Of course I watched the Jimmy Kimmel return, and then have been reading some of the MAGA reaction on Twitter. (Not spending a lot of time on it, I have better things to do. But still...)
Here's the thing about MAGA and its apologists: they are so often people who are some combination of dumb and/or argue in bad faith continually. This bad faith makes it impossible for reasoned engagement with them by someone like Kimmel - they invite polarised ridicule because they deserve it.
Hence we have most of them arguing that the Right wing "cancel culture victims" was as big a free speech issue as the head of the FCC (and the President himself!) warning companies that they should take off the air comedians who don't support Trump enough, or they may lose their licence. Then people like the Vice President have the gall to say "see, he wasn't cancelled after all. What's the problem here, people have been blowing this out of proportion."
MAGA types also conveniently ignore successful Right wing cancel culture campaigns. Anyone heard of Dylan Mulvaney much lately? Sure Roseanne Barr got cancelled - against ABC's financial interests - but MAGA memory holes the reason why.
Other examples of stupid arguments and memes: that only one hundred and something thousand people had been viewing Kimmel's show - when that figure was referring to just one particular demographic, and the simplest Google would show that the true number of viewers was well over a million a night, as well as having a Youtube audience of 20 million subscribers and some videos getting millions of views. But one MAGA person who "never found him funny" comes up with one dubious figure, and they all run with it. Even stupid Piers Morgan - man, he is obnoxious:
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The lines they run are so often so easily rebutted, the fact they don't check before repeating them just shows a total lack of good faith and reasonableness.
No, the successful return of Kimmel is a glimmer of hope that enough Americans recognise the importance of constitutional free speech (even Ted Cruz, who Kimmel specifically thanked last night.)
And yeah, I do admire Kimmel for his passionate criticisms of a side of politics that deserves it.
I would make two points.
ReplyDeleteAt this stage we still have idea of what ideology the killer has. Yes i know what the governor has said and what the family has said ( a MAGA family would see any anti-trump person as far left) but as yet there has been NO evidence to this affect.
Kimmel was brilliant in the show. Funny when he had to be yet serious as well when he had to be