"The media is under attack. That sounds melodramatic to type. It feels melodramatic to think. It sets off the melodrama censor I have developed to avoid sounding so. But here’s the unfortunate thing: we live in melodramatic times, and the first sentence of this paragraph is true.
Let’s be clear before we get started: I’m not saying we should censor anyone. I loathe Fox News with a passion that burns at the fiery gates of hell in August. The sight of their anchors makes me want to throw things and, for the love of all that is good, no matter what any right wing news commentator thinks, they are not, nor have they ever been, in danger of being censored. We can go all the way back to the fifties if you want, where Joseph McCarthy, a man with a brain the size of a walnut, decided to hunt people down for suspected communism. He had public hearings; he ruined people's lives, but no one thought to censor him.
Former President Barack Obama was threatened, mocked, roasted, and questioned at every turn by the right. And not once did he threaten to shut them down. At most, in 2009, his administration tried to keep them from a press conference. Protests ensued; the news network was allowed back in. And this was after they had questioned his birth certificate, his citizenship, mocked him, and dismissed everything he did and said. They made up stories to tell about him that had no basis in fact and still, that one event notwithstanding, he did not censor them. Also, just to add, complaining is not censoring. If you need to look it up in the dictionary, you can do that now. I’ll wait.
Yesterday, ABC made the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel “indefinitely” for remarks made about (and I really need you to pay attention here) the political response to Charlie Kirk’s death. Not his death, not Kirk himself, but the response of the followers of Trump and Trump himself. And he didn’t even say anything untrue.
“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. In between the finger pointing there was grieving.”
Now, I can’t say that I have followed what the shooters' ideologies were, but what I can say is that I know that he had pictures with guns and Trump on social media. We can’t just pretend that doesn’t exist. We can’t say, because he had a transgender roommate, that it was the left’s fault. It wasn’t. The poor roommate has cooperated with the full extent of the law. They were horrified. We don’t even know if transgender and gay rights were why the shooter did what he did. No one knows anything, but it’s easier to say ‘it wasn’t our fault.'
No, it was, it was the fault of people who have yelled about their Second Amendment rights being violated if you so much as look in the direction of gun control laws. It is the fault of a government that spews hateful rhetoric left, right, and sideways if you disagree with them. It’s the fault of a government that has a leader who said, "I would have put the flags at half mast for the Minnesota politicians who were shot if the governor asked.” He shouldn’t have to ask! We aren’t in kindergarten. You aren’t on a reality show. The things he is saying, the way he acts, it’s all affecting the world because he’s showing that he can get away with being a bigoted, misogynistic dictator and no one will stop him. And God forbid you try to point out that he’s like this, because that’s what actually got Kimmel pulled.
Kimmel has said that he doesn’t believe Kirk should have been shot. Kimmel has not said anything to make you believe he thinks that the shooting was anything less than awful since it happened. You know what he did do, though? He pointed out that Trump is acting like a child about the whole thing. Which he is. When asked how he was doing, Trump said he was fine and then went on to brag about a new ballroom he is building, as Kimmel illustrated in his monologue. Those were the comments that got him in trouble. Not anything derogatory about the man who has become the right’s new way to make themselves feel victimized.
Trump stated more than once that he would shut down news networks, reporters, and anyone who disagreed with him. But he is now doing it and make no mistake, he has been since he started his second term in office. He cut funding to PBS, which runs NPR, because he and his administration don’t want people to actually learn anything or read news that he doesn’t sanction. That’s also why they cut the Department of Education. He insults, belittles, and demands the removal of any and all news that doesn’t agree with him. He has placed in charge of the FCC one of his mindless drones who will do his bidding and now he can control the media and the narrative.
We can’t let him do this. Do your own research, ask questions, and fight back. Freedom of speech and the freedom of the press are the cornerstones of our democracy and our country. Do not let him erode that foundation. I'm going to leave this video of a wonderful man that Don Lemon stopped on the street here for you to watch, just to drive home my point and because this man needs a book written about his life.
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