The Democrats need leaders to present a coherent and coordinated pushback against the daily actions of Trump authoritarianism. They have failed in this role until now. Could that change?
Gavin Newsom led Democrats in a blistering rebuke of Donald Trump on Tuesday, nearly one week after the slaying of Charlie Kirk prompted calls for a cooldown of political rhetoric.
Republicans for days had been blaming Democrats’ dire — and in their view, sensationalist — characterizations of the MAGA movement as laying the groundwork for the conservative activist’s killing. But Newsom, in his first extended political appearance since Kirk’s death, showed no signs of easing up on casting Trump and his GOP allies as a foundational menace, after the administration’s threats to punish the left. And he framed his gerrymander battle with the right as existential, warning that “we’ll lose this republic, we’ll lose this democracy.”
“It is not an overstatement. This is Code Red,” Newsom said during an online livestream with a host of party leaders and influencers to benefit his redistricting ballot measure. “We all need to wake up to what’s going on.”
The ability to gather the luminaries of Very Online Democrats is an apt flex for Newsom, who has been fixated on cozying up to the left-leaning creator class to counter the much-larger GOP media landscape. The line-up included hosts of popular podcasts such as “Pod Save America” and “MeidasTouch,” YouTubers such as Brian Tyler Cohen and elected officials like House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
In the past I was only mildly impressed by Newsom, who appeared to do good things but only among a cluster of dubious achievements. Now he is fighting. Visibly, loudly fighting, and taking the lead in fighting. The Party desperately needed a leader, and one who wasn’t a mild bureaucrat. If Newsom can be that leader and get over his past reputation as a loony leftist California lightweight, he has all the qualifications for this time: i.e., being a straight white Christian male. Forward into the past.
This is well said. It should be printed and put in a place where I will see it everyday.
Because, like DSeid articulated, how he feels is how I feel. For whatever reason, this seems like the thing that’s going to hook me in.
But bad things not being forever takes action. They will be forever if I let them. So the quote is to remind me that I can, or cannot, choose to do something about it. It’s on me. Just as a democracy falls by slowly being chipped away at, it can also be slowly put back together a very tiny piece at a time. I just have to believe that and then do my tiny piece.
On a drive today, I was (as always) listening to CBC Radio, and the Jimmy Kimmel thing had prompted a discussion group of political commentators and listener call-ins. The universal consensus (I didn’t hear any dissenters during my drive) was that America was now a steadily worsening authoritarian dictatorship. There was a quote from Stephen Miller explicitly saying that all available federal resources would be used to go after “the left” in order to “make America safer”.
The beauty of it is that it’s a dogma with an inarguable premise (who wouldn’t want America to be safer?) that can be used to justify anything the fascists do to silence even mildly dissenting voices and promote their own propaganda. It can be used to justify canceling Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.
By definition, there’s bias in the media. Even such fundamental issues as what stories you do and do not cover and how you cover them constitute ‘bias.’
But that’s how things were for much of the last generation or four.
What the Dominion lawsuit revealed about Fox News is what many of us long suspected: it’s not limited to bias and lies of omission (what they don’t tell their viewers). Their willingness to outright lie … about The Most Consequential Issues In Recent Memory … is inarguable.
From the top down, they decided that their viewers are too fragile and too intellectually insecure to be accurately informed, that the truth might put them off, and have instead decided that this new dishonesty model is perfectly fine with the company, too: revenue first, last, and only.
It is a disaster on far too many levels to count. It has arguably caused more insidious and deleterious harm to the US than the opioid crisis.
But … late-night comedians have said mean things about Donald Trump, his administration, and his supporters.
Today Trump is saying any broadcasters who criticize him should lose their licenses to broadcast.
President Trump told reporters he believed the F.C.C. should revoke the broadcast licenses of networks who have late night show hosts who speak overly negatively about him.
…..
“Look, that’s something that should be talked about for licensing, too,” he said. “When you have a network and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump.”
What a fucking snowflake this guy turns out to be. /s
Is there anything people in the entertainment industry can do? Can actors, writers, directors, producers, etc. refuse to create any more content for Disney until Kimmel is reinstated?
Any but the very biggest/most prominent ones have zero leverage in this. Disney can easily say, “you don’t want this job? No worries: a thousand other talented people do. You are not unique, and we don’t need you.”
And, even the most prominent stars may well be leery of taking a public stand, and getting their careers cancelled, too.
I am sure low ratings had nothing to do with the ABC affiliates deciding to not air Jimmy Kimmel, forcing ABC to make a decision
According to monthly Nielsen figures, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” dropped to just 1.1 million total viewers in August 2025, down 43% from January’s 1.95 million. His August household rating of 0.35 marked the weakest showing of the year.
Can we take away the New York Post’s press license* for printing lying statistics?
Kimmel has for the past several years taken the entire summer off, with a rotating series of guest hosts. The Post knows - but never mentions - that guest hosts and reruns were broadcast for the entire month of August. Apples and oranges.
* Yes, I know there’s no such thing as a press license. Yet.
Question: Is the Kimmel cancellation unprecedented in America, or is it the same sort of thing we’ve seen in the past, with things like the cancellation of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, or the Hollywood blacklist of the McCarthy era?