By Aagje Van Raemdonck
Photo by Tim Mossholder
There has been a lot of soul-searching in the United States since the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show by US broadcaster ABC. The temporary suspension [it has since been reinstated] came after Kimmel made a comment about the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel’s temporary suspension sparked a wider debate about freedom of speech in the US.
Since the death of Charlie Kirk, Republicans and Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters have called on their supporters to call out anyone who celebrates Charlie Kirk’s death.
“Call them out, and hell, call their employer,” said US Vice President J.D. Vance on 16 September as he hosted an episode of the Charlie Kirk show. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called for the deportation of people in the US on a visa who “celebrate the death of fellow citizens”.
Jimmy Kimmel is the second talk-show host to have his show suspended in recent months following the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show by CBS in July. Both hosts made comments about the Trump administration before their shows were cancelled.
The removal of these shows from television raised eyebrows, as they serve as examples of the decline of free speech in the US, according to critics.
The silencing of Trump’s and MAGA’s critics is in direct violation of an executive order signed by Trump himself on the first day of his second term, in which the president vowed to “restore free speech” and “end government censorship”. Opponents and critics who followed the events that day had already warned people to be sceptical about the order.
But according to critics, the efforts and statements by Trump and his team to “restore free speech” only seem to be aimed towards the Republican party and the broader MAGA movement.
The press is not the only group being targeted by the current US administration. The Republican Party has dismantled several government institutions, with the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education as the most dire example.
Trump has also threatened to fire anyone in his party who is not in line with his values and way of governing the country, with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell being one of the latest examples. Trump threatened to fire him in an AI post on his Truth social account because, for Trump, Powell has been too slow to cut interest rates. If Trump follows through with the threat it would be an unprecedented move as a president has never fired the Federal Reserve Chairman.
The Center for American Politics (CAP), an independent non-partisan policy institute, is referring to all of this as “a green light for authoritarianism”, suggesting that Trump has taken a page out of the authoritarian playbook. Attacking the free press is only one step in becoming more authoritarian, according to them.
The decline of free speech and the rise of authoritarianism has sent shockwaves across the world, emboldening autocrats such as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do as they like. The recent violations of European airspace by Russia and the worsening of the genocide in Gaza before the ceasefire deal have been consequences.