Category: Schadenfreude

Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday, September 10. Shortly thereafter, J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller began to implement what looks like a preplanned program to find some pretext to destroy free speech. 

Jimmy Kimmel supplied the pretext on Monday night, September 15, when he (1) unwisely assumed that political assassination was a good topic for comedy and (2) stated—apparently incorrectly—that one of the “MAGA gang” was the actual assassin. Shortly thereafter, beginning on September 17, President Snowflake and his minion Brendon Carr, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, began calling for the revocation of ABC’s license and those of its local TV affiliates. 

Kimmel’s bosses at ABC hit the panic button and—on that same day, Wednesday, September 17—said they would “indefinitely suspend” Kimmel from the airwaves. 

Large chunks of shit began to hit the fan. As the hours and days went on, chunks of shit kept on hitting the proverbial ventilator.

Actors by the hundreds and others by the thousands began to protest and to initiate boycotts. The unspeakable Ted Cruz found that, after all, he could speak out against the planned death of the free speech.

The tide quickly began to turn. When we bought groceries on Saturday, Kroger still had its flag at half staff in loving memory of St. Charly Kirk, the martyr. But the next day, Brendon Carr was on TV trying to walk back his threat to start killing TV licenses. 

Over in England, the indispensable March Family began to write a very nice song about the American First Amendment. They wrote the song, recorded it, and put it on YouTube very quickly—but not quickly enough to get ahead of ABC’s cowardly decision to reverse their own cowardice, and to get our friend Jimmy Kimmel back on the air as of tonight. 

The “indefinite suspension” ultimately lasted less than one week. 

Walks Like Cosplay Fascism, Talks Like Cosplay Fascism

I have no quarrel with those who, beginning on September 17, have been wailing, gnashing their teeth, and rending their garments about the death of freedom in the United States. But my instincts told me that the public was not going to react well to Vance and Miller goosestepping all over Washington, and that insight seems to have been correct. 

Why? Well, I have to begin by admitting that recent events have tended to confirm H.L. Mencken’s claim that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. “Don’t know much about history/Don’t know much geography/Don’t know much about a science book/Don’t know much about the French I took.”

And yet … shockingly ill-informed as so many of us are, we do seem to have the sense to realize that government censorship is not a good thing. 

And so, as of this writing, midday, Tuesday, September 23, Trump and Vance and Miller don’t look like Nazis. Instead, they look like clownish, comic, cosplay Nazis as they strut about on the national stage. 

Right now, it looks as if the great plan to use the Kirk assassination as a pretext to destroy freedom has backfired. Bigly. 

But the Fat Lady Hasn’t Yet Delivered Her Aria

I think the cosplay Fascists have two alternatives. 

Here’s the first one: when your evil plot comes crashing down, what you should do is minimize your losses, change the subject, and then go on a retreat to see whether you can find a more intelligent way to work your evil plan and to establish authoritarianism in the United States. 

Here’s the other alternative: when your evil plot comes crashing down, respond by lashing out blindly in all directions, form a circular firing squad, and do everything you can to make yourselves look even more idiotic. 

Wanna bet on which choice they make?