Kimmel 3, MAGA 0

I was very concerned about the Jimmy Kimmel situation because it marked a point where the United States could have irreversibly slid further into autocracy or told the autocrat to fuck off, and the Disney corporation, despite being astronomically wealthy and easily positioned to choose the latter option, chose to suck the autocrat's sticky orange balls instead. I didn't want to give in to despair, but I didn't want to delude myself with false optimism either. I'm very relieved that Disney caved again, this time to boycotts and public pressure. And its shareholders are pissed that it lost billions of dollars, apparently by making the financially unsound decision of caving to illegal government threats, so they're not letting it off the hook yet. I hope this fiasco sends a clear message to other institutions that they should be more scared of capitulating to the orange taint than defying him. He only has power because spineless people keep bending over for him, and those people will be remembered as cowards and traitors long after this regime has fallen.

​After Disney reinstated the show, the Sinclair and Nexstar affiliates still refused to broadcast it to a quarter of the country, and I thought we'd have to be satisfied with a partial victory. I didn't think people would have the attention spans to keep up the pressure on them after that victory. I did my part, of course, by calling the local Nexstar station even though I'd rather stick a needle in my eye than call strangers. And then they caved too. Kimmel 3, MAGA 0. All three corporations claimed that government threats had nothing to do with their decisions. FCC chair Brendan Carr claimed that his threats didn't really mean what everyone knows they meant. (Never mind that he wrote the section of Project 2025 about using the FCC to censor viewpoints that conservatives don't like and responded with a smirking GIF when someone on Twitter brought it up. Derp.) The orange taint missed the memo that this had nothing to do with government censorship and threatened to sue ABC for reinstating Kimmel, publicly wondering if he could extort even more than the $16 million they settled for in his last bullshit lawsuit. You see, they thought paying him off would keep them safe, but news flash, that's not how bullies operate. Morons.

​I'm now very pleased that Trump and Carr pulled this stunt because it blew up spectacularly in their faces and made them look like the jackasses they are. It even woke up a few conservatives. Not enough, of course. There are still plenty of committed cultists who claim that their Fuhrer did nothing illegal, that Kimmel's ratings sucked, and that the thing he said before his suspension was the most vile and heinous thing imaginable. Just don't ask them what it was because they have no idea. The root issue, of course, is that these people don't actually believe in free speech (or constitutional rights of any kind) for people who disagree with them (or have brown skin, but that's another matter). Still, there's another very big, very visible chink in the armor of this weak, pathetic regime, and I hope more people and institutions will be inspired to rise up and tell it to fuck off. Also, Kimmel didn't soften his jabs or pull any punches after his reinstatement. If anything, he mocked the orange taint harder than ever. We need that kind of energy.

​I'm not pretending to be a Kimmel superfan or anything, but along with Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, he's done wonders to help me laugh at the dystopian idiocracy I'm forced to live in. After the last election, the realization that my country was fundamentally, irredeemably stupid and hateful made me suicidal for a few days. Kimmel, who had already been openly threatened by the orange taint, did a segment where he was packing to flee the country, and then Guillermo gave him a pep talk and encouraged him to stay, and Jimmy agreed with him, but then Guillermo was like, "I'm outta here." That didn't make me stop being suicidal, but it put a little smile on my face. Humor can slightly soften the blow of shitty things without minimizing how shitty they are. If they weren't shitty, I guess they wouldn't be funny. Of course, I'd rather just not have the shitty things. I think it was Seth Meyers who said that telling him he should be grateful this regime gives him so much material is like telling a custodian he should be grateful someone puked all over the place. Or maybe it was diarrhea, I don't remember, but you get the drift.

Oh, and reading the outpourings of support in YouTube comments from people all over the world who also loved Kimmel, canceled their Disney+ subscriptions, and rooted for the United States to keep its freedom of speech was a really special experience. So many people are standing in solidarity with the good Americans who didn't vote for this bullshit and don't deserve any of it. I will never forget their kindness.

​Kimmel's returning episode broke a ratings record, even though a quarter of the country couldn't watch it on TV, and amassed almost 22 million views on YouTube as of the moment I type this. MAGAts are coping and seething very hard.