Trump Wants to Impose a State-Sanctioned Echo Chamber on America

This all recently came to a head after Kimmel suggested that conservative supporters were exploiting the killing of Turning Point USA founder and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Major affiliate owners of Jimmy Kimmel Live! pulled the program from their networks, citing the remarks as being offensive, and demanding he not only apologize but make a direct donation to the Kirk family fundraiser. The suspension of Kimmel’s program came after direct pressure from FCC Chair and Trump appointee Brendan Carr, who warned broadcasters on conservative podcasts that the FCC could revoke licenses or initiate other kinds of regulatory action if networks failed to discipline Kimmel, and after intense backlash from their customers and actors, Disney announced they were putting Kimmel back on the air. Although federal law prohibits the FCC from revoking a broadcaster’s license for critical coverage or speech disapproved of by the government, Trump has explicitly stated that bad publicity from broadcasters warrants investigation, recently stating in part that it’s “something that should be talked about for licensing…[because] All they do is hit Trump.”

The targeting of Jimmy Kimmel isn’t an anomaly, but part of a long-standing genealogy of state efforts to discipline even the most ineffectual voices in American political culture. What arguably distinguishes Trump’s years in office from previous iterations of speech suppression isn’t the novelty of this repression, but the brazen manner with which executive power is being deployed to collapse the distinction between criticism of policy and attacks on the legitimacy of the state itself. Trump fusing personal grievances with the machinery of governance reveals that his administration has blurred the lines between public office and his own personal vendetta. What the administration’s actions clearly show is that there is a convergence between surveillance and regulatory pressure aimed directly at constructing boundaries around permissible speech.

On top of this recent escalation forcing many people to begrudgingly defend the likes of Kimmel, it’s also forced many liberals to confront the failure of their “they go low, we go high” posture, but whether or not this will lead them towards a more radical approach to encroachments on their right to free speech remains to be seen. This strategy, which is deeply rooted in rhetorical restraint, presupposes that democratic norms are able to withstand authoritarian pressure. Yet the systemic weaponization of regulatory agencies like the FCC, and the open harassment of critics even mildly opposed to people like Charlie Kirk, reveals that liberal appeals to civility offer no defense when the state itself is mobilized against you. 

The paradox of the current moment is that even figures like Kimmel who are—let’s face it—the soft and nonthreatening edge of liberal satire, may become flashpoints in a broader struggle over the boundaries of political speech and the right to be viscerally critical of and even openly despise your opposition, something conservatives seemingly want to impose a monopoly over. This is far from being about late night comedy, but about the principle that even the most banal or seemingly inconsequential expressions of dissent are being targeted as the state continues to creep towards fusing legislative discipline with grievance politics. These attacks cut into our ability to voice antagonism, ridicule public authority figures, and even hate those in power as a form of protected expression, leaving us trapped inside a state-sanctioned echo chamber. From the perspective of democratic theory, the battle over speech in the Trump era should be understood as an attempt to restrict and police certain discourse through legal intimidation and public coercion, rendering visible a deeper structural erosion of free expression, whatever form it may take and however distasteful it may be.