Colbert, Kimmel, Trump and the Role of the Jester

Stephen Colbert has been cancelled.
Jimmy Kimmel has been pulled off the air because of something he supposedly said about Charlie Kirk.

Here's the deal, though. Kimmel didn't make a comment about Kirk: he made a comment about MAGA. Specifically, he said,
"The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it." His comment was directed at the living, not the dead.

Kings kept jesters for a reason: one person with a license to puncture bad ideas. The jokes were cover; the job was dissent.

King: “My people hate inflation. First, I’ll slap tariffs on foreign goods—”
Jester: “—which will raise prices.”

And the king doesn’t take his head, because that’s why the jester exists.

Trump? He doesn’t just want to be king. He wants no jesters. Anywhere in the land.

P.S. do you know who did not get cancelled? The Fox news host Brian Kilmeade who literally recommended involuntarily euthanizing homeless people. (I think the old-fashioned way one might say that is kill, as in, "We wouldn't have a homeless problem if we just killed anyone who was homeless.")
Trump's US in 2025. You get cancelled for making jokes about the president's policies but not for suggesting mass killings of our poorest people. You MAGA folks might want to do a little soul searching. If, you know, you haven't already sold it.