After lots of very powerful, wealthy people cosplayed martyrdom and turned Jimmy Kimmel’s failing late-night comedy show into a symbol of the resistance, ABC is now putting him back on air. Because of course they would. And I’m glad. I’ve always thought he should have been kept on air. Let the market decide. If people want to marinate in hating half the country every night, then they should have the opportunity to do that.
I also think it’s important for the American people to see what Hollywood thinks of them and there was no better way to do that than Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Lucky for him, he gets to be a hero — he wasn’t shot or canceled. Nothing bad happened to him. Not that the FCC should have pressured them to dump him — that was wrong but still, yikes. No Lenny Bruce is he.
But just in case you’re wondering, celebrities on the Left never really fail. They fail upwards. Kimmel was always guaranteed money, applause, awards, etc. These high-status aristocrats don’t get canceled. As long as they are obedient to the doctrine, they get to stay. If their movies bomb, no one admits it out loud. They can caterwaul about the Holocaust, like Ellen Barkin does, and Disney won’t fire them.
But some of us know the truth. We know that they said nothing when Disney fired Gina Carano for a joke on Twitter. NOT ONE WORD. No one signed a letter like they did for Kimmel.
Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, Ben Stiller and Lin-Manuel Miranda are among the more than 400 artists to sign on to an ACLU letter calling out “government threats to our freedom of speech” in the aftermath of ABC‘s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel.
“Efforts by leaders to… pic.twitter.com/D4y1zOoHF3
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 22, 2025
They said nothing — not Tom Hanks, not Meryl Streep, not Ben Affleck. So it’s hard for me to see them as heroes at the moment. They used their significant power to put back one of the propaganda arms of the Democratic Party. They would never have stood up otherwise.
The Right doesn’t have that kind of power. When Chuck Schumer threatened Rupert Murdoch on the Senate Floor in May of 2023 and Fox fired Tucker Carlson shortly thereafter, and he had the highest-rated cable news show on television, the Right could not rise up, though they tried, to get him back on the air. That shows you how the Left dominates all of American culture.
In short: the house always wins. Forget it, Jake.
And what do they choose to do with that power? Alienate half the country at best, demonize and dehumanize them at worst. If only they’d used their power years ago, when censorship and cancel culture destroyed Hollywood. If only any of them had any courage whatsoever to push back against anything we’ve seen over the past five years. They said nothing. They did nothing. Out of fear.
If you stand up for free speech, you have to do it when it is hard, not when it is easy. Otherwise, it doesn’t count. And this, to my mind, doesn’t count. It just shows that when rich people demand things, they get it. Because of course they do.
The hilarious irony of all of this is that cancel culture is a powerful tool to keep people like Jimmy Kimmel in line. If he ever had someone on his show from the Right, like Trump (he did back in 2016, but now) all of those same people just signed that letter would demand he be fired. If you defy them or break their rules, out you go.
So great, Kimmel will be back. I’m sure he’ll continue his ongoing campaign to dehumanize half the country. And those with all of the power can rejoice and marinate in it. On the upside, we never have to hear another word about this absurd story ever again.
