In the midst of Jimmy Kimmel’s moving defense of free speech on his return to late night, he made a crack that has stuck with me: “you almost have to feel sorry for [Trump]. He tried, did his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.” As comedians do, he touched on a truth: he and the Epstein files fall under the same category for the president: they put him in a very bad light. So does Stephen Colbert. In Trump’s world, they need to be shelved. In our First Amendment-protected world, good luck telling Americans what to think, believe, or watch.
Kimmel’s routine skewering of Trump obviously wore on the president. The night for which Kimmel was silenced, he spent far more time attacking Trump than he did on Charlie Kirk, and the attack showed Trump responding to condolences from reporters with updates on his ballroom plan, chandeliers, and sconces, playing into the continuing questions about his mental fitness, which the White House has been trying to stomp in a game of whack-a-mole that increasingly seems unwinnable.
A big problem for Trump is that this country is neither on board with jettisoning the First Amendment to protect his fragile ego nor tolerant of child sex abuse. Even those who might agree with the Trump administration on some issues didn’t abandon their senses of humor or outrage at the voting booth. In one of my scholarly articles about the First Amendment, I coined a clunky phrase that is not a terrible descriptor of its purpose: the First Amendment serves as a “challenge function” to those we elect and those who serve in the government. It’s our basic right to question, reject, and judge.
There are multiple ways the Constitution supports the freedom of expression and especially creative expression. Art speech is protected. Comedy is a subset of the arts that illuminates us vis-à-vis the First Amendment’s protections. Trump taking over the Kennedy Center is just another example of his doomed mission to restrict the perspectives that challenge him and to own the culture. In the end, who cares if he restricts the performers to his political whims? It’s not like an Administration can successfully prescribe what we like artistically, as the dramatic drop in Kennedy event ticket sales shows.
As Americans, we have two constitutionally protected powers over our elected representatives. We choose who represents us, and we have the right to communicate with them without their suppression—positively or negatively—through a multiplicity of mediums. When you run for public office, you open yourself to criticism (and praise). So too bad if you don’t like a joke or the comedian, the op-ed, publication, podcast, influencer, or blog. So sad if you think they got it wrong or they were in bad taste. We don’t elect anyone to be our media critic, either. Trump loves saying someone has “no talent” and expects the rest of us to line up behind his pronouncement. Sorry, but we make those decisions, not him. He also accuses late-night comedians of low ratings in an era when viewing patterns are changing dramatically away from networks to online viewing platforms, which is hardly their fault. Frankly, I am so grateful that he spotlighted Kimmel, because Kimmel’s defense of the First Amendment was one of the most moving statements on our rights I have ever heard. He said it is “un-American” to try to silence a comedian criticizing the government. Damn straight. I will be watching on YouTube moving forward.
Back to the Epstein Files and a Lot of Other Facts
Now that Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr have shown themselves to be enemies of the First Amendment, Disney figured out they made a major mistake, and Kimmel has been freed to do the job we need our comedians to do, it’s time to return to the Epstein files. Just as comedians have the capacity to show us the truth from a different lens, those files will show the people the truth about Trump’s involvement in the complex and wide-ranging sex trafficking operation. We also need a list of the powerful men who participated in this horrific universe in Florida, New York City, New Mexico, and the Virgin Islands. There has never been “a list,” but that doesn’t mean one can’t be made. Last we heard, survivors, who would be the most credible source, were putting one together. More power to them.
Factual truth is a powerful and necessary weapon for the people in the United States. It provides a measurable analytic we need when we vote and communicate our views. This Administration doesn’t traffic in a lot of verifiable facts. They promised the Epstein files and then backed off when they realized they implicated Trump. They ignore and distort medical science in the agency where it matters most, Health and Human Services. Their truth is the subjective “truth” of the religious right; to quote Vice President JD Vance at Kirk’s memorial service: they were there to celebrate “the truth that Jesus Christ was the king of kings.” With all due respect, like their opinions on art, I don’t need them to tell me my religious truth. Suffice it to say, it’s not theirs and they have no business assuming we are all in agreement on Christ or any other religious tenet or figure. We’re not. In fact, there are over 100,000 religious sects in the United States.
The good news is that in this porous culture, these early attempts at information control will fail. The Epstein facts will come out. The medical records showing people including children dying and suffering as a result of HHS’s loony policies will be created. The Kennedy Center’s decline in ticket sales is out there for everyone to see. Moreover, the harder they push their politically-driven religious worldview, the more they will ignite in Americans our baseline right: we have the unchallengeable First Amendment right to believe anything we want to believe, always. That is actually the only absolute right in the United States, and our culture is awash in a shared belief that each of us has the right and power to choose to believe whatever we want on religion, politics, and otherwise. Like telling people which comedians they should view, this heavy-handed religious bullying can only go so far before the public will rebel like they did against Brendan Carr and Disney. They keep using “Christian” as though most people believe what they do; nice try. They assume that their vicious attacks on the rights of women and LGBTQ Americans, including same-sex marriage and trans rights, are revealed truth that will persuade the vast majority of Americans who disagree with them on each of those issues. Not likely. They are a minority subset of Christianity that bears little resemblance to many other Christian believers, let alone the many other religious traditions and sects in our country.
This Administration has underestimated the inevitable backlash to its heavy-handed ways. It can’t live in a closed chamber immune from criticism or judgment. It bears responsibility not only for its words and actions but also the responses it invites with its ways. In the words of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The endless, illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral unexplained edicts, or as he quaintly packages them—Executive Orders—which I discussed here, are dangerous, because this Administration cares nothing for other viewpoints, instead preferring the bully’s one-sided approach to delivering a message.
In horrific recent developments, disturbed young men are picking up guns in response to the toxicity. Kirk’s killer engraved one bullet casing with: “Hey fascist! Catch! ↑ → ↓↓↓.” Bullets used in the rifle attack today on an ICE facility in Texas said, “Anti-ICE.” The shooter in the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting wrote messages on firearms, including “kill Donald Trump.” Each of these young men abandoned speech and tragically moved to deadly action in what appears to be a frustrated and hopeless response to this ugly political, historical moment created by an autocratic and cruel Administration incapable of a decent, humane conversation.
A Republican-led Congress and the Supreme Court have abandoned their roles in checking the Administration. Thankfully, the people are still here and doing their job. Welcome back, Jimmy.
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