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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34270 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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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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