SNARKY DISCLAIMER:

 Now don’t get nervous, folks — this isn’t censorship. No, no, no. It’s patriotism! It’s the government leaning on billion-dollar corporations, whispering “Nice merger you’ve got there, shame if something happened to it,” until they yank the plugs on comedians who tell a joke the Dear Leader doesn’t like. Totally normal democracy stuff. 

So Jimmy Kimmel cracks a joke. A monologue about Charlie Kirk’s murder, where he points out the MAGA freak show spinning harder than a methhead on a Tilt-A-Whirl. Says Trump’s grieving like a 4-year-old who flushed his goldfish. That’s it. That’s the crime. And poof! The FCC chairman is on Benny Johnson’s little propaganda podcast — yes, the guy literally funded by Russia — threatening fines, license revocations, the whole damn works. And within forty-eight hours? ABC pulls Kimmel. Nexstar yanks him off their stations.

Meanwhile, what do the right-wing darlings get away with? Trump saying, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Brian Kilmeade musing about killing homeless people by “involuntary lethal injection.” Milo calling for vigilantes to shoot journalists. Actual, explicit calls for violence — and the FCC? Silent as a church mouse on morphine. No fines. No yanked shows. Not even a polite cough into the microphone.

Because this isn’t about standards. It’s about silencing critics.

And the corporations? Oh, they cave faster than a wet cardboard box. Paramount dropped Colbert earlier this summer while they were chasing a merger. ABC dumps Kimmel while Nexstar’s merger is waiting for FCC approval. You see the pattern? It’s not about what’s said. It’s about who’s saying it and how much leverage Trump’s pet regulators have over the suits. This is state-sponsored censorship laundered through corporate cowardice.

And don’t tell me this is about “community standards.” Spare me. You can have Tucker Carlson foaming about immigrants “replacing” you, Kilmeade fantasizing about executing the unhoused, but if Kimmel cracks wise about the president’s coping skills, suddenly America’s children are in danger? Please.

What this really is: a warning shot. Every comic, every satirist, every critic — shut up or we’ll yank your platform. Free speech isn’t free anymore; it’s licensed speech, conditional speech. Speak out and the FCC leans on your network until the suits fold. Keep your head down, praise Dear Leader, and you can joke about mass killings all you want.

And here’s the part that really hits me where I live: I’m not Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t have Disney’s lawyers or Paramount’s billions to cushion me. I’m an indie author. My “network” is me, my readers, and the platforms I publish on. If this government can yank a late-night show off the air in forty-eight hours, what do you think they could do to someone like me? To any writer, any small creator, who doesn’t have millions and attorneys on speed-dial? That’s the fear baked into this. That’s the point. If they can crush Kimmel, they can crush anyone — and people like me wouldn’t even make the news crawl at the bottom of the screen.

And that, folks, is how democracies die — not with a bang, but with a laugh track cut off mid-joke, while the rest of us wonder if we’re next.