator and their spouse was murdered, and another pair seriously wounded?

This is the type of nonsense that really bothers me with this site. It’s an attempt to “both sides” everything in a pathetic attempt at seeming logical.

> What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

What Kimmel said was fairly innocuous and not all that big a deal. What he said was actually true, in general, about conservative discourse, regardless of what the shooter's politics turn out to be.

Carr directly threatened ABC's broadcast license over protected speech, even in the context of the FCC's mandate and the rules around broadcast licensing.

Kimmel's ratings are irrelevant. Murdering someone with terminal cancer is still murder.