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What would America be like if Trump's coup had succeeded? Suppressing SNL is only the start
It's ludicrous that Donald Trump thought he could crack down on Jimmy Kimmel's jokes. But it's really not funny
None of this is funny.
The "revelations" continue about the Trump regime's abuse of power, lawbreaking, crimes, corruption, general disregard for democratic norms and institutions and overall perfidy. We now know that Donald Trump wanted to use the Department of Justice, the FCC and other federal agencies to silence dissent and criticism — specifically, to clamp down on the mockery of late-night TV hosts and the venerable "Saturday Night Live."
Trump was and is an authoritarian and a fascist who holds utter contempt for the Constitution and democracy.
On Tuesday, Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley of the Daily Beast reported that Trump had gone much further than "simply tweeting his displeasure with the late-night comedians and SNL writers' room," and "wanted to use the full weight and power of the U.S. government to punish his personal enemies." According to two anonymous sources, Trump asked his advisers in 2019 whether the FCC, the federal courts or the DOJ could do anything to suppress SNL, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and others. He was apparently disappointed to learn that the "devastating retribution" he hoped for was not possible in a democracy, even an enfeebled one:
In early 2019, Trump had to be repeatedly advised that the "equal-time" rules to which he appeared to refer wouldn't even apply in this situation, given that late-night shows and NBC sketch comedy are clearly staged satire, and thus not bound by the same requirements of other forms of broadcast TV and radio.
[Another source] said that when they briefly discussed this with Trump more than two years ago, they made a point of saying that the Justice Department, in particular, doesn't handle these matters, anyway. Trump seemed disappointed to hear that there was no actual legal recourse or anything that the FCC or DOJ could do to punish late-night, anti-Trump comedy.
"Can something else be done about it?" Trump replied, according to this source, to which they responded with some version of "I'll look into it." (This person says that to this day, they have not, in fact, "looked into it.")
This new information about Trump's attempts to silence free speech coincides with recent "discoveries" that he and his allies literally tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election by ordering the Department of Justice to find ways of rejecting (or perhaps manufacturing) votes in key battleground states, and to seek a Supreme Court decision that would nullify the election of Joe Biden and return Trump to office.
Mercifully, Trump is no longer president. But the Jim Crow Republican Party's efforts to overthrow American democracy continue largely unabated.
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/24/wh...-succeeded-suppressing-snl-is-only-the-start/
It's ludicrous that Donald Trump thought he could crack down on Jimmy Kimmel's jokes. But it's really not funny
None of this is funny.
The "revelations" continue about the Trump regime's abuse of power, lawbreaking, crimes, corruption, general disregard for democratic norms and institutions and overall perfidy. We now know that Donald Trump wanted to use the Department of Justice, the FCC and other federal agencies to silence dissent and criticism — specifically, to clamp down on the mockery of late-night TV hosts and the venerable "Saturday Night Live."
Trump was and is an authoritarian and a fascist who holds utter contempt for the Constitution and democracy.
On Tuesday, Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley of the Daily Beast reported that Trump had gone much further than "simply tweeting his displeasure with the late-night comedians and SNL writers' room," and "wanted to use the full weight and power of the U.S. government to punish his personal enemies." According to two anonymous sources, Trump asked his advisers in 2019 whether the FCC, the federal courts or the DOJ could do anything to suppress SNL, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and others. He was apparently disappointed to learn that the "devastating retribution" he hoped for was not possible in a democracy, even an enfeebled one:
In early 2019, Trump had to be repeatedly advised that the "equal-time" rules to which he appeared to refer wouldn't even apply in this situation, given that late-night shows and NBC sketch comedy are clearly staged satire, and thus not bound by the same requirements of other forms of broadcast TV and radio.
[Another source] said that when they briefly discussed this with Trump more than two years ago, they made a point of saying that the Justice Department, in particular, doesn't handle these matters, anyway. Trump seemed disappointed to hear that there was no actual legal recourse or anything that the FCC or DOJ could do to punish late-night, anti-Trump comedy.
"Can something else be done about it?" Trump replied, according to this source, to which they responded with some version of "I'll look into it." (This person says that to this day, they have not, in fact, "looked into it.")
This new information about Trump's attempts to silence free speech coincides with recent "discoveries" that he and his allies literally tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election by ordering the Department of Justice to find ways of rejecting (or perhaps manufacturing) votes in key battleground states, and to seek a Supreme Court decision that would nullify the election of Joe Biden and return Trump to office.
Mercifully, Trump is no longer president. But the Jim Crow Republican Party's efforts to overthrow American democracy continue largely unabated.
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/24/wh...-succeeded-suppressing-snl-is-only-the-start/
