September 20th, 2025

Hey, pals. I have this sinking feeling that there are quite a few people who might misunderstand the First Amendment, but have no fear: if you read only one post about the Jimmy Kimmel situation this week, make it this one.

(I will keep my personal feelings separate but will also disclose: I am a big fan of Kimmel and he actually helped me during my recovery in a life-changing way. But that’s a different essay, which I already wrote.)

Let’s start at the top, with how Amendment I is written in the Bill of Rights:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is super straightforward, and it basically protects us from having any of our freedoms — of religion, of protest, of press, of speech — taken away from us for any reason and specifically by the government.

We often hear the phrase: “Freedom of speech but not freedom from consequence.” This is an important thing to keep in mind, and we’re going to continue with a list of things that are NOT covered by the First Amendment:

Cancel culture: people get confused by this one (and I’ve argued before that it’s not really a thing, at least by how it’s commonly perceived). This is when a group of people decide to stop supporting a person or company for whatever reason. This often happens through boycotts and protests; think Target or Bud Light. There is nothing illegal about this, and it’s actually an übercapitalistic way of telling a celebrity or brand how you really feel: with your hard-earned cash and active attention.

Getting fired from your job: a private company can legally fire an employee for a multitude of reasons, and that includes the things they say. A lot of businesses, especially in entertainment, will have contracts for employees to sign so they understand what kinds of boundaries they have on their public speech. People are free to not sign them and find work elsewhere; people are regularly fired for breaking these clauses.

Social media: again, these are all private companies, and Facebook banning you for repeatedly making the claim that vaccines cause immense ingrown anus hair is completely legal and not a violation of your rights (though your claims are often a violation of my gag reflex).

Your girlfriend getting pissed at you: people still get surprised that they have the freedom to say whatever they want and then find out that other people are allowed to feel whatever they want about those spoken words. Say it with me now: play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This perception of freedom of speech probably has a little to do with the loneliness epidemic we’re experiencing. Just an observation.

The two main things these all have in common? You don’t get imprisoned for your words, and the government is not involved.

This isn’t the case with what’s happening with Jimmy Kimmel. (I’ll include a longer explainer by Reuters below for context.) It’s no secret that Trump has been targeting his enemies for almost a decade now, and a lot of those targets have been media figures, like late night talk show hosts. He’s been threatening them (extremely publicly) for years. On Wednesday, Brendan Carr, head of the FCC (and one of the architects of Project 2025), called out and threatened the broadcasting license of ABC, saying they could “do this the easy way or the hard way” in regards to Kimmel.

So what did Kimmel say or do to get this kind of attention? Nobody knows. According to a Rolling Stone article, even some of the execs in the emergency meetings called following Carr’s comments were confused as to what it was that Kimmel had done wrong. Carr spoke of Kimmel’s Monday night monologue in which he said MAGA was desperately trying to distance themselves from Charlie Kirk’s murderer (which is true), and then played actual clips of Trump not being particularly sad about the loss of Kirk.

Never mind that Kimmel was one of the first to condemn the tragedy and offer his condolences to Kirk’s family, repeating that same sentiment on his show.

Never mind that Nexstar Media, the first group to announce they were pulling Kimmel off the air, is in the middle of a $6.2 billion dollar merger that breaks anti-trust laws and needs FCC approval.

And never mind that Kimmel isn’t actually fired and his show isn’t actually canceled. He’s just… not allowed to do it.

This is a textbook case of the government violating the First Amendment.

And it doesn’t matter how you feel about Kimmel. I have had to listen to so many of you go off on the importance of free speech over the years (and over the past few weeks especially) without actually understanding what it means and why plurality in a democracy is so important, even when we don’t agree with every voice.

What if, a few years ago, Charlie Kirk had a TV show and Joe Biden had silenced it exactly like this? I can’t imagine some of your responses would be the same.

Anyway, I’m a writer, and I’m a dissenter, and I argue an awful lot. I’m just a lot. And this particular Amendment, the first one, is the most important to me. It’s literally one of the only things that makes this country unlike almost any other on the planet, and it’s the reason we have unlimited possibilities for our future.

This isn’t a time to panic. But it is the time to recognize that what we warned you about is here. This is where we recognize that the water we’re standing in has bubbles rising; this is when we have to decide whether to shit ourselves or get out of the pot.

Check out the Reuters article here.