On September 10, 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University, a shocking act of political violence that stunned the nation and left his supporters grieving. The brutal assassination cut short a young movement and exposed the raw consequences of our fraying public discourse.
In the days that followed, the mainstream media’s response tested the limits of decency and balance when Jimmy Kimmel used the tragedy as fodder for a monologue that many conservatives found reckless and inflammatory. ABC moved to suspend Kimmel’s long-running late-night program amid a firestorm, a decision the network said was intended to “take the temperature down” while it weighed the fallout.
What should have been a sober national moment instead turned into a spectacle of power plays, with the head of the Federal Communications Commission publicly threatening broadcasters and telegraphing possible punishments. That kind of federal pressure on editorial content is not neutral accountability; it is raw bureaucratic intimidation that chills speech for millions of Americans.
Local affiliate owners quickly signaled their own muscle, with major groups preempting Kimmel’s show and demanding apologies or other concessions from Disney and ABC. Corporate and regulatory panic replaced reasoned discussion, and networks scrambled to manage advertisers and shareholders rather than defend consistent standards for speech.
After intense negotiations and public pressure, ABC ultimately reinstated Kimmel’s show, underscoring the chaotic, tit-for-tat nature of how these disputes are handled by big media and Washington insiders. Whatever one thinks of Kimmel’s comments, this back-and-forth showed that the rules are being written on the fly by whoever shouts the loudest, not by any principled standard of free expression or equal application of consequence.
Conservatives are right to demand both accountability and fairness. We do not celebrate violence, and those who traffic in hateful or false claims should answer for their words — but accountability must be consistent, transparent, and not weaponized by partisan regulators or media conglomerates. The dangerous new normal is cherry-picking outrage: punish some speakers to score political points while giving others a pass when it suits the powerful.
This episode proves the difference between cancel culture and what some call consequence culture has been blurred by political actors eager to silence their opponents. True consequence culture would apply standards evenly and protect the right of citizens to argue, protest, and even ridicule without fear that an opportunistic regulator will yank a broadcast license or that corporate boards will kneel to the latest mob.
Hardworking Americans deserve better than moral grandstanding from late-night comics and censorship masquerading as accountability from officials. If we are to heal, we must demand consistent rules, protect free speech for everyone, and stop letting elites weaponize grief and tragedy to further a partisan agenda. The fight now is to restore fairness and to ensure that no American is expendable in the court of public opinion when politics are at stake.
