Jimmy Kimmel’s Pious Death Spiral | The American Spectator

Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension from ABC feels less like censorship than comeuppance. The comedian who once built his reputation on gleeful political incorrectness now finds himself hoisted by his own progressive petard, pulled off air after suggesting Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer was a Trump supporter rather than what he actually appears to be — a far-left fanatic with a taste for blood.

Don’t confuse this for another cancel culture moment. It’s the predictable end of a peculiar American transformation. (RELATED: Pull ABC’s Broadcast License? After the Last Few Days? Hell, Yes!)

Kimmel began as comedy’s carnival barker, hosting The Man Show with a beer-guzzling, breast-ogling sensibility that would make a frat house wince. Back then, he was authentically awful. A puerile provocateur who never pretended to possess deeper wisdom. His comedy was crude but consistent, offensive but honest about its own emptiness.

Then something shifted. Maybe it was Hollywood’s gravitational pull, or maybe Kimmel simply spotted his opportunity at the peak of cancel culture. He needed an off-ramp from his frat-boy past, and he took it. The transformation was jarring. It was like watching the class clown demand to be valedictorian. One day he was celebrating “Juggies,” the next, he was lecturing America about healthcare while choking up over his son’s surgery.

The contrast with his former co-host, Adam Carolla, couldn’t be clearer. Carolla stayed what he always was: a blue-collar contrarian with steady convictions and no taste for respectability politics. Love or hate his rants, he never betrayed himself. He is still the guy fixing cars and griping about traffic, just with a louder microphone. He built a podcast empire on the very authenticity Kimmel abandoned. Carolla may be cranky, repetitive, even reactionary. But he has remained recognizable. The same man, only amplified.

Kimmel, by contrast, became something worse. A reformed sinner desperate to flaunt his salvation.

Critics often compare Kimmel’s trajectory to Howard Stern’s evolution from shock jock to celebrity interviewer. But this lazy parallel misses crucial differences. Stern may be insufferable in his current incarnation — a disheveled, wild-haired loudmouth turned pampered recluse holding therapy sessions with A-listers. But his slide never felt quite so scripted. The angry young man simply aged into an anxious middle-aged one. His obsessions remained intact even as the scenery changed.

Stern’s insufferability comes from self-absorption, not self-righteousness. He is addicted to dissecting his own psyche and, by extension, everyone else’s. He is pathologically narcissistic and neurotically needy. His interviews, however long-winded and soul-destroying, spring from a grating but genuine curiosity about human behavior. That makes him more of a bore than a preacher.

Kimmel offers no such consistency. His sanctimony is selective, his sermons opportunistic. Where Stern is trapped in his own head, Kimmel is trapped by his own hypocrisy.

When he cries about gun violence or healthcare, audiences can’t tell if it’s raw emotion or a rehearsed performance. Call me cynical, but I’d bet on the latter. The uncertainty is poisonous to comedy, which requires either complete honesty or acknowledged artifice.

This fakery is why Kimmel’s political moments land so awkwardly.

He wants applause for moral courage while hiding behind the excuse of “I’m just a comedian.” He longs for the freedom to offend and the authority to preach, but in reaching for both, he achieves neither.

Medieval court jesters survived by speaking truth to power while hiding behind humor. Modern late-night hosts do the opposite: they speak power to truth while pretending to be outsiders. Kimmel’s suspension shows just how flimsy that pose really is.

His remarks about Kirk’s alleged killer captured everything wrong with his act. They were political guesses dressed up as moral clarity, delivered with the smug confidence of a man who mistakes a TV platform for actual wisdom.

The tragedy is not that Kimmel was suspended. The tragedy is that he turned into the kind of figure who deserved suspension. The boisterous beer bro at least knew his limitations. The virtue-signaling host apparently doesn’t.

And what comes next? In truth, there is no triumphant TV return waiting for him. This is not the age of Johnny Carson or Jay Leno. It is the age of TikTok, livestreams, and podcasts. The networks no longer command the culture. Kimmel might try to claw back relevance by launching his own show on YouTube or a podcast like Carolla’s. But who, I ask, would tune in?

Carolla’s listeners show up because he’s still Carolla. Stern’s devotees stay because he’s still, in some fashion, Stern. Kimmel is no longer Kimmel. He is a hack hybrid — half-activist, half-entertainer, full fraud.

Only the most deluded could mistake that for a draw.