Exploring the clash between free speech and censorship in light of recent events involving Jimmy Kimmel and Trump.
To quote Principal Skinner quoting Bob Dylan, “Children, the times they are a… becoming quite different.”
Strange days indeed.
One week after a gay Mormon-raised kid murdered Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have, quite logically, blamed the Jews. (No one specifically, of course. It’s always a shadowy cabal of Israel, AIPAC, and “disloyal” Jewish Americans. But don’t worry: They’re “just asking questions” and are totally acting in good faith.)
But aside from the conspiracy kooks, the rest of the conservative movement quickly coalesced, honoring Charlie Kirk’s life and mission. As The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh put it:
The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting bullshit. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell. They’re killing us in our churches. They tried to kill our president. They killed Charlie, one of our greatest advocates. Put the personal squabbles…— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 10, 2025
And the overwhelming majority of conservatives heeded the call, thank God. It’s an extraordinary tribute to an extraordinary man: I’ve never seen our movement more united.
Or more outraged.
Often in these columns, I write about trajectory — where our country will be if the status quo holds. It’s a critically important topic, because in politics, things don’t move until they’re pushed. Everything else is always in a constant state of motion, and if you don’t know where you are today, it’s impossible to know where you’ll be on Election Day.
But it’s also misleading, because black swan events — those improbable, unpredictable moments in history — probably matter more than trajectory. Just over the last 25 years, we’ve seen it over and over again: 9/11, Fukushima, economic meltdowns, COVID, Oct. 7, Butler, and, most recently, the horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Not too many people had the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on their June 28, 1914, bingo card. But his death directly led to World War I — and without the First World War, there almost certainly wouldn’t have been a World War II.
The butterfly effect of that one black swan altered the entire course of human history.
So, for humility’s sake, we must recognize that we don’t know what we don’t know. (Or, as Dirty Harry put it, “A man’s got to know his limitations.)
What we do know is that the radical left is howling and screaming about the evils of so-called Cancel Culture, and their current trajectory is leading them to a profoundly dark place. It’s a helluva role-reversal, as I noted on Tuesday:
We still remember when mainstream Republicans, run-of-the-mill conservatives, and right-leaning media outlets — including President Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul, Dan Bongino, Jordan Peterson, Steve Bannon, James O’Keefe, James Woods, the Babylon Bee, PragerU, and countless others — were all banned, suspended, censored, and/or demonetized from social media sites.
Furthermore, we also remember when Gina Carano was fired from Disney for expressing one set of political opinions, while her liberal Disney coworkers — including Mark Hamill and Pedro Pascal — have freely opined about the “genocide” in Gaza, called J.K. Rowling a “heinous loser,” attacked conservatives with impunity, and even mocked Trump after the Butler assassination attempt.
In today’s clickbait marketplace, liberal writers make money when liberal readers click on liberal stories. That’s why the recent spate of headlines is so illuminating:
Daily Beast: ‘Nazi Karens’ Go Full Cancel Culture on Charlie Kirk Critics
Newsweek: Is the Right Embracing ‘Cancel Culture’ After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination?
Axios: Republicans embrace speech limits after Charlie Kirk
NPR: Sen.
