Cancelling Jimmy Kimmel

 

There are things I was not fond of when it came to the Jimmy Kimmel show: I could never understand the role played by Guillermo, his Mexican/American foil, whose role seemed regulated to saying, "Yes, Jimmy," and appearing to never having had an actual thought.

His interviews with stupid people on the street grew old and discouraging: Stupid people can be really depressing.

But once he launched into his monologue, his criticisms of Donald Trump were just sublime.

And, even when you have Trump's people cancelling basic vaccines, pounding chests about the name "Department of War," blowing up boats off Venezuela because they look like they might be carrying drugs, defunding PBS and NPR, defunding universities, suing the New York Times for hurting Mr. Trump's feelings--  I figured, well, we still have dissent and public criticism, look at South Park; look at Colbert; look at Kimmel.

But now Trump has got to whoever those faceless, nameless corporate masters who sign the checks for Colbert and Kimmel. Trump understood better than the rest of us that everyone has a boss (except for him) and that you don't need to make your case in court or through a bureaucracy, you just need to threaten a big corporation's bottom line, and the billionaires who run that corporation will say, "Yes, sir."

The executives who displayed the broad yellow streak were, presumably, Robert Iger, CEO of Disney, and Fox Veteran, now Disney TV chief, Dana Walden, who Google says is an old friend of Kamala Harris. But these two--and who knows who else?--heard the FCC was fixing to make trouble for Disney and they showed all the morals of a cornered rat. 

What you really have to wonder is, suppose these two just said to Trump, "Go ahead and do your worst. Bring out the FCC. Sue us. Let's see what kind of trouble we can make for you?" What is the worst thing that could happen to them? They lose their jobs? Are they going to have to sell their homes or go on welfare?  

Really. So they retire and hang out at one of their four homes around the world. Or they get dumped by the Disney board of directors, and they get new jobs with Netflix or MGM or Dreamworks. What do they have to lose?

But now, for all time, they will be remembered as the Pontius Pilate and King Herod of American media. 

So, why did Iger and Walden surrender? Why the giant yellow streak? THAT is the real story here. 

Mr. Trump has played the Putin card.

One hopes we'll see the resistance rise again, but when you look at America, at who really rules America and what motivates them--i.e., the almighty dollar--you have to say that the exceptions to this rule are rare...the Civil Rights Movement; Martin Luther King; the election of Barack Obama; the Civil War which was fought for many reasons, but the sine qua non was slavery; the awarding of the right to vote to Blacks and women--those were movements and accomplishments with no clear financial motivation, but those are the exceptions to the rule.

For now, we have a scabrous state, ruled by venal men and women who care only for money and their own dominant fiscal position.