The Man Show

Welp, they took ol’ Jimmy down tonight. No Colbert 7-month-sendoff. Not even a final show. Just Mr. Sandman shooing him off the stage. It’s a murder without a mystery. We know who did it and why.

Looking back on it, I’m kind of surprised Kimmel lasted as long as he did as the flagship late-night talk show for the Walt Disney Co., a company not known for taking bold stands. Jimmy never pulled punches, never apologized for what he believed, never backed down from a fight.

Pre-Trump, he wasn’t even that political, was he? In my memory of those days, it seemed like he kind of took easy, bipartisan potshots the way most late-night comics do. Nothing too offensive to anybody. But then Trump came along and Jimmy let his hometown Brooklyn out.

Mensch

New Yorkers hate Donald Trump. They hate him for all the reasons the country now hates him, only we hated him first. I grew up around the same time as Jimmy, in New Jersey. Trump was always known as a sleazeball, a cheapskate, and a gladhander much more interested in getting press than building his business. In fact, the business felt like it was designed to generate press, not the other way around. Jimmy probably grew up thinking of him like that, as a chintzy NY real estate developer who always seemed to have one foot in the grave of bankruptcy.

So when Trump decided he ought to be president, I’m sure Jimmy thought the idea was absurd. Until it wasn’t. And he spoke up. For ten years, he’s spoken up about the fraud in the White House. And today it cost him his job. Because he wouldn’t bend the knee. Do you hear that slight crackling sound? That’s the First Amendment going up in flames.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little frightened. Every time they apporach a line you think they won’t cross, not only do they leap right the fuck over it, they immediately set their sights on the next. (Trump, tonight, demanded Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers also be cancelled.) And everytime, politicians wring their hands and jerks like me write our little screeds, and good people express shock and outrage and then they commit the next violation and we rinse and repeat.

If you’re wondering if I’m worried for my own job, hell yeah. The only saving grace our show has is that the Trump administration probably isn’t aware of us yet. Maybe we can squeeze out another season or two before they pull us down and haul us in front of the revamped House Committee on Un-American Activities.

“Are you now or have you ever been an anti-fascist? Have you ever expressed anti-fascist sentiments?”

People lost their jobs back then. People’s lives were ruined. People just like yours truly. So yeah, I’m nervous about it and I imagine a lot people in public life are feeling the same. For the first time in our lives as Americans, we have to watch what we say – not because of what our fans might say, but because of what the government might. That’s fucking terrifying.

If I had told you a year ago that I could easily envision a scene in which a comedian is dragged off-stage by the police for making a joke about a public figure, you would have told me I was overreacting. If I told you that now, you wouldn’t even bat an eye. Because they’re going to make an example of somebody, and they’re going to make whatever bullshit charges they come up with stick.

And then what? And then you’ll see talking heads on cable news defending it. And you’ll see fewer libs speaking up against it. And then, maybe, you won’t see any. Who knows?

And I’m going all the way there just because they canceled Kimmel? No. All that because they canceled Colbert. They got away with it, and then they canceled Kimmel. And they’re blowing up boats and disappearing people and making noises about going after “antifa” and George Soros and whoever else they have a boner for. So yeah, it’s possible my show will survive because we’re going to be the least of it. They’ll come after Anderson Cooper way before they bother with us. Once they work their way down to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, I’ll pack my bags.

I’ve said it again and again: a private company has every right to fire an employee for conduct unbecoming their brand or whatever. If you act like a jerk in public, for example, you can expect to face consequences by your employer. If, however, the government is compelling that company to take action against the employee for speech the government doesn’t like, then we’re fucking fucked. And friends, we’re fucking fucked.

Pour one out for Jimmy, y’all.