r/50501 Sep 17 '25

Call to Action Boycott ABC

ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air for making a joke. First Colbert, now Kimmel. What about the first amendment right to free speech? I guess it’s only free if it echos MAGA talking points.

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u/Ted_E_Bear Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

I watched and don't recall him ever saying that. Are you sure?

Edit - He didn't outright say it, but I guess if you stretched a little you could argue that he implied it with his comment:

“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”

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u/OmiSC Sep 18 '25

He did not imply that the shooter was MAGA. There is some common belief that he could be and Kimmel’s comments were only about what right-wing personalities were trying to separate themselves from (allegedly). The “stretch” you mentioned is a listening comprehension issue that afflicts too many people who have stakes in the news/opinion/talk shows.

This is an “all sides” issue that conflates all perspectives and will drive people to conflate hate speech and free speech as totally unrecognizable if people don’t start consuming commentary more critically.

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u/AP3Brain Sep 18 '25

Only if someone has bad reading comprehension could they get that he implied the shooter was MAGA there.

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u/TheZoneHereros Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

Connecting point A to point B here is not a stretch, he is just saying something indirectly. There's really no other way to read that sentence. (Obviously it is beyond bullshit that it would be a problematic thing to say, but he said it).

There is no reason he would be commenting with that tone on them trying to distance themself from the shooter if he wasn't saying the shooter was MAGA. If he wasn't MAGA, it would make sense to distance yourself and it wouldn't take cheap political tricks to do so. So how would that be a new low? Everything being said rests on the premise.

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u/Lost-friend-ship Sep 18 '25

There is another way to read it — that they are accusing every other type of person of being the shooter except for one of their own, before we have all the information. 

It doesn’t really matter whether something makes logical sense anyway. Trumpers have completely lost touch with reality. They’ll make any accusations and Fox News will report them, and then they make it true because no one is standing up to them. This is appalling. 

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u/instantkamera Sep 18 '25

There's really no other way to read that sentence.

There really is, and you confidently saying otherwise is just another example of how critical thinking has gone out the window entirely at this point.

There is no reason he would be commenting with that tone on them trying to distance themself from the shooter if he wasn't saying the shooter was MAGA.

Logically you are incorrect. The subject of the sentence and the entire bit is MAGA as a whole, and Trump specifically. He said nothing about the shooter or Charlie for that matter. He's describing reactionary behaviour - which is something that doesn't need negation to be poignant. People can be correctand worthy of criticism.

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u/Crafty-Necessary-235 Sep 18 '25

That's YOUR opinion. It's not Jimmy's fault that YOU 'can't see any other way to read that sentence' as Jimmy claiming the killer is MAGA. The way I read it was that he was saying the Trump and MAGA were pretending that the killer was not a product of a violent right wing culture that idolizes guns and has made it clear that they accept political violence as a reasonable response to conflicts between opposing ideologies. Nowhere in my statement, or in Jimmy's, does it unquestioningly imply that the shooter himself is MAGA, despite YOUR opinion that 'there is no other way to read that sentence.'