Like most Americans, I was saddened by the murder of Charlie Kirk, even though to me he was a stranger. When I learned that he was a popular political activist on the right, I was even more saddened. I knew that at least some of his supporters would rise up in anger and demand revenge, just as some on the left have done when our leaders have been murdered.
What followed saddened me even more.
President Trump blamed the shooting on the political left, with no evidence to back up the charge. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to target a “vast domestic terror movement” that he said was responsible for Kirk’s death. The White House pledged to go after specific organizations, including one made up of volunteers that has organized protests that I, members of my family, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have attended.
Then our Anne Arundel County Public Schools Superintendent, Dr. Mark Bedell, was targeted with an online campaign of hate after an AACPS employee posted what most would consider an insensitive and mean-spirited comment about Charlie Kirk. Kirk’s fans directed their anger at Dr. Bedell and his team because he had not made a public statement about what consequences the AACPS employee would face. Dr. Bedell, like I and all leaders of public institutions, is strictly prohibited from discussing private personnel matters in public. Doing so makes our institutions and the public that pays for them vulnerable to legal action. We don’t do it.
That said, Dr. Bedell did send a message to school system employees about such posts, and made a strong statement condemning violence and irresponsible reactions to it at the most recent meeting of the Board of Education.
The threat of political violence isn’t new. I don’t like it, but as of today, it is much more rare than the horrific school shootings and senseless daily violence in communities across the country.
What is new is the way that the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) - a historically nonpolitical agency that regulates radio, television, and the internet - publicly threatened a television network to silence a comedian who has been critical of the President.
President Trump has made no secret of his desire to silence his critics. In celebrating the pending cancellation of Steven Colbert’s show from CBS, he said, “Jimmy Kimmel is next to go,” and “shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone.”
The direct threat came Wednesday, when FCC Chair Brendan Carr said on a podcast, “It’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back and say ‘We’re not gonna run Kimmel anymore…because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC.’”
Soon after, Nexstar, a large ABC affiliate that is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger, announced that it would stop airing Kimmel’s show on its stations. And then ABC announced that it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live!
I usually find a way to put a positive spin on bad news, but not this. It is a kind of government attack on free speech that we’ve not seen in this country for a very long time. And it’s being done in response to the murder of a man who celebrated his right to openly challenge the status quo - a rebel and entertainer.
I’m no expert on Charlie Kirk, but based on what I’ve read these last few days, I am confident that he would argue vehemently that the federal government should not ever threaten to revoke the operating licenses of media companies for airing the voices of government critics.
Brendan Carr was right when he said two days before being nominated that, “The censorship cartel must be dismantled.” Donald Trump proudly called him a “warrior for free speech.”
But Trump’s Washington seems to have become a place where lies are the norm and nothing is sacred. The swamp has been drained, just as he promised, and what’s left is a desert, void of the free speech from which creativity and good ideas are born.
Kimmel’s only direct comment about Charlie Kirk’s murder was an Instagram post on the day of the shooting saying, “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks, and to all of the children, parents, and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”
What got him in trouble wasn’t his statement about the killing, but a commentary on how MAGA spokespeople were reacting to the news that the killer was from a Republican family. He noted that they were “desperately trying to characterize this kid…as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Maybe they were, and maybe it didn’t matter what Kimmel said. The President already had him targeted for cancellation.
A sad day for our country.
Until next week…