Less than 2 months ago, CBS ended Stephen Colbert's show out of the blue. At the time, I didn't comment on the possible political nature of the decision, which surely pleased the Trump administration as Colbert was one of the most prominent anti-Trump voices in American media. I thought it could be something, but the decline in late night TV importance was another trend that could possibly explain this decision.

Of course, CBS was in the middle of hoping to get the FCC to approve a major acquisition of Paramount, and let's just say this FCC really likes to bootlick the President. Just 8 days after killing Colbert's show, the FCC approved the deal. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk example of a private company bowing to political pressure to get what they want, but if that's what was happening, this is what it would look like.

Of course, our very busy POTUS commented on this firing as well:

I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!

Fast forward 2 short months and today we got word that ABC was cancelling Jimmy Kimmel's show effective immediately. This time there was not "it was a financial decision" commentary from the execs, it was because of comments he made.

What were these comments that were so extreme as to be cancelled? Here's what he said that was beyond the pale (YouTube link with the entire monologue in case you want to check me for cutting off before he says something really atrocious):

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.

[clip of Trump talking to the media] My condolences on the loss of your friend, Charlie or Kirk? May I ask, sir, personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir? 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 150 years. And it's gonna be a beauty.

Yes. He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction. Demolition... construction... This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four year old mourns a goldfish, okay?

Seriously, watch the rest, it's pretty tame. If anything, this monologue is about the incompetency of the Trump administration. It never glorifies violence, it never suggests it's good Kirk was murdered, it never says anything remotely close to what we would consider crossing the line in a normal world.

But we don't live in the normal world, we live in a crisis where comedians are kicked off the air due to government pressure on multiple occasions. We live in a world where Republicans are suggesting anyone who doesn't properly mourn Kirk's death should lose their jobs. You know, literal cancel culture stuff, which is something they absolutely love to do when they have power and love to whine about when they don't. What happened to Charlie Kirk was horrendous for his family and our nation in general, it should never have happened, but it's being used to excuse inexcusable behavior.

I think back to people who told me Tim Cook has no choice but to suck up with this administration and do whatever they want because, "that's just how it works." Where do we stand on this? Is it the media's job to bow down to the king and we just shrug our shoulders and go, "what you gonna do, it's fascism now 🤷🏻‍♂️"?

I'm going to be very careful here because invoking this period of history is sensitive, but I think about this story sometimes:

In a 1962 letter, as a last-ditch effort for clemency, Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann wrote that he and other low-level officers were “forced to serve as mere instruments,” shifting the responsibility for the deaths of millions of Jews to his superiors. The “just following orders” defense, made famous in the post-WWII Nuremberg trials, featured heavily in Eichmann’s court hearings.

In a far less impactful, but similar quote, here's what I wrote last month:

If you prop up and celebrate and "thank you sir, can I have another?" with the bad guys long enough, you're not a good guy "playing the game" to get by, you're just on the bad guys' team now.

I guess I'm tired of people looking at the actions of the US federal government, despising it, and going, "meh, what can you do?" It's as if rolling over is the only thing anyone can do. Where's the fight? Where's the passion for any semblance of a country where the whims of the President aren't implied law?

And to conservatives reading this, I never want to hear you talk about free speech again. If you support this, you don't care about it, and I know in the back of your mind you know you're twisting yourselves into knots trying to explain why actually this was actually the worst thing ever said on TV and it's good to cancel Kimmel. I don't even have time to get into the countless posts on X from conservative leaders calling for widespread cancellations of anyone who didn't treat this situation with the gravity they deemed appropriate, but that's a whole other situation going on right now as well.

Y'all, I just want to write about tech…