Then they came for the comedians ...

"Clown with drum" (detail) by Walt Kuhm (Art Institute of Chicago)

      Nobody cries like a bully.
     The big goon in the schoolyard, on the prowl for little kids to push down. Scattering books and kicking them. Snatching hats and throwing them in the mud. Then someone finally stands up to the guy, taps him on the nose, and he's on the ground, writhing and wailing like the baby he is.
     Because he isn't really strong — he's only tough when picking on somebody half his size.
     Welcome to our political moment. President Donald Trump desperately lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize, can't stanch staunch the slaughter caused by his hero Vladimir Putin. He shrugs off Israel pulverizing Gaza. Tariffs are imposed and withdrawn in a wild, Lewis Carroll carnival of confusion.
      But he sure can go after his critics, and anyone who opposes his authority. They must be crushed, because under Trumpism there is no independent Congress, no impartial courts, no unfettered academe, no free press. Only one man's indomitable will.
     That isn't an easy sell. We are, thank God, a nation built on the idea of widely distributed power and a once-cherished Constitution. States maintain their own separate authority. So those states must be cowed by sending in the military under the flimsiest pretext of law enforcement, though they seem very particular about which laws get enforced and which ignored.
     Universities — traditional hotbeds of dissent — are brought into line under the canard of dialing back antisemitism. Funds are snatched away in what is essentially extortion, a dynamic used over and over because it works so well. You can resist, but it'll cost you.
     The media bends. Jeff Bezos wants his Amazon packages delivered on time. So his Washington Post softened its opinion pages. Among the clearest, most effective voices are television comics, but they too prove vulnerable to the Achilles' heel of their corporate parents' business interests.
     In July, CBS announced then end of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," citing financial reasons, though it was hard not to suspect that those financial reasons involved Paramount's sale to Skydance Media.
     Wednesday's abrupt yanking of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC was even more naked. Trump's Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to pull ABC's broadcast license. And Nexstar, calling Kimmel's words "offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse” said it was removing his show from its 32 ABC affiliates.
     Nexstar, naturally, is seeking FCC approval to acquire rival Tegna in a $6.2 billion deal.
     It's almost an afterthought, but what did Kimmel say to get in such trouble? For the record, he said:
     "We hit 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 doing everything they can to score political points from it," he said.
      That's a) not offensive; b) not about Charlie Kirk.

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