Mickey Mouse Versus The Fascists

It's incredible how easy it is for Jimmy Kimmel to get under Donald Trump's paper thin skin.

Last September you might recall that ABC/Disney crumbled to pressure by the Trump administration and suspended Kimmel over some light jokes he made about deceased racist right wing social media propagandist Charlie Kirk.

It didn't go well for them. ABC/Disney was forced to retreat after the company lost millions of streaming customers. Brendan Carr, Trump's loyal earlobe nibbler at the FCC, then spent weeks trying to pretend he didn't try to censor a comedian for the grievous crime of making fun of the President.

Ever since, Carr and Trump have been desperately trying to "investigate" ABC in all manner of empty ways in the hopes of forcing Kimmel's ouster. That's even included the false (and quite insane) claim that Disney is engaged in "unlawful discrimination" against white people because it (sometimes) embraces diversity.

Things heated up again last week after Kimmel performed this monologue in the wake of the embarrassing and disastrous (in more ways than one) White House Correspondents Association Dinner (click below to watch on Youtube):

In it, Kimmel makes some jokes about Melania, at one point saying she has the healthy glow of an "expectant widow." The President's wife (or the staffers who compose the robotic assemblage passing for her online personality), were very "upset," and demanded that Disney corporation fire Kimmel:

You are, of course, to ignore that the Trump administration, and right wing extremism more generally, is the primary source of the lion's share of divisive, bigoted hate currently tearing the country down to the studs. And that the vast, vast majority of terrorist violence comes at the hands of right wingers.

In response to Kimmel's comedy, the Carr FCC leaked word to the lazy access journalists at Semafor that his agency was launching an "investigation" into ABC. The Trump administration was keen to portray this as a serious review of ABC's broadcast licenses, and Semafor was happy to oblige:

The Federal Communications Commission is moving toward a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses, according to people familiar with the matter, a maneuver that would up the pressure on the ABC owner as it faces fierce scrutiny from the administration — again — over a late night monologue.

Here's the thing. ABC/Disney don't actually own all that many broadcast licenses in most U.S. markets. That's generally reserved for local ABC broadcast affiliates, which are increasingly consolidated at the hands of a bunch of right wing rich men who are already dutifully loyal to the administration.

The Trump administration has been illegally dismantling whatever's left of U.S. media consolidation rules so these affiliates – which routinely air right wing homelessness/crime/drug abuse agitprop posing as local news (this eight-year-old Deadspin video is a classic) – can merge together into a bigger, shittier company.

While ABC does hold eight total broadcast licenses, it's an extensive, laborious process to actually pull them. Such an illegal attack on the First Amendment would also be laughed out of court. The very last thing Brendan Carr actually wants is to battle the deep-pocketed Disney Corporation with a giant turd of a case in tow.

So what's the point?

Carr and Trump are hoping to create such a costly hassle and mess that the ABC corporation just folds and fires Kimmel in dutiful obedience to the administration. Given ABC already bribed Trump to the tune of $15 million to settle baseless defamation suit in late 2024, such capitulation isn't unprecedented.

They want to make life so generally difficult, annoying, and expensive for media companies, that they think twice before platforming anybody critical of the administration, whether that's a journalist or a comedian. It's just rank, authoritarian censorship by cowards afraid of words and ideas.

Carr doesn't really have a legal leg to stand on, so he's tried to focus the review of ABC's broadcast licenses on the false claim that the company is engaged in "unlawful discrimination" against white men under the Communications Act.

That ABC's fleeting and inconsistent corporate diversity practices equate to racism against white men is patently insane, completely baseless, and legally unsupportable. But if you go read a news outlet like CNBC, you'll notice how they frame this as somehow a serious, cogent inquiry:

However, the FCC, the federal entity that regulates the media and telecommunications industry, began investigating Disney’s stations last March for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules regarding its prohibition on unlawful discrimination.

Since beginning its investigation, the FCC said that “Disney’s ABC has purported to respond” to two inquiries. Still, the agency said that it has determined further action was “appropriate.”

It's indisputable that the authoritarian government is baselessly harassing media companies with sham inquiries to censor criticism. That should be in the first paragraph of any media outlet writing about it. But these threats have a chilling effect that encourages feckless journalism that generally sucks, especially when the U.S. media industry is writing about itself.

Back to the Semafor piece, I'd like you to notice how these supposed journalists mention absolutely none of this. They don't mention that ABC doesn't really have many licenses to pull. Or that the Trump FCC are weird zealots engaging in a clearly illegal attack on free speech. Or that any resulting case would be a legal loser.

The Trump administration (like most autocrats) adores this kind of simulacrum of real journalism. Stuff that's dressed up to look like meaningful reporting, but steers well clear of the truth to avoid offending wealth and power.

You can see the game plan here: consolidate media into the hands of as few right wing friendly oligarchs as possible, and have them air autocrat-friendly infotainment and propaganda (look what happened to Stephen Colbert and CBS News). Then bully the companies you haven't been able to buy (yet) with costly and pointless regulatory headaches if they air critical voices.

Blasting ABC for being mean to white people is also chum for MAGA manbabies, who call up and yell at ABC and Disney because a comedian made a joke about their favorite mad, idiot king. It's the inevitable fusion of lazy, misinformed populism and authoritarian censorship, dipped in dogshit and deep fried in stupid.

The problem for Trump is that he's increasingly unpopular. Everywhere you look you see fractures in his violently-misinformed but ultimately unreliable coalition. Former NBC journalist turned Onion CEO Ben Collins put it this way in a Hollywood Reporter article I think is worth your time:

"They’re [MAGA supporters] getting everything they want, and the world sucks shit. The amount of infighting among all these various far-right conspiracy theorists is incalculable. Everybody hates each other, and the battle lines are all over the place."

As Trump's health, power, and support begins to buckle and fail, his threats are going to carry less and less weight, even among our feckless corporations. That leaves poor Brendan Carr, who desperately wants to be seen as a real boy, less and less leverage to creatively abuse FCC authority to censor administration critics.

In addition to the empty threat to pull ABC's broadcast licenses, Carr has also been trying to cook up a sham investigation into Kimmel's political donations. Neither gambit will go anywhere unless ABC/Disney executives engage in a cowardly act of lazy appeasement. And what's left of U.S. journalism helps them normalize it.

Enter U.S. comedy. As in many countries under autocratic and corporatist rule, the satirists often get closer to the truth than many journalists. But just like U.S. media, a large chunk of U.S. comedy during the rise of fascism has been either openly supportive of authoritarianism, or a soggy fucking disappointment.

The grand irony is that one of the biggest mass media voices in opposition to Trump right now is Jimmy Kimmel on a Disney-owned media outlet; not exactly what you'd call the avant garde of edgy, modern comedy. But in a country being devoured by its obsession with artifice, one takes what one can get.

"I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject, I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it," Kimmel said in response to calls for his firing.

Kimmel has at least leaned into throwing punches at the kakistocracy with refreshing courage at a scale that appears to matter, and unless Disney Corporation wants to risk another mass consumer revolt, they'd be wise to maintain something vaguely resembling a functional backbone.