The Danger of U.S. Culture Continuing to Unravel Into MAGA Autocracy

Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension Shows How Authoritarians Atomize Culture, Creating Division, Dissension & Ultimately Upending Democracy

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Cliff’s Note: Yes, Kimmel was reinstated, but that didn’t change the saliency of critical points made by friend of Blue Amp, Dan Perry, about shared culture & democracy. This is a must read. You can—& should!—subscribe to Dan’s fab Substack—Ask Questions Later.

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First They Came For Jimmy Kimmel..and Stephen Colbert, Jim Acosta, Karen Attiah, Paul Krugman, Matthew Dowd, Katie Phang, Terry Moran..

The suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! is more than the potential loss of a late-night talk show.

It is a moment that crystallizes how fragile America’s shared culture has become, and how easily political intimidation and market division can combine to silence voices once thought untouchable.

For decades, late-night comedy was the nation’s civic release valve, a stage where Carson teased presidents, Letterman mocked hypocrisy, and Jon Stewart cut through war propaganda.

These shows were partisan at times, but they were also common ground.

They were where Americans of different backgrounds laughed together at the absurdities of power. And this was imitated all around the world.

Now, that common stage is slipping away, in America first, and possibly everywhere soon.

On Monday, Kimmel addressed the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in a monologue that was sharp, but entirely within the tradition of American discourse and satire.

He said:

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. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff which got some criticism but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this.

He then played a clip of Trump’s bizarre response to a reporter who asked how he was holding up after Kirk’s death:

I think very good. And by the way right there you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House which is something they’ve been trying to get as you know for about for 150 years and it’s gonna be a beauty.

The juxtaposition was absurdist, biting, and well within the American comedic tradition. Yet within forty-eight hours, Nexstar affiliates replaced Kimmel’s show and Disney-ABC then pulled it.

This followed an ominous appearance by the Federal Communications Commission’s chair, Brendan Carr, who appeared on the podcast of right-wing influencer Benny Johnson to issue an unmistakable threat.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said, sounding completely like a mafia boss.

These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters.

And frankly, I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say… We’re not gonna run Kimmel anymore… because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC.

The amazing thing, truly, is the absolute lack of shame. Every day this person remains in this position is a disgrace to the United States and an indictment of the current administration’s betrayal of American values.

Carr’s words are chilling because his position carries immense authority over broadcast licenses.

Appointed chair by Donald Trump in January, he has exposed a potential autocratic structure that has always existed within the American communications landscape, but that no one had dared to exploit so openly.

Trump himself had predicted this outcome, boasting in July after CBS suspended the similarly critical late-night host Stephen Colbert that Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel would be “next.”

The promise is being kept.

On one level, Kimmel’s suspension is a capitulation to government intimidation of a sort that would not be shocking in Russia but would have, until recently, been unthinkable in the United States. But on another, it is a capitulation to the market itself.

Nearly half the country cheers such silencing, delighted to see liberal comedians punished. Executives, fearful of both regulatory retaliation and consumer revolt, fold.

The deeper reality is that the very model of American network television—a stage meant for everyone—may no longer function in the fractured era created by social media echo chambers that have radicalized the population.

In America, and all over the world.

Comedy, news, and culture once shared by all Americans are collapsing into partisan silos. Bill Maher continues to provoke on HBO, but only for a liberal subscriber base. Joe Rogan dominates Spotify with a different sensibility.

Conservative talk radio thunders on one frequency, and cable outlets like Fox and MSNBC hold opposing corners of cable. But the national stage where Americans once gathered for common cultural experiences is unraveling.

This unraveling is not confined to late-night comedy—but far more ominously, to news.

Earlier this year, Trump signed Executive Order 14172, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” When the Associated Press refused to comply, the White House barred AP reporters from briefings, Oval Office events, and Air Force One until a federal judge restored their access.

That’s still being fought out in the courts, but the message has been sent, comply with government language or lose access.

At CBS, executive producer Bill Owens resigned, followed by CBS News president Wendy McMahon, who was unwilling to navigate the flood of political lawsuits and an environment of corporate fear.

At The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos ended the practice of presidential endorsements to preserve credibility, sparking a subscriber revolt, staff resignations, and Trump crowing about liberal bias.

Jeff Bezos, um, preserving credibility…as a punchline, or in case he ever wants to play Specter

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These events are variations on a single theme.

Institutions are forced to choose between independence and survival, and punished no matter the path they take. Reporters and editors begin to self-censor, not because they are censored directly, but because they know the costs of defiance.

The global parallels tell us where this goes.

Viktor Orbán consolidated Hungarian media into loyalist hands. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan jailed journalists and seized outlets. Vladimir Putin eradicated independent media entirely, using legal harassment, financial pressure, and state control.

Trump’s allies are not yet at that point, but the tactics—regulatory threats, lawsuits, corporate capitulation—echo the same authoritarian playbook. What seemed unimaginable in America is happening in plain sight.

There are really only two questions: How much damage Trump can do in three more years—and will it end once he is gone?

For decades, independent media was a cornerstone of America’s global credibility.

Its weakening reflects not only a domestic democratic crisis. But an attack on the liberal world order itself—on the way of life and global institutions America has led since World War II.

An arrangement which has brought an astounding amount of peace and prosperity to America and the world.

The film that predicted the dystopian future of television news

Just as Trump has withdrawn from international institutions, disparaged NATO, and sought to weaken the WTO and WHO, he has also undermined the democratic institutions at home that once bolstered U.S. soft power.

But as for media, there is a structural reality that needs to be understood. Broadcast network television is especially vulnerable. It is dependent on advertisers, affiliates, and government licenses, it is exposed to pressure from all sides.

Subscription-based platforms like HBO, Netflix, or Substack newsletters are more insulated, but necessarily fragmented. They cannot serve as truly national stages.

The effect is the replacement of a common culture with competing echo chambers, where each side sees its own comedians, its own news, its own reality.

Kimmel’s suspension could be reversed (Ed Note: It has been since this piece was written, but all of the points made here still stand) either by public backlash or corporate reconsideration.

America still has courts, independent outlets, and traditions of pushback.

But the precedent has been set. The levers of autocracy exist within American law and commerce, and under sufficient political will they can be activated against one’s declared domestic “enemies.”

Therefore, this is not about one overly wealthy comedian. It is about whether America can still sustain media that is both national and independent.

Edward R. Murrow, an artifact of a different era

If satire cannot exist on network television, then perhaps news and culture cannot either.

The unraveling of shared American culture has begun.

To let this continue would be a tragedy, undoing a society that was cobbled together, creating one out of many, at enormous cost and with admirably high hopes.