The Kulling of Kimmel and the New Cold War of Comedy

 

The Kulling of Kimmel and the New Cold War of Comedy

By Brian Wilson

Jimmy Kimmel is gone. Not because he ran out of jokes, though many would argue he did years ago, but because he said the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. In 2025 America, that’s all it takes. One crack in the wrong direction and the trapdoor opens. Welcome to the new Cold War. Only instead of nuclear silos and missile counts, we’re measuring which late-night host survives the week without being dragged into a digital gulag.

Let’s get one thing out of the way. I think Kimmel is a hack. A tool. A comedian who turned into the human equivalent of a Prius with a broken laugh track. But his cancellation doesn’t sit right. Not because I want to defend him, God no, but because the way he was iced should terrify anyone who still thinks the First Amendment is more than a relic printed on a museum wall next to the Declaration of Independence.

Look at Colbert. He took his swings too. At first, when he mocked his own corporate overlords, it was brushed off as cheeky insubordination. “Oh, that’s Stephen, ruffling feathers.” A slap on the wrist, maybe a strongly worded memo. But eventually the axe came for him as well, proof that even when you aim your jokes inside the castle walls, the guillotine still may fall. Kimmel went the other way. He lobbed his grenades beyond the walls, and now his name is being scrubbed like a Soviet general airbrushed out of a group photo. Two hosts, same crime, talking, but different targets, different timing. Both ended up in the same graveyard of silence.

Here’s the rub. I’ve long said celebrities should shut their mouths when they’re handed trophies. Nobody cares about a millionaire in Gucci scolding half the country during an acceptance speech. Save it for brunch. But late-night hosts? Talking is their job. They’re supposed to riff, poke, needle, irritate. They’re supposed to drag the political class through the mud, even if they do it badly. When you kill that, you’re not just muzzling one lousy comic. You’re setting fire to the last shabby tent where free speech still performs.

The stench is rank, like democracy itself is rotting in the basement.

The bigger picture is uglier. We’ve slid into a time when television feels like state property. The sets are glossy, the jokes pre-approved, and the hosts, if they survive, will be reciting lines safer than the evening weather report. Cold War television, only without the charm of Cronkite or the honesty of Murrow. We get plastic smiles, algorithm-tested punchlines, and the ever-present threat that if someone wanders off script, the red phone rings.

Big Brother doesn’t need telescreens bolted to your wall anymore, he’s streaming on demand, built into your phone, and hidden in the fine print of your entertainment contract. It isn’t paranoia when the evidence is printed in the TV guide: all laughs must be authorized. We’ve drifted into a strange kind of communist thinking, where the only acceptable jokes are the ones that praise the Party line, and the wrong laugh can sound like dissent. Kimmel isn’t the first to learn this, and Colbert won’t be the last, but they are the clearest examples yet.

Think about the ripple. If the guy who was supposed to talk for a living gets canned for talking, what chance do you have at your job? What chance does a student have in a classroom? We’ve traded in free speech for curated lip service, and the exchange rate is brutal. The Ministry of Truth doesn’t need to rewrite history when it can delete a monologue before sunrise.

It’s gallows humor time, so here’s the punchline: the only comics who’ll be safe now are the ones actually performing at the gallows. Picture it, Friday night, primetime, a shiny new variety show called State Laughs. Government-approved comics cracking jokes about potholes and airline peanuts while the audience claps on cue. A laugh track so canned its practically spam.

Somewhere, Jimmy Kimmel will be watching from exile, knowing he wasn’t funny enough to survive, but also that he wasn’t bad enough to die this way.