"It was a puppet show. It wasn't even that great, but its whole thing was that it ridiculed people in power. And it reduced them to the size of puppets. It made them look not just plainly human, but even less than human. And I think that's the real power of comedians in an autocracy, is that they reduce the tyrant to human size, or even to less than human."
"If you think about what Jimmy Kimmel said, it wasn't even much of a joke. 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. By describing plainly what he had observed over the weekend, Jimmy Kimmel broke with the consensus that is being very forcefully imposed by the Trump administration."
Jimmy Kimmel's suspension is presented as evidence of a new reality in which media outlets bow to political pressure from the Trump administration. Collective action by media organizations is proposed as the necessary response, including a joint strategy to refuse settlement of lawsuits, to defend one another, and to provide institutional backing for individuals who face legal threats even if they lack large-employer protection. The piece emphasizes the political weaponization of a recent murder, the MAGA effort to distance the killer from the movement, and the unique role of comedians in undermining authoritarian power by making leaders seem smaller than human.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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