The Jimmy Kimmel situation

I recommend a great article by Philip Klein writing in “The Government Shouldn’t Police Jimmy Kimmel’s Lies” (National Review, Sept 2025):

The move came in the face of threats from Trump and Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC. In late August, Trump said he supported the FCC revoking the broadcast licenses of ABC and NBC over their overwhelmingly critical coverage of his administration. This week, he was asked to respond to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments about the government’s ability to police “hate speech.” 

Taken together, it’s clear that the decision to sideline Kimmel cannot be merely dismissed as purely the actions of the private broadcasters. Instead, this was an example of the government using its powerful leverage over broadcasters to get them to take action. ABC and its affiliates may have pulled the trigger, but they did so with FCC guns pointed at their own heads if they did not.

This action is ultimately a victory for a certain ideological strain on the right that has been at war in recent years against limited-government impulses. Traditional conservatives still have a disinclination to leverage government power over individuals and businesses. But another element of the right (call it populist or MAGA or New Right) believes that the left will always wield government as a club when Democrats have power, so it would represent unilateral disarmament for Republicans to behave any differently. Indeed, when they had the opportunity, Democrats leaned on Big Tech companies to stifle conservative speech in the name of fighting “misinformation” — leading to the deplatforming, demonetization, and shadow-banning of conservatives or other news and commentary they didn’t like.

While I am obviously an opponent of the efforts by the previous administration to suppress conservative speech, I still believe that the proper response is to push to allow more speech rather than create an excuse for the radical left to go even further in efforts to crack down on dissent the next time they get the chance. 

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I completely agree with Mr Klein’s comments.

A free society should value freedom of speech and expression - most especially to views deemed “offensive” (JS Mill’s On Liberty).

Trump and his administration’s use of the power of the FCC (and other government organisations) to police opinions or “bias” (or “hate speech” - however you care to define that) is an improper and unconstitutional intrusion into the affairs of private organisations.

This is a clear abuse of the Presidency.

I think we should all be terrified of the increasing willingness of society and politics to “control” or “police” the thoughts and opinions of the electorate. (This is especially true, as I write this, in light of the unearthed documents vis-a-vis President Biden’s willingness to apply political pressured on to big tech to plainly control content on the internet). This kind of “progressivism” seems to be winning the day, even within the Republican Party, to the detriment of us all.

Another final thought: it’s worth asking whether the the FCC should have any authority to take action against news broadcasters under the auspices of “public harm” being prevented. In a free society, I don’t see why people can’t be free to lie and distort the facts if they care to do so. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be consequences - but I don’t recognise any value to FCC having any authority to revoke any license. Get rid of it.