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The idea that how much the leader of the country lies should play a factor in whether or not Kimmel should be taken off the air (by his bosses in an independent private decision) seems far more risible.
Why would it play a role, other that the decision appears partly government influenced? What it does is throw the stark difference into relief.
I don't know, you're the one claiming it should play a role. In any case, even presuming that this were government influenced (I would bet on it, and I would absolutely default to believing that it is, because any FCC official speaking about putting pressure on anyone necessarily influences the owners towards firing them), Trump's penchant for lying has nothing to do with this being wrong. We have no law, Constitutional clause, or general ethical principle that says that the honesty we hold ourselves up to shall never be greater than the honesty we hold our political leaders to. It's wrong because the government should play basically no part in enforcing speech among people who have been given the privileges of using our public airwaves to spread their message, with the few exceptions having to do with the well known exceptions like true threats, imminent lawless action, slander, and the like. The harm that such things cause to innocent individuals in society is not contingent on the honesty of the president.
The only almost-halfway plausible argument I can think of is that the president is the leader of the country and sets the tone and standard by which other people in political discourse are judged, but this argument still isn't plausible. If we want to talk about nebulous effects of what the pattern of honesty that one particular role has on the entire country, then we have to consider all equally nebulous, equally plausible effects, such as the honesty of journalists, honesty of academics, honesty of other government officials, honesty of other people in authoritative roles, etc. and actually prove that there's something about the president's honesty that makes it more influential or more meaningful. This argument hasn't been made and, AFAICT, can't be made in an honest and correct manner, because the idea of the president as a role model for all Americans to follow in terms of honesty is not something that has been considered true for at least 3+ decades by my observations.
I wonder where this meme got started. I saw a clip of Destiny appearing on Piers Morgan's show where he was asked about condemning the shooter (or condemning those who praised the shooter and/or minimized the shooting?), and he kept deflecting by saying something about how he won't condemn anything until Trump says something to lower the temperature or something. It's such a transparently obvious piece of deflection and whataboutism that, if I weren't familiar with Destiny via his tweets, I would have had a hard time believing that Destiny could actually believe that he was coming out looking as anything other than trying to distract.
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When the firing comes after public comments and criticism from the head of the FCC explicitly threatening legal action, the view that this is an "independent private decision" is pretty questionable
Calling such a view "questionable" is overselling its plausibility. I'd say it's almost risible! Like, it's possible - and unfortunately, due to the FCC's own choices in public statements, we'll never know - that the owners did it independently, but anyone who doesn't automatically default to presuming that this was coerced by the government and requiring a very high bar before believing otherwise is someone whose judgment I'd question greatly.
As you seem to agree then I'm confused why you used this language in the first place
What's confusing about it? I pointed out that taking Kimmel off the air, if decided independently by the owners without government influence, would be entirely justified and a reasonable and good thing to do, and this goodness doesn't change in any way based on Trump's words. I still stand by this statement.
You don't seem to believe that it was in actuality a private, independent decision. But then you assume that it is in this conditional without identifying it as such. That's why I was confused
I don't think I assumed such a thing. Sans any new evidence, I'll firmly presume that this conditional hasn't been met and insist that that's the right thing to do for anyone, and I'll also admit that my presumption isn't necessarily true. The comment to which I was responding was general about this cancellation being risible conditional on Trump's behavior, regardless of if my presumption were true or false. I was pointing out that if my presumption were false, then that statement is utterly ridiculous. It's also ridiculous if it were true, though not as ridiculous, since Trump being the leader of the government creates a deeper connection when we believe that the government coerced this cancellation.
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