Ken Rudin joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about his career as a journalist at NPR, hosting his podcast, The Political Junkie and why he's changed his nonpartisan orientation in the Trump era.
Jimmy Kimmel attends the 28th Annual UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation's "Taste For A Cure" event at Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel on May 02, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California.
On a recent Tuesday night, viewers tuned in expecting the usual rhythm of late-night comedy: sharp jokes, a celebrity guest, and some comic relief before bed. Instead, they were met with silence. Jimmy Kimmel was yanked off the air after mocking Trump’s response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, his remarks branded “offensive” by federal officials. Stephen Colbert fared no better. After skewering Trump’s wealth and his strongman posturing, his show was abruptly suspended. The message was unmistakable: any criticism of the president could now be grounds for cancellation.
These weren’t ratings decisions or advertiser tantrums. They were acts of political pressure. Regulators threatened fines and hinted at license reviews if the jokes continued. A hallmark of American democracy, the freedom to mock the powerful, was suddenly treated as a form of censorship.
The pattern is clear. While Americans mourn Charlie Kirk, the White House has seized the moment to justify state-backed policing of speech. What began as political point-scoring in the aftermath of tragedy has escalated into something darker: a government deciding which voices may speak and which must be silenced. It is the kind of inversion George Orwell warned about more than 70 years ago, when he described how authoritarian regimes twist language and law to criminalize dissent and turn truth-tellers into “enemies of the state,” a term Trump has frequently used about his opponents.
The White House calls this censorship “consequence culture,” as though silencing comedians were no different from a bad Yelp review. But government pressure is not the same as social backlash. When federal regulators suggest that mocking the president could result in a network losing its license, satire becomes a high-risk act. What happened to Kimmel and Colbert was not the free market at work; it was the heavy hand of the state punishing those who ridiculed it. And it raises an obvious question: what, really, is the difference between this so-called consequence culture and the cancel culture the Right has long railed against on college campuses and social media?
For decades, conservatives have defended controversial speech in the name of liberty, even arguing that businesses have the right to refuse service when speech violates their values. Now, the same movement demands that businesses punish dissenting voices, with the government holding the stick. The principle has flipped: what once was a defense of expression has become a crusade to police it.
The next step has been even more alarming. Trump allies like Attorney General Pam Bondi have argued that, in the wake of Kirk’s murder, the government must draw a hard line between free speech and so-called hate speech. But the Constitution recognizes no such exception. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that even offensive or hateful speech remains protected. Bondi’s suggestion that prosecutors could target citizens for saying the wrong thing was not just careless; it was unconstitutional.
The danger lies in how easily this logic can be turned into a weapon. Who decides what counts as “hate”? In practice, it has meant singling out Trump’s critics. The same administration that insists offensive comedy is beyond the pale has no trouble encouraging chants of “lock her up,” tolerating online mobs that target journalists, or pushing to whitewash the actions of January 6 insurrectionists. The hypocrisy is glaring: the definition of hate shifts depending on who wields the power. As Orwell put it, when words can be bent to suit those in charge, they cease to describe reality and instead become tools of control. There is no place for a “might makes right” doctrine in a working democracy.
What is happening now is not a new phenomenon. In the wake of the First Red Scare of the 1910s and 1920s, immigrants and labor organizers were jailed or deported simply for their beliefs. In the 1950s, during the height of McCarthyism, careers were destroyed and reputations ruined because officials branded political dissent as subversion. More recently, after 9/11, the rush to equate criticism of U.S. foreign policy with disloyalty created a climate where speaking out carried heavy costs. Each episode shows how quickly fear can be weaponized to silence unpopular views.
The same dynamic is resurfacing. By branding criticism as “hate” and satire as a threat to public order, the Trump White House is following a familiar script: cast opponents as dangerous, use national trauma as justification, and shrink the space for debate. Each restriction on speech narrows not only the freedom of the speaker but also the imagination of the society listening. Democracy cannot survive when its citizens are told there are truths too dangerous to utter.
The cultural costs are beginning to show. Polling data reveal that while a large majority of Americans still oppose violence as a way to silence speech, support for robust free expression is weakening among younger generations. Nearly 93 percent of baby boomers say violence is never acceptable to stop speech, compared with only 58 percent of Gen Z. That generational slide suggests a dangerous erosion of the norm that words must be met with words, not fists or bullets.
The government’s campaign against dissent only deepens the decline. When comedians are punished, journalists intimidated, and classrooms policed, the message to citizens is clear: free expression is conditional, existing only at the mercy of those in power. The effect is chilling. Fewer people are willing to speak, fewer perspectives reach the public square, and civic culture strains under the weight of fear. The First Amendment is more than a legal guarantee; it is a social contract. Break that contract, and democracy begins to unravel like an old garment, slowly at first and then all at once.
As Orwell reminded us, authoritarian systems thrive not on noise but on silence. His warnings about the manipulation of language and enforced conformity are particularly relevant here.
The silencing of Kimmel and Colbert is more than a dispute over satire; it is a broader issue. It is a warning sign that America is sliding toward a system where speech exists only at the discretion of those in power. History shows where that road leads: to conformity, fear, and the decay of democracy. If free expression can be curbed in the name of order, no voice is safe, from comedians on television to citizens in the town square.
Defending free speech is not about endorsing every word uttered; it is about protecting the principle that a democracy cannot function without open and dissenting voices. The challenge now is to resist the temptation of enforced civility and remember that liberty is measured not by how we treat speech we like, but by how we tolerate the words we despise. The moment we forget that, we risk trading a noisy, argumentative democracy for something far quieter, and far more dangerous, a silence that Orwell warned was the language of authoritarianism.
Robert Cropf is a professor of political science at Saint Louis University.
ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely has sent shockwaves through both the media and political worlds, with critics denouncing the move as censorship. “This isn’t right,” wrote actor Ben Stiller. California Governor Gavin Newsom went further, accusing the Republican Party of “censoring you in real time,” warning that “buying and controlling media platforms, firing commentators, canceling shows… it’s coordinated. And it’s dangerous.”
This isn’t just about one late-night host. It’s about a pattern—a six-step playbook used by authoritarian regimes to dismantle democratic institutions. And under President Donald Trump’s second term, critics say that playbook is being executed with alarming precision.
On an episode of HBO’s Real Time, political satirist Bill Maher issued a stark warning about what he calls a “slow-moving coup” orchestrated by Trump.
Maher laid out a chilling checklist of tactics he believes are being used to consolidate power and undermine democratic norms.
“Let me just describe some of the steps—and you tell me if I’m being paranoid,” Maher said. He pointed to the normalization of masked federal police, the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., and the increasing militarization of urban spaces. “Get people used to looking at that. Normalize snatching people off the street. Normalize seeing the National Guard and the military on the street,” he warned.
Maher’s concerns stem from Trump’s recent moves in the capital, including the federalization of local police and the deployment of troops following a high-profile carjacking incident. Trump has since suggested similar actions may be taken in Chicago and New York City, citing public pleas for intervention and rising crime rates.
Critics argue these actions amount to political theater and dangerous overreach.
McKenzie Carrier and Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warn, Trump is moving “more aggressively and creatively than many autocrats abroad,” bypassing legislative pathways in favor of executive orders, emergency powers, and rhetorical domination.
1. Expand Executive Power
Trump has repeatedly tested the limits of presidential authority, from deploying federal agents to threatening military action against cities. Political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warned early on: “No other major presidential candidate in modern U.S. history… has demonstrated such a weak public commitment to constitutional rights and democratic norms” (How Democracies Die, 2018).
2. Suppress Dissent
The Kimmel incident is not isolated. It follows a broader trend of silencing critics—whether through legal threats, media pressure, or direct intervention.
The cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this year sparked a firestorm of speculation, especially given the timing: it came just three days after Colbert publicly criticized CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a defamation lawsuit with Donald Trump for $16 million.
At the time, Trump celebrated the cancellation on Truth Social, writing, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings”. He also took shots at other late-night hosts, suggesting Jimmy Kimmel could be next.
3. Control Information
From discrediting journalists to amplifying propaganda, Trump’s media strategy has created a climate where truth is negotiable. The FCC’s involvement in the Kimmel case—threatening action against ABC before the show was pulled—raises serious concerns about state interference in editorial decisions.
4. Cripple the Opposition
Trump’s rhetoric routinely paints political opponents as enemies of the state. Legal harassment, smear campaigns, and delegitimizing electoral outcomes are all tools in the autocrat’s arsenal. The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 warns that Trump’s allies are “laying the groundwork to consolidate power and undermine checks and balances.”
5. Exploit Populism and Nationalism
Political psychologist Karen Stenner explains that authoritarianism is triggered not by fear, but by threats to “oneness and sameness”—a dynamic Trump exploits with precision (The Authoritarian Dynamic, 2005). The MAGA movement thrives on exclusion and grievance, reinforcing a worldview that demands conformity and punishes difference.
6. Secure Elite Support
Despite his populist image, Trump has rewarded loyalists with impunity and power. The Kimmel controversy reveals how media conglomerates and regulators may be aligning with executive interests, prioritizing political loyalty over public service.
Reclaiming the Three Branches
To protect our constitutional system, we must:
The pulling of Jimmy Kimmel Live! is more than a programming decision—it’s a stress test for the First Amendment. When political pressure leads to the silencing of satire, we’re not just losing a television show—we’re watching the boundaries of free expression shrink in real time. If we fail to respond, this moment won’t be remembered as an anomaly, but as the inflection point when censorship moved from fringe to mainstream, and constitutional protections began to buckle under partisan weight.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network.
Kevin Frazier warns that one-size-fits-all AI laws risk stifling innovation. Learn the 7 “sins” policymakers must avoid to protect progress.
Imagine it is 2028. A start-up in St. Louis trains an AI model that can spot pancreatic cancer six months earlier than the best radiologists, buying patients precious time that medicine has never been able to give them. But the model never leaves the lab. Why? Because a well-intentioned, technology-neutral state statute drafted in 2025 forces every “automated decision system” to undergo a one-size-fits-all bias audit, to be repeated annually, and to be performed only by outside experts who—three years in—still do not exist in sufficient numbers. While regulators scramble, the company’s venture funding dries up, the founders decamp to Singapore, and thousands of Americans are deprived of an innovation that would have saved their lives.
That grim vignette is fictional—so far. But it is the predictable destination of the seven “deadly sins” that already haunt our AI policy debates. Reactive politicians are at risk of passing laws that fly in the face of what qualifies as good policy for emerging technologies.
Policymakers rightly sense that AI is moving faster than the statutory machinery built for the age of the horse and buggy, not the supercomputer. The temptation is to act first and reflect later. Yet history tells us that bad tech laws ossify, spread, and strangle progress long after their drafters leave office. California’s flame-retardant fiasco—one state’s sofa rule turned nationwide toxin—is Exhibit A. As of 1975, the state’s Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation insisted on flame retardant being included in certain furniture. Companies across the country compiled; it was cheaper to design their products for California’s standards rather than segment their manufacturing processes. Turns out that the flame-retardant foam was highly toxic and highly prone to end up in the hands and mouths of kids. It’s unclear how many hundreds or thousands of kids have suffered severe health issues as a result. Yet, the law remained on the books for decades. If we repeat that regulatory playbook for AI, we will not merely ruin couches; we will foreclose entire classes of life-improving algorithms.
The best way to avoid missing out on a better future due to bad laws is to identify and call out bad policy habits as soon as possible. With that in mind, lawmarks should avoid all seven of these sins and take care to instead adopt more flexible and evidence-based provisions.
Taken together, these antidotes form a simple governing philosophy: regulate like a scientist, not like a fortune-teller. Start narrow. Measure relentlessly. Revise or repeal when evidence demands it. And always, always weigh the cost of forgone breakthroughs—lives un-saved, jobs un-created, problems unsolved—against the speculative harms that dominate headlines.
The payoff? A legal environment where responsible innovators can move fast and fix things, where regulators are nimble rather than reactive, and where the public enjoys both the fruits of AI and meaningful protection from its risks. We need not choose between innovation and accountability. We only need the discipline to avoid the seven sins—and the imagination to envision what humanity loses if we fail.
The final word? If my cancer-spotting start-up withers in a tangle of red tape, the obituaries will never say, “Killed by a visionary legislature.” They will simply say, “Cure delayed.” Our charge as lawyers and policymakers is to ensure that sentence never gets written. By exorcising the seven deadly sins of AI policy now, we can safeguard both the public and the next generation of world-changing ideas. The clock is ticking—let’s legislate with humility, measure with rigor, and keep the door open to the innovations we cannot yet imagine.
Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Author of the Appleseed AI substack.The United States is living through a moment of profound democratic vulnerability. I believe the Trump administration has worked in ways that weaken trust in our institutions, including one of democracy’s most essential pillars: a free and independent press. In my view, these are not abstract risks but deliberate attempts to discredit truth-telling. That is why, now more than ever, I think journalists must recommit themselves to their core duty of telling the truth, holding power to account, and giving voice to the people.
As journalists, I believe we do not exist to serve those in office. Our loyalty should be to the public, to the people who trust us with their stories, not to officials who often seek to mold the press to favor their agenda. To me, abandoning that principle would be to betray not just our profession but democracy itself.
I chose this career because I believe in journalism’s potential to humanize, to dignify, and to connect. Coming from a Mexican household, I know firsthand the resilience and hard work of Latino families. Yet far too often, our communities are misrepresented, or worse, erased from the mainstream narrative. Like many other journalists of color my duty to tell stories truthfully is not just professional; it is personal.
I am not alone in this belief. My colleagues at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism share similar views. As graduate students training for the same profession, we often reflect on what journalism means at this moment. Karla Cruz told me, “I think that the role of journalism in a government that's so polarizing that we live in now is just to keep telling like the truths, like different truths that people might not be, that might not be uncovered to certain types of people in different demographics. Like it's extremely important to tell all the stories, and not just the ones that the government wants to focus on or the ones that the government might want to misconstrue…I think we need to just continue and give it our all to make sure that it stays the art that it is, because it's really, it's like, we have to make sure that it's not a dying art, that it just continues and gets better.”
At the same time, I recognize that trust in the press is fragile. A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that over half of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news from social media, where misinformation and disinformation often spread faster than the truth. I think this makes our work even more urgent. Newsrooms have tried to meet audiences where they are by expanding their digital presence, but the online world is crowded with people who are not trained in ethical code or journalism and proper fact checking procedures. This makes it harder for the public to distinguish who to trust.
Constanza Montemayor, another of my graduate journalism colleagues at USC Annenberg, emphasized the importance of maintaining trust. “It's so important to know what facts are true and what commonalities people can share in voting….And journalism is an essential part of that; it is providing a place for that analysis of policy or politicians…I think it's just so important to have that line of communication and transparency that journalism provides between the government and its constituents…journalists can serve as a really important kind of third party, witness, and independent observer to protect the public's interests.”
That is why I believe we must double down on accuracy, transparency, and fairness. I think we must remind our audiences, not just through words but through our actions, that journalism is for them. Their struggles, fears, and hopes matter, and we have a responsibility to highlight their realities with respect.
Karla also reminded me of another important dimension: “I think just being able to uplift different voices and show, don't tell that's one of the things that really stuck with me when I first started getting into journalism…and I think that's just extremely important in a democracy, being able to have freedom of speech, which has unfortunately been threatened. But I think again, we've got to continue on with it.”
In many cases, the absence of a strong press leaves communities less informed and less able to hold leaders accountable. I believe the United States is not immune to these challenges. These are uncertain times for our democracy, and I believe the press has a crucial responsibility not to retreat from its role.
Constanza put it best: “Journalism can save lives. It can change governments, and it keeps our democracy in check from falling into more tyrannical power structures. It helps keep one person from having absolute power or being absolutely unquestioned. It helps give the people a voice in government. Also, people don't have time in their daily lives to go out and question their politicians all the time. So journalists do it for them”
I think this is a time for journalist to return to the basics of our profession: verifying facts, protecting sources, amplifying truth, and holding leaders accountable. In my view, these practices are how we begin to rebuild trust and strengthen our democracy.
Lluvia Chavez, a Mexican-American bilingual journalist dedicated to amplifying the stories of underrepresented communities, and a cohort member with the Fulcrum Fellowship
Journalist and Political Junkie Ken Rudin
