Authoritarianism doesn’t start with guns or guards. It starts with the quieting of voices. When speech is censored for one, liberty is lost for all.
Every regime that has feared dissent has begun by punishing those who expressed their opinions too loudly, sharply or prematurely. The United States has not reached that point yet, and we hope it never will. However, recent months have demonstrated just how easy it can be to move in that direction.
On Sep. 17, news spread like wildfire that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would be cancelled due to comments he made about Charlie Kirk following his death. For five days, social media overflowed with calls to reinstate him. Many cancelled their Disney+ subscriptions due to Disney’s partnership with ABC, and there were concerns about which late-night host might be next.
While Kimmel was reinstated and continues to put on his shows with an even larger audience than before, the damage was done. The Federal Communications Commission showed its true colors, with Brendan Carr’s quote, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Carr has even received glowing praise from President Donald Trump due to his hard stance on what he calls freedom of speech.
“They’re [broadcast networks] getting a license. I think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy. So we’ll see,” Trump said.
This incident grabbed public attention and infuriated me, but it wasn’t the only time during the Trump administration that someone lost their job over their statements or reporting choices.
Karen Attiah, a journalist at the Washington Post, expressed that she was fired for criticizing political violence and racial double standards in the wake of Kirk’s assassination. She said her online rhetoric was deemed “unacceptable” and “gross misconduct,” even though she never directly attacked Kirk.
A screenshot from former Washington Post reporter Karen Attiah commenting about the hypocrisy in reactions in America when it comes to gun violence following the shooting of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025, on Substack. (Substack).
The only time she directly referenced Kirk’s name was when she posted a quote that was directly from him: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”
Who faces consequences depends less on what was said and more on who said it. That hypocrisy has become one of the defining features of our political climate.
U.S. Senator Mike Lee condemned the assassination of Kirk, calling it a “cowardly act of violence” and praising him as an “American patriot.” In contrast, he reacted toMinnesota state senator Melissa Hortman’s death by blaming “Marxists” for the violence and implicating Governor Tim Walz.
Many assumed the shooter was a Democrat, but he was actually a conservative with no ties to Walz.
On a Fox News segment, Greg Gutfeld said that comparing the assassination of Hortman to that of Kirk is “bulls–t”, saying no one was talking about her before she was shot, it was a direct attack rather than political and that it couldn’t compare to Kirk’s assassination.
So again, I ask: why can Lee and Gutfeld post those statements that are mocking, misleading and inflammatory and still remain in office, while journalists like Attiah lost their jobs for far less? Why are dark political jabs tolerated from one side but punished from another?
That’s the real danger. Not that people are being cancelled, but that censorship itself has become political currency.
During the Kimmel controversy, I joked to a friend, “If we canceled everyone on live TV who made an offensive comment, there wouldn’t be a Fox News channel left to watch.”
I have a strong dislike for Fox News, Newsmax and their spinoffs. But I’d be a hypocrite if I demanded their shows be pulled every time I disagreed with what they said. Free speech isn’t meant to protect only the people we like. It’s meant to protect the people we don’t.
Speech that incites violence or spreads misinformation should face consequences, but current actions amount to selective punishment masquerading as moral outrage.
When freedom of expression becomes conditional, when it depends on who’s speaking or which side they’re on, it stops being freedom at all, and we’ve seen that unfold in real time. While this has become a partisan issue, it really shouldn’t be.
After Kimmel’s suspension, Republican Senator from Texas Ted Cruz spoke about the dangers of censorship. Cruz started by mentioning that he hates what Kimmel said and is glad he got punished for it, but that this sets a dangerous precedent.
“I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying,” Cruz said on his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz.”
Cruz had a point. Free speech goes both ways. Eventually, a repressive government will come for everyone. Regardless of party affiliation, firing and repressing someone’s voice on a federal level is not the backbone of a democratic nation.
People roll their eyes when comparisons are made to past authoritarian regimes, saying it’s not that bad. But fascism and total repressiondo not happen overnight. The more we pretend it isn’t happening, the more desensitized we become.
According to Mariel Ferragamo of the Council on Foreign Relations, press freedom is dwindling before our eyes. According to Reporters Without Borders, countries are moving in a negative direction.
A graph from the Council on Foreign Relations, with data points sourced from Reporters Without Borders, depicting the decline in press freedom around the world, posted on May 2, 2025. (Council on Foreign Relations).
Ferragamo noted that the Committee to Protect Journalists reported its second-highest count of journalists imprisoned in 2024, based on data spanning three decades. He pointed to factors for the U.S. score decline, such as the banning of AP from the White House, cuts to National Public Radio funding and FCC investigations of several news outlets.
Most recently, major news outlets backed out of reporting for the Pentagon due to the federal government’s strict guidelines, which they found too restrictive. Even Fox News, the former employer of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who drafted the Pentagon agreement, decided not to accept the terms. The partisan mask is slipping; it is slowly becoming bigger than us-versus-them.
Authoritarian repression and censorship are often exemplified by Nazi Germany. After Hitler’s election, it became illegal to threaten the regime, and dissenters faced violence. Opponents were sent to early concentration camps, while Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, controlled all media and arts, ensuring that only state-sanctioned messages were disseminated within Germany.
Press freedom is one of the clearest indicators of a healthy democracy. The ability to criticize leaders, report on issues they’d rather hide and share information freely is what makes democracy meaningful.
Censorship, or rather, authoritarianism, starts with distrust in the media, leads to the federal government banning talk show hosts and ends with no freedom of the press or freedom of speech. It’s when everything, even your own thoughts, is controlled.
If we do not get a hold of censorship soon, it may very quickly become too late.
