Linked List: September 23, 2025

Tuesday, 23 September 2025

‘Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension Is a Wake-Up Call’ ★

Taegan Goddard, a few days ago at Political Wire:

The sudden suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show after threats from FCC chair Brendan Carr was a jolt. It looked like the next step in Donald Trump’s campaign to silence dissent.

But there’s another way to see it: an opportunity.

It’s been clear since the last election that conservatives dominate the independent media space. Trump rode the reach of right-wing podcasts to victory while Kamala Harris stuck to traditional television.

But those old outlets are collapsing — and they’re never coming back.

That means the stars of late-night TV — Kimmel, Colbert and others — could thrive outside corporate networks. They can build their own platforms, reach bigger audiences, and escape the grip of billionaires and timid executives.

While Goddard didn’t say it in this piece, the subtext should be that building the alternative on Substack or social media is not the answer, either. The Internet is decentralized and built exactly to counter these forces our country is facing under Trump 2.0.

The big problem is YouTube. With YouTube, Google has a centralized chokehold on video. We need a way that’s as easy and scalable to host video content, independently, as it is for written content. I don’t know what the answer to that is, technically, but we ought to start working on it with urgency.

The Kimmel Joke That Got Him Suspended Was Not About Charlie Kirk, It Was About Trump Being a Ghoul ★

ABC is putting Kimmel’s show back on tonight, which is great. But I think it’s essential to watch the joke that triggered his suspension. I’m linking here to a CNN post with the full clip. CNN headlined their post “What Kimmel Said About Charlie Kirk That Yanked His Show Off Air”, and that’s basically how most news outlets have phrased it.

But the joke wasn’t about Charlie Kirk. It wasn’t about Charlie Kirk’s assassin. It was about Donald Trump being a sociopathic ghoul. Trump was asked how he’s holding up after the death of “his friend Charlie Kirk”. You really have to watch it — a transcript of Trump’s answer does no justice to how sociopathic it was. And Kimmel called him out on it with mockery.