Trump Goes to War With Jimmy Kimmel - and the Constitution

The right blames the left for violence it overwhelmingly commits, while weaponizing “hate speech” to crush opposition.

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – One of the benefits of a decades-long effort to discredit both the news media and the so-called deep state is that any soulless demagogue – Roger Ailes, Donald Trump, and Stephen Miller – for example, can fill the void with total horseshit. We’re seeing this strategy play out in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death, reaching its most dangerous level in memory.

Obviously this is nothing new, but it’s absolutely reached new levels of irresponsibility and volatility, further inflaming an already thermonuclear political climate.

In the face of incontrovertible evidence proving the vast majority of political violence in America is perpetrated by right-wing extremists, Donald and his lieutenants are busily saying the exact opposite, contrary to statistical facts. Vice President JD Vance said this week: "While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-left." Wrong.

The Anti-defamation League (ADL) – “76% of extremist-related murders over the past decade were committed by those on the right.”

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) – “Far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of perpetrators, including from far-left networks and individuals inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Right-wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994…”

The Department of Homeland Security – “Online users in forums frequented by some Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) have increasingly called for violence linked to the 2024 election cycle and seek to promote violence in response to politically and socially divisive topics, like immigration, abortion rights, and LGBTQIA+ issues or significant current events. We expect DVEs will continue to rely on these issues to justify violence and promote their causes into the coming year.”

The Department of Defense – “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives.” The Trump administration deleted this assessment following the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

The libertarian CATO Institute – “In the last five years, 81 people have been killed by political violence in the United States. Right-wing terrorists account for over half of those murders, some 54%, according to research by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Islamists account for 21%, and left-wingers for 22%.”

The Economist – “One paper by Celinet Duran of the State University of New York at Oswego studied political violence between 1990 and 2020. It found that there were far more frequent and deadly attacks by the hard-right than the hard-left.”

Most of these sources are conservative or conservative-leaning. I assure you, the usual MAGA shriekers can’t name a single reputable source for their allegations about left-wing violence. But they don’t need to because they’re speaking to a demographic that’s been brainwashed into believing that inconvenient facts are nothing more than fake news invented to discredit their leader – the most obvious liar and con-man in the world. Doesn’t matter where the facts come from. If it doesn’t conform with Donald’s lies then it’s fake and irrelevant.

Ironically, they’re engaged in this upside-down disinformation campaign within the same narrow span of time in which: 1) a kid with white supremacist views murdered children in Evergreen, Colorado; 2) Donald Trump himself said “we have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics”; and 3) Fox & Friends doofus Brian Kilmeade called for the execution of mentally ill homeless people.

Find me one Democratic media figure, political leader, or online influencer who’s engaged in similar violent rhetoric. Good luck.

Speaking of rhetoric, the fascist dictator in the White House is busily reframing political speech as hate speech intended to incite violence. And he’s basing this on his own kneejerk, fact-free reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death.

This week, Donald threatened to “go after” ABC News journalist Jonathan Karl, accusing Karl of hate speech because, the tyrant said, Karl has “hate in his heart.” Not only would this be a text-book violation of the free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment, it also offers an insight into how the tiny, brittle tyrant thinks.

Karl asks challenging, though not particularly tough questions of the president. Donald interprets these questions as Karl hates Donald, and therefore basic questions from a reporter equal hate speech. See how that works? Anyone critical of the administration and specifically Donald is engaging in hate speech. It doesn’t have to be violent or incendiary rhetoric, just criticism or, in Karl’s case, a question about the FBI.

Utterly chilling. This means that everyone, from NeverTrump conservatives to far-left progressives, is vulnerable to retribution, including by any MAGA disciples who might take matters into their own hands.

As I write this, it was announced that Jimmy Kimmel has been taken off the air “indefinitely.” Why? The headlines say it was because Kimmel joked about Charlie Kirk. Not true. Kimmel criticized Donald and his MAGA disciples. This is exactly what he said on his show:

“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”

ABC’s decision wasn’t about Kimmel being disrespectful to the memory of Charlie Kirk. He wasn’t. Kimmel was taken off the air because Donald's FCC chair, Brendan Carr, threatened ABC after Kimmel criticized the fragile, petty tyrant in the White House and his fragile, petty fanboys. It amounts to a violation-by-proxy of the First Amendment – the government silencing a critic by levying a threat against the critic’s bosses.

And so the dictator’s power expands despite and likely due to failed policies and the shitty approval numbers that accompany them. The Epstein scandal won’t go away. Unemployment and inflation are rising. The only way he and his party can survive is by silencing and prosecuting their opposition under the banner of weeding out “hate speech.”

But he can’t silence all of us.

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