America’s late-night TV hosts have rallied behind fellow comedian Jimmy Kimmel after he was suspended by ABC in a row over comments he made about the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Stephen Colbert began his show by saying “we are all Jimmy Kimmel”, and said the star’s removal was a “blatant assault on freedom of speech”.
Seth Meyers declared it was “a privilege and honour to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend”, while Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon tackled the free speech issue by doing satirical sketches in which they were apparently forced to praise Donald Trump.
Their broadcasts came shortly after the US president said the main networks were overwhelmingly negative about him and could have their licences “taken away”.
Silencing themselves is counter productive. They need to do the opposite. They need to use their platform to make as much noise as possible.
They can and should protest in other ways, but to sit out is to give the other side what they want, and to squander their ability to affect change.
I’m not saying they should silence themselves. I’m suggesting that they should remove their assets, e.g. in the case of late night hosts, no longer producing content.
The problem with just speaking out is that their corporate overlords still have a product to sell and so long as that exists, they are allowing those overlords who support this fascist asshole to hold power.