“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to ABC Tuesday night following a nearly week-long suspension that sparked national debate over free speech, media influence, and political pressure.
David Shoemaker, a professor of philosophy at Cornell University who studies the moral psychology of humor, says the suspension ignited a wave of public pushback against the administration’s ongoing efforts to undermine established rights and norms.
Shoemaker says: “Political leaders – of all stripes – hate two things: unfettered speech and being mocked. With Jimmy Kimmel, the administration got a chance to squelch both. What they didn’t foresee having to squelch, apparently, was the backlash on the right to Attorney General Pam Biondi’s suggestion that they were now going to go after hate speech, and President Trump’s own suggestion that maybe some networks or TV stations should lose their licenses for airing late-night shows that make fun of him.
“Those on the right – Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, and others in the middlish, like Joe Rogan – who expressed concern about the seeming attack on free speech didn’t offer a principled objection but instead made a purely pragmatic pitch: what goes around comes around, the next administration might go after their speech, and that would be bad. One should, of course, be committed to free expression in all its messy glory – tolerating not just the speech you love, but also the speech you hate – as it’s the best way to find your way to truth and understand why you believe what you believe.
“Whether or not he wanted the mantle, Kimmel may now be the left’s voice of authority – a voice made more piercing by its hilarity and mockery, which Trump has made very clear gets way under his skin.”
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