Jimmy Kimmel’s return is a win for the resistance

Public pressure forced Disney to stand up against censorship

Pushback, it would seem, actually works.

Last week, when Disney-owned ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel “indefinitely,” most observers thought the late-night comedian was gone for good.

Disney and ABC initially succumbed to threats from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who demanded they take Kimmel off the air ostensibly because of comments Kimmel had made about Charlie Kirk.

Indeed, the momentum last week seemed to be behind the multitude of right-wing attempts to cancel people in all walks of life who expressed anything short of adulation for Kirk after his death.

But the demand to censor Kimmel – along with ABC’s apparently abject submission -- inspired a massive public outpouring of outrage.

• Protests were held outside Disney and ABC offices.

• More than 230,000 MoveOn members signed a petition demanding the late-night host be reinstated.

• Some 450 artists joined 40,000 ACLU members in a joint statement to defend free speech and expression.

• And arguably the most effective pushback came from an untold number of people who canceled their Disney+ and Hulu streaming subscriptions in protest.

ABC let Kimmel back on the air last night, and when he arrived, he was unbowed.

“A government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American,” he declared. Trump “tried his best to cancel me, instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly.”

Kimmel also urged the public to speak out even more forcefully in the future if Trump continues to go after late-night comedians.

“He was somehow able to squeeze [Stephen] Colbert out of CBS,” Kimmel said. “Then he turned his sights on me, and now he’s openly rooting for ABC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers… And I hope that if that happens, or if there’s even any hint of that happening, you will be ten times as loud as you were this week.”

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch was positively giddy, writing:

In the fight to get Kimmel unsilenced, millions of democracy lovers found their voice, and something even more important than that: a renewed belief that we are going to win.

Greg Sargent wrote for the New Republic that there’s a lesson here:

Trump and MAGA have hidden political weaknesses in this battle that those taking on Trump should keep in mind: These authoritarian assaults on the First Amendment are triggering a major cultural backlash, and it appears substantially stronger than the impulse that spurred the assaults in the first place.

Jessica Marsden, director of Impact Programs at Protect Democracy, wrote for her organization’s newsletter that there are actually three lessons:

One, mass organizing works. Make no mistake, this happened because of the legions of (rightfully) angry Disney and ABC customers and viewers….

Two, a simple message can help unify elite and grassroots audiences. While most pressure came from the bottom up — from Disney and ABC customers — it was joined in key moments by elite actors amplifying and reinforcing the same message….

Three, autocracy is unpopular…. By far, the strongest bulwark against authoritarianism in the United States has always been a broad public distaste for the sort of censorship and repression that will be necessary to consolidate power. The Trump administration is already historically unpopular, and that discontent is likely to grow as the power grabs become more blatant.

Jonathan Friedman wrote for PenAmerica:

Kimmel’s return could become a watershed moment in the current free speech crisis propelled by the Trump administration, a moment reminiscent of when Harvard first responded to the government’s efforts to bully it, refusing to capitulate, and for which it received strong public support.

I liked how veteran journalist James Fallows situated the Kimmel victory within “our tapestry of resistance”:

- Perkins Coie (+ other firm that didn’t back down).

- Harvard (after momentary false start)

- “Lower” fed judiciary. (Not Roger Taney “supreme” court.)

- Local grand juries.

- Govs like Pritzker and Newsom

- WSJ and NYT, when sued

- Millions of protestors

- Now Jimmy Kimmel.

Our tapestry of resistance.

Or, as American Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner put it, “the dialectic of despotism and pushback continues.”

The ACLU, incidentally, isn’t finished with Kimmel. “We’ve already proven the power of this community to protect free speech – and we must keep pushing,” the group said in an email to members.

Two companies that control 1 in 4 of ABC’s local affiliates are still refusing to air Kimmel’s show.

That’s why we’re flooding Nexstar and Sinclair’s inboxes with messages demanding that they fight back against the Trump administration’s intimidation – and we hope you’ll join us: Tell Nexstar and Sinclair to uphold our freedom of speech and reject the Trump administration’s demands.

The Jury Revolt Continues

Juries and grand juries are made up of ordinary citizens. And ordinary citizens aren’t buying trumped-up charges against people who allegedly assaulted federal agents and members of the National Guard.

It’s become a trend in Washington, D.C., and in Los Angeles as well.

One of the latest rejections in L.A. came despite a top Border Patrol official’s testimony. The Los Angeles Times reported:

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino — the brash agent who led a phalanx of military personnel into MacArthur Park this summer — was called as a witness Wednesday in a federal misdemeanor assault case against Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of striking a federal agent.

Bovino, who flew in to testify from Chicago, the latest city targeted for an immigration enforcement surge, said he witnessed the alleged assault committed by Ramos-Brito in Paramount on June 7.

Bovino was questioned by the defense about previous comments he made referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum.”

The jury came back with the acquittal after a little over an hour of deliberations.

Liberty Vans in LA

In Los Angeles on Saturday, Bishop William J. Barber II and the Save America Movement launched Operation Liberty, a rapid-response mobilization against ICE raids targeting immigrant families.

New “Liberty Vans” are being deployed across the city and staffed with clergy, attorneys, and videographers to safeguard immigrants and document their treatment.

“The answer to our present crisis is not going to come from some messiah candidate who’s going to save us while we just sit down,” Barber said during the launch event. “It’s not going to come from a single election. The answer to our authoritarian crisis is already among us. It is you, everyday people, who have discovered that we can let our light shine together.”

Preserving History

NPR reports that “historians and citizens concerned about the Trump administration’s approach to, and involvement in, the Smithsonian have come together to document how the museums look today. Their goal is to produce a record before any changes that might be made.”

Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian was founded in late August and quickly gathered hundreds of volunteers to document thousands of photographs and videos.

The effort took inspiration from “Save Our Signs,” a group building an archive of signs and exhibits in the National Parks in response to the Trump administration’s call for visitors to report signs there that are “negative about either past or living Americans.”

Lawmakers and Would-Be Lawmakers Standing Up

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week “signed a set of bills meant to check the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in California, including a first-in-the nation measure to prohibit officers from wearing masks and others that limit their access to schools and hospitals,” CalMatters reported.

Democracy Docket reported from New York City:

Democratic New York lawmakers — as well as City Comptroller Brad Lander — were arrested by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers Thursday after demanding access to an alleged detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at 26 Federal Plaza.

At least 11 city and state officials have been confirmed to have been taken into custody. All were zip-tied and led away by DHS officers after refusing to leave the 10th floor — where ICE has been accused of running the suspected lockup — without answers.

Kat Abughazaleh and Evanston Mayor Daniel Bliss – both of whom are running for the same House seat – have both faced tear gas while trying to block operations at the ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., outside Chicago. Abughazaleh was actually thrown to the ground by an ICE agent.

Lawyers Fighting Back

Who is providing crucial legal help to individuals hurt by Donald Trump’s authoritarian actions? The Guardian calls attention to Lowell & Associates, Democracy Defenders Fund and the Washington Litigation Group, who it describes as being “among the leading legal groups with clients battling to get their jobs back, avoid prosecutions, or recoup millions of dollars that have been illegally blocked.”

Former DOJ inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian:

The creation of these new entities reflects a broad-based professional revulsion at the ongoing efforts to undermine the rule of law by the Trump administration, including turning the DoJ into an extension of the White House rather than a department that is faithful to the facts and the law.

Kamala Harris Calls Out “Titans of Industry”

Someone’s missing from the resistance, former vice president Kamala Harris told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC on Monday:

I always believed that if push came to shove, those titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. And one by one by one, they have been silent. They have been, you know, yes, I use the word “feckless”…

And here’s the thing: Democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy. And right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the Ellipse, a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators — that’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump. And these titans of industry are not speaking up.

What’s the Plan?

Indivisible’s cofounders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg hold a weekly video session called “What’s the Plan?”

In the latest session, Levin announced that there are more than 1,300 local events so far for the second No Kings Day on October 18. “This is on track to be the single largest protest in modern American history. That is what we are building for,” Levin said.

And what else? Greenberg laid it out:

In the months ahead… we’re going to ask you to march, right? But we are also going to ask you to like show up at your PTA meeting and get the mic and say, “Hey, what is the school doing to protect families from ICE?” We are going to ask you to show up to your alumni gathering for your university and grab the mic and be like, “Hey, I’m not giving a dime to this university until you all stop negotiating a compliance deal with the Trump administration.” We are going to ask you to go to your minister or your rabbi and say, “Why are you not speaking out? Why are you not doing more? I expect more from your moral leadership. I expect you to talk to people about what is happening.” We’re going to ask you to go door to door pushing your local businesses into action.

End Notes

• A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore $500 million in UCLA medical research grants.

• An Ohio chaplain was freed after DHS dropped its deportation case against him, reports ProPublica.

• In California’s Sonoma County, an “Adopt a Corner” program aims to protect undocumented day laborers from ICE, reports the Coyote Media Collective.

P.S. Questions for You

OK, so an enormous No Kings protest is scheduled for October 18. Obviously, you should go.

But what next? What comes after the protest?

And what are the demands?

Should we be planning widespread boycotts of companies cooperating with the Trump regime?

Should we be setting the stage for a general strike?

Like many others, I’m increasingly concerned about how Trump has normalized the notion of troops in American cities – and how that could be a dry run for attempt to subvert the 2026 elections.

Well, what do we do about that? I’ll be asking experts for next week’s newsletter. But what do you think?