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Jimmy Kimmel pulled indefinitely by ABC for Charlie Kirk comments.
Late night talk show hosts have waned from their glorious Letterman days, but boomers still care about then enough that they're still a scalp worth scraping off the skull. It's hard to think of a prominent figure on the right that would be equal in stature - Gina Carano? Piers Morgan? Roseanne Barr? nothing like him - if only for the fact that the entertainment industry is so aligned to the left. Indeed, even during the height of the progressive cancel culture era, it was liberal icons like Louis CK and JK Rowling that felt the heat.
If such a big figure can fall, who will be next?
With Colbert going off the air, and with the upcoming FCC hearings on Twitch, Reddit, Discord, and Steam, one can only anticipate the prizes that are coming. Destiny and Hasan are obvious trophies that the right would love to claim, but I have no doubt that the powerjanitors of Reddit are quaking in their boots. How many leftist/liberal commentators have made snarky comments on social media, as of late? This is the reddest of the red meat, dripping with blood, raw. The long march through the institutions has only just begun, and for the populist right base, it'll be a enjoyable hike indeed.
Afaik the main quote was:
This seems remarkably inoffensive to me. Even if it's factually incorrect - and it's not clear to me we even know yet - how is this bannable? What am I missing here? I can't find further statements from him that are worse, not that I can imagine what would be sufficient for me to support his banning.
I watched a Charlie Kirk video. Gotta say, don't like the guy. I was hoping the vibe would be "patient Mottizen explains things" or "Scott Alexander", but it was much closer to "Steven Crowder." Is he chiller in other videos?
I was particularly galled by the amount of appeals to religion (the resurrection of Christ is the most well documented fact in history, so Christianity is true, so its morals are correct) and abortion is bad.
Even worse, the use of blatantly untrue "facts" that I have trouble believing he could have not fact checked, as much as they were relevant to his soap boxes. E.g. the claim that no abortions are ever medically necessary for the health of the mother. Worse, he slimily hedged by saying this was "according to some gynecologists, I don't know if it's true, but they're experts."
This leaves me, as often, in the weird position of standing on my meta level principles despite their being in conflict with the object level. I dislike Kirk and his methods, but like (many) of his principles. I dislike Kimmel, full stop (I assume - I won't claim to have watched him much. I'm extrapolating from Colbert/Stewart, who are insufferable as of late.). But, I want Kimmel on air, and no one fired over Kirk. I really don't want the US going to the way of Europe, or worse, on free speech.
I don't identify as being on the right or with the republican party, and this seems transparently, massively, offensive to me. One of their own was assassinated and Kimmel said they are liars who hit a new low by saying it wasn't done by someone on their side. That'd be harsh if it were true, but since it seems pretty clearly not to be true, that's extremely offensive.
Well it's not untrue in the way saying Robinson was 50 years old would be untrue. Ideology and political philosophy don't work that way. We don't even have a manifesto from Robinson. He's directionally prog and for common conversational purposes you'd be on much stronger ground claiming he's not at all MAGA, and coming from the left. iow not enough to warrant being pressured by the FCC.
It's just vibes and vengeance. And frankly Trump's preference for talking about his ballroom over Kirk was a real zinger from Kimmel. "This must be the fourth stage of grief." On point. Who's the coldhearted demon again?
I'm not going to bother reiterating all the evidence we've been exposed to thus far, but this is just hogwash. I know it hurts to lose a round of "guess the shooter's politics" this thoroughly, usually it's just some generic schizo that doesn't really map to anything, but this time the left really did get got. This routine will never fly outside of Bluesky/Reddit.
Frankly I'd respect a simple "fuck you" more.
Of all the people to understand the weird indeterminacy of 21st century ideologies interacting with the "firehose of bullshit" of new media, I'd think it was the smart "grey tribe" people who frequent this site
Listen dog, the guy wrote shit on the bullets calling the target a fascist, along with lyrics to some old commie song, which was followed by his family coming out and saying what a lefty kook he'd become lately, and the release of the texts where he tells his transgender sweetheart how he did it to "stop the hate."
Just stop. You lose this round of Guess The Shooter. You just do. I'm sorry he didn't file a full manifesto with you in advance, but I don't really care if you think that means it "doesn't count" or how much of an attitude you cop about it.
The standards should be much higher for state-led censorship efforts though. Like fraud level deception. Claiming Robinson graduated from Hillsdale or something. Someone's perception of an ideology is much too murky.
"Just stop."
No
"Should be" is not "is", much less "has been". The government has repeatedly and systematically censored the internet, over which they have no remit, to keep people from pointing out they were lying about crucial policy facts. It is not even clear that the government is what got Kimmel censored here, although if it was that seems entirely acceptable given their statutory power to preserve the common interest through broadcast licensing. Lying about a highly-charged political assassination in order to blame the victims is not in the public interest.
You are of course free to disagree and make your case here.
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"Frankly I'd respect a simple 'fuck you' more."
I'm sure you would, because it provides a greater sense of righteous indignance due to being up against an uncivilized beast
Think that's covered either option, here.
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It's untrue in the same way that saying the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor is untrue.
For this argument to hold water, you'd of course have to prove that the hit was ordered by the unambiguous leader of "The Left", not merely that the hit was performed by someone who subscribed to the left ideology.
Because if "the hit was performed by someone who shared some ideological traits with" is the same thing as "the hit was performed by", then Pearl Harbour was bombed by the Germans.
No, I merely have to show that it wasn't performed by MAGA.
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no, those were formal armies involved. not shifting vague weird internet politics combined with political inference from a romantic partner
When the shooter said that Kirk needed to be killed because of Kirk's "hate", what do you think he meant by that?
Well, he seems to have meant that he supported using privately-owned firearms, which a proper Blue would consider utterly unthinkable. Therefore he is an ideological hybrid at most.
This is not an entirely sincere argument, but something of that shape seems to be a genuinely viable steelman for the claim that the "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them". From a certain point of view, you only get someone like Robinson by layering leftist beliefs on top of a Red Tribe substrate which has access to, and the ability to use, guns; had he not been raised in a Red Tribe milieu Robinson would have been unable to kill, even if he was willing; therefore his being Red by birth is ultimately more relevant to why he wound up a murderer than his being Blue by indoctrination.
You do realize exactly how persuasive this attempt to wash your alliance's hands of even the possibility of responsibility looks, right?
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Even I have to push back on this one. While anti-gun people are almost exclusively on the left, the left contains people who like guns, people who think gun ownership should be possible but harder, and people who want to ban all guns.
From what I can find on Robinson, all I've found on his political leanings is that didn't really vote one way or the other and that he bickered with his conservative family on trans issues but didn't really talk about much else politically. Which seems directionally left but the limited info we have suggests he was largely single-issue trans rights.
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This hasn't actually answered the question:
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Wouldn't it be more like saying England bombed Pearl Harbor? And Germany's the one that's saying it, making fun of USA for being dishonest enough to insist that the attack could have come from Japan.
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