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ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after his monologue about the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk exploded into a full-blown media and political crisis this week. Major station groups Nexstar and Sinclair moved quickly to pull the program from their ABC affiliates, forcing Disney-owned ABC into an abrupt and indefinite preemption.
At the center of the storm is FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who publicly called Kimmel’s remarks “truly sick” and warned networks they would face consequences if they continued to spread what he argued was misleading and inflammatory coverage. Carr’s blunt intervention — telling networks “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” — lit a fuse among coastal elites who mistake unchecked platitudes for courage.
The predictable outrage from Hollywood and the political left followed immediately, with A-list entertainers and liberal commentators denouncing the suspension as authoritarian censorship and a threat to the First Amendment. Their performative outrage ignores that free speech is not a license for reckless insinuation that foments tribal hatreds or endangers communities in moments of national grief.
Conservatives should be blunt: the real problem has been decades of liberal monologues packaged as “comedy” that weaponize tragedy against political opponents without consequence. Local broadcasters and station owners finally exercised the kind of market discipline and community standards that corporate media have abandoned, and that pushback should be welcomed, not smeared as “cancel culture.”
That said, legitimate concerns remain about government overreach and the slippery slope of regulatory pressure on speech. The right response is consistent oversight and accountability, not capitulation or lawless threats, and conservatives must insist that the FCC’s work follow the law and protect true free expression while holding media to basic standards.
Brendan Carr is under fire from partisan critics, but Americans who prize common-sense decency shouldn’t be fooled by outrage manufactured in studio lots. If the nation is to have a healthy media ecosystem, patriotic citizens must support local stations, demand fairness, and reject a Hollywood culture that treats politics like a safe space for slander. The choice is clear: defend community standards and propriety, or let a handful of elite entertainers keep shaping the national conversation unchecked.
