Why Jimmy Kimmel would have never been cancelled in Australia

Does anyone else jump online, read about US politics and wonder if they’ve been dropped into a George Orwell novel? If only the prose were as polished and witty.

In a world where politics has become auto-satirising, it seems the real satirists have become the most astute and influential observers of politics. Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show has not been renewed by CBS. And Disney briefly cancelled fellow satirist Jimmy Kimmel’s show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! Their crime? Having the temerity to criticise US President Donald Trump.

Given the long history of US comedians poking fun at their president and the fact that the US Constitution contains that pesky First Amendment, you’d be forgiven for wondering if we are all the butt of an elaborate joke. But no. Trump has, as predicted, wrested control of the levers of power from trustworthy hands and installed his apparatchiks with a speed that would make Joe Stalin envious. Enter stage, far right, Brendan Carr, the chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, eager to do the president’s bidding.

In the age of social media, demands to cancel people whose views do not conform to the agreed political template are proliferating on both the left and the right. Comedy, it seems, is an increasingly risky business.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/why-jimmy-kimmel-would-have-never-been-cancelled-in-australia-20250924-p5mxl6.html

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