Did You Enjoy Free Speech? It’s Coming to an End.

The suspension of Jimmy Kimmel in an outright suppression of free speech culminated a week of Republicans campaigning to vilify anyone they could find who had made light of Kirk’s assassination.

Senator Marsha
Jimmy Kimmel.

Blackburn, who is running to be Tennessee's governor, found deans and professors at three small universities who she said must be fired. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the pilots grounded by American Airlines for “celebrating” Kirk’s death should be dismissed. South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace, also after a
Charlie Kirk.

governorship, insisted in a letter to the Education Department that it deny federal funding from any school that did not “take immediate administrative action” against employees who voiced such views. On his X account Representative Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin began doxxing private citizens who had been critical of Kirk or welcomed his removal. Texas Governor Greg Abbott posted on X that more than 100 teachers in his state are facing investigation and the possible loss of their certification to teach.

The Washington Post came up with more than 30 employers that have sanctioned or fired employees as varied as the Secret Service, Office Depot, Nasdaq, Clemson University, MSNBC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Carolina Panthers.

Vice President JD Vance took over Kirk’s daily podcast to suggest…

“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. And hell, call their employer.”

“So many people have been fired. I’m so proud of you guys,” the online activist Laura Loomer posted on X.

“They’re going after companies, educators, news outlets, political rivals and others they judge as promoting hate speech”, wrote the Associated Press. The searchers found firefighters, grade-school teachers, small-town journalists, a veterinarian at an Oklahoma animal hospital, even “nurses, psychologists, social workers”, said right-wing activist Chris Rufo on X.

It is remarkable how quickly those on the right adopted the very cancel culture they so reviled when practiced by those on the left. There can be no official count, but it is believed that thousands have lost their jobs, many over innocuous comments such as Kimmel's.

They went looking far afield because, significantly, they could not find malicious comments among any in the Democratic leadership. Democrats in the House and Senate, Democratic governors and mayors, Democratic university presidents had universally expressed only anguish and sorrow over the horrific murder of the 31-year-old Kirk, who leaves behind a wife and two children.

Jonathan Haidt at The Atlantic made this observation:

"And so, in the absence of evidence of any serious strain of liberal support for the Charlie Kirk murder, some influential voices on the right willed one into existence. They hunted the internet for expressions of support for Kirk’s murder, or even insufficient remorse, a search that yielded almost exclusively random private citizens.”

In a country of 330 plus million, one can of course find people who have said or done exactly what is sought. Having found such a random collection has the right wing saying this proves all Democrats are what Trump says they are. In a telephone interview, the President said,

“I’d like to see it [the nation] heal, but we’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don’t play fair and they never did.”

His idea of healing.

This is the right wing's chance to calcify the nation’s polarization by casting all on the left as…well, let Missouri Representative Bob Onder say it:

“Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people. But their ideology is pure evil. They hate the good, the truth, and the beautiful, and embrace the evil, the false and the ugly.”

What could not be clearer is that Republicans are using the assassination to maximum advantage to accuse Democrats of inciting the killing even though the murderer has so far shown no history of political involvement and had only recently “started to lean more to the left”, investigators were told by his mother. This is an unusual story in which the accused, Tyler Robinson, reportedly had begun a romantic relationship with his male roommate who is transgendering to female, and Robinson had expressed anger at Kirk, who has often made negative comments about LGBTQs and trans rights. He said to his father that Kirk “spreads too much hate” and “I had enough of his hatred.”

No matter his motive, he is but one person. Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff in George W. Bush's presidency, now a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, writes,

"‘They’ Didn’t Kill Charlie Kirk. It insults his memory to blame political opponents for one man’s heinous act. Despite this earnest plea, there has been a disturbing and growing undercurrent in our national conversation and on the internet, a pronounced emphasis on “they” and “them.” Charlie would be alive but for “them.” “They” killed him. “They” are responsible for his death. “They” must be made to pay."

But, seeing an opportunity to paint as the enemy every fellow American who does not align with their leader, the right wing wants to make the case that Kirk's murder is part of a vast, sinister left-wing movement that must be destroyed. If there is such a movement, Democrats, their party and organization in total disarray, would like to know of it.

Anonymous insiders tell The New York Times that cabinet secretaries and federal department heads have been assigned to ferret out left-wing organizations that fund or otherwise promote violence against those on the right. Trump tells us:

”We have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder, some of the people that you’ve been reading about that have been putting up millions and millions of dollars for agitation.”

He didn’t name the groups, if there are any that actually fund “agitation”, and substitution of that word means Trump intends to go after protests. He wants to know who was behind the burning of Teslas, assuming only a conspiracy explains it. He says he will consider having the IRS revoke the tax exempt status of what groups he dislikes, which federal law prohibits the president and vice president doing.

Trump of course has George Soros in mind, the bugbear that the right wing perennially calls out for backing progressive causes. The president accuses his Open Society Foundation of funding violence, for which there is no evidence and which the organization calls “outrageous”. Trump said he is working with Attorney General Pam Bondi: “We’re going to look into Soros” for possible violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law. To NBC News the president said Soros, a perpetual irritant for Trump, “should be put in jail”.

In a tweet, Mr. Trump “informed our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZXATION”, except it isn’t an organization, more an ideology, and federal law only allows the terrorist designation for foreign groups. How he would go against antifa is a puzzle, for it has no leader and takes the form of random groupings of individuals who coalesce to challenge some action and then dissolve. The word antifa comes from the German word "antifaschistisch", a reference to a German anti-fascist group from the 1930s. That makes it clear why Trump has a problem with it.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and a principal adviser, is persuaded there is a movement:

”There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. This ideology has one unifying thread, the insatiable thirst for destruction. It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence. The fate of millions depends on the defeat of this wicked ideology.”

As guest, with Vance sitting at Kirk’s desk as host of his podcast, Miller assured us:

"We are going to
Stephen Miller.

channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks...We're going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name."

Miller made a promise:

“The power of law enforcement, under President Trump’s leadership, will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”

Before the Kimmel cancellation, it was already evident that the Trump administration was using the Kirk assassination as justification for snuffing free speech. Miller’s wife Katie
Pam Bondi.

asked Pam Bondi,

"Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people so we show them that some action is better than no action?”

Bondi answered:

”We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

That the attorney general of the United States does not know that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment is revealing, but equally important in her anger is the hint that it is not just hate speech she is after, but dissent in general. She is using Kirk’s killing to advocate the obverse of what Kirk believed. Asked by a woman in the audience for one of his talks, “Where you draw the line with free speech, hate speech, and slander", Kirk responded:

”My position is that even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in our country. The most disgusting speech should absolutely be protected.”

In a video posted by his organization Turning Point USA, he said:

”As soon as you use the word ‘hate,’ that is a very subjective term. Then all of a sudden it is in the eyes, or it is in the implementation, of whomever has the power.”

the corporate cowards

Just hours after FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Chairman Brendan Carr slammed Jimmy Kimmel, saying that his regulatory agency might take action, the mighty Walt Disney Company, through its ABC broadcast subsidiary, caved in fear and suspended Kimmel and his late-night show “indefinitely”. Nexstar, a company that owns and operates ABC affiliate stations, had already surrendered. Wouldn't you know, it has a pending $6.2 billion deal to buy a competitor, and may need FCC approval. Sinclair, which owns 30 ABC affiliates, pulled Kimmel next. Trump must be gleeful, seeing how easy it is to topple big corporations like a row of dominoes.

What was it Kimmel said?

”We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

This was for Carr “the sickest conduct possible” despite it not being about Kirk, rather, a criticism of MAGA for rushing to prove the killer a leftist. But for saying this, Carr erupted on Benny Johnson’s show,

”We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

That’s an arch suggestion that ABC, CBS, and NBC could be taken off the air, their broadcast licenses revoked, a move that Trump has threatened repeatedly.

Aligned with Miller and Bondi in silencing dissident speech, Carr has made a complete turnabout in the service of Trump. In 2019 he posted “Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not.” In 2022, “Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of speech…It challenges those in power…That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship”. In 2023 he tweeted, “Free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream”. It is troubling to see our officials throwing away their principles so readily lest they offend Caesar.

Trump called Kimmel’s suspension “Great News for America” in a Truth Social tweet which continued…

”Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT”

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote on social media,

”Pay attention. Something dark might be coming. The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent.”

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