We’re done celebrating America at 250. Now comes the question: What should we be able to celebrate when America turns 300?
In my new piece for The Hartford Courant, I argue that the next great civic advances should prioritize three goals:
These are the next reasonable steps. By our 300th, we should be judged on whether Americans can participate fully and fairly in the life of the country.
This article also appears in O'Dywer's PR.
In their New York Times opinion piece (The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week, June 22, 2016), Adam Grant, Marissa Shandell, and Courtney Elliott offer a sharp explanation for why many bosses want employees back in the office full-time. Their argument centers on narcissism: some leaders who crave attention, status, and control may prefer workplaces where employees are physically present, visible, and available. The office becomes a source of validation. The boss walks through it and sees proof of authority.
Anyone who has worked for a status-conscious executive can recognize the pattern. Some leaders do not simply want work done. They want their importance affirmed, and a full office affirms it. Empty desks feel like rejection, and remote work can feel like a loss of relevance.
But narcissism may not tell the whole story. The push to return to the office also reveals a broader failure of leadership.
Remote and hybrid work require managers to do what good leaders should have been doing all along: set clear expectations, define success, communicate priorities, measure outcomes, and hold people accountable. When those disciplines are weak, the office becomes a substitute for management.
A leader who cannot articulate expectations may prefer a workplace where everyone stays within sight. A leader who cannot judge performance by results may rely on visible effort. A leader who has not learned to delegate may feel calmer when employees remain within reach. The office serves less as a place for collaboration and more as a tool for reassurance.
I learned this lesson the hard way. In the late 1990s, I led a successful department at a global PR agency. People wanted to join it. The team was engaged, the work was strong, and the business was highly profitable. I did not consider myself a micromanager, and by the usual definition, I was not. Yet my hands ended up being in nearly every project.
When senior management asked me to attend a leadership retreat run by the Center for Creative Leadership, I was initially offended. Why send me? No department seemed more energized, and none was delivering stronger financial results.
The experience changed my view. A team can be successful yet still be constrained by its leader. My close involvement had helped build the department, but it could also limit its growth. The business would only expand so far if every major decision, risk, or opportunity still passed too closely through me.
I became a champion of letting go. That did not mean abandoning standards or disappearing from the work. It meant trusting the people I had carefully chosen. It meant giving them more autonomy, more accountability, and more room to take risks, while making sure they knew I would back them up. The result was no less control in any meaningful sense. It had greater capacity, more initiative, and more opportunities for the team and the business.
That lesson applies directly to today’s office mandates. Trust is at the center of the debate. Remote work requires leaders to trust adults to act responsibly. Trust does not mean neglect. Employees who miss deadlines, avoid responsibility, or perform poorly should face consequences. But treating an entire workforce as suspect because some managers fear abuse is not leadership. It is anxiety turned into policy.
Anxiety also undermines delegation. Leaders who cannot trust employees outside their line of sight tend to hoard decisions, second-guess work, and create bottlenecks. They ask people to take ownership, then reclaim authority the moment work occurs outside their direct line of sight. A return-to-office mandate gives leaders a sense of control without requiring them to share power.
Presence can be valuable. Some conversations and brainstorming sessions work better face-to-face. Mentorship matters. New employees often learn by watching experienced colleagues navigate clients, meetings, setbacks, and internal politics. Creative work can benefit from time spent together in the same room.
Those are arguments for purposeful office use, not blanket mandates. A well-led company can decide which tasks benefit from proximity and which do not. A weaker company defaults to a rule.
The result is corporate theater. Desks are occupied, conference rooms are booked, and hallways are busy. Executives can walk through the office and feel reassured. But movement is not progress. A crowded office can still produce shallow work, weak decisions, and slow execution. A quiet home office can produce focus, judgment, and results.
Another motive deserves candor: real estate. Many companies signed costly long-term leases. Headquarters became monuments to ambition, status, and permanence. After the pandemic, empty floors made those choices look wasteful. Bringing workers back helps leaders justify the cost to themselves, their boards, and their shareholders.
That does not make office space worthless. It means office space should serve work, not the other way around. Leaders should ask which teams need shared days, which meetings require in-person attendance, how mentoring will be conducted, and what employees gain from commuting. “Because we have the space” is not a strategy. A lease is not a leadership strategy, and sunk costs should not dictate employee policy.
Grant and his co-authors are right to highlight narcissism among some executives. For some bosses, the office is a stage, and employees are the audience. But the deeper problem may be less theatrical and more pervasive. Many bosses want employees back because they have yet to learn to lead with trust, clarity, and results.
The office can support good leadership. It cannot replace it.
The ruling was important enough to inspire a song. “Black and White,” written in 1954 by David I. Arkin and Earl Robinson, later became a major hit for Three Dog Night in 1972. But the group’s version omitted lyrics that directly celebrated the Court’s role:
“Their robes were black, their heads were white,
The schoolhouse doors were closed so tight,
Nine judges all set down their names,
To end the years and years of shame.”
Those lines captured a moment when the Supreme Court exercised its authority to expand freedom and strengthen the promise of equal citizenship. The Court did not solve America’s deepest problems. It did not end segregation on its own. Indeed, the backlash to Brown was fierce, sustained, and often successful. But the decision gave constitutional force to the idea that public institutions could not lawfully degrade children on account of race.
That is what makes today’s contrast so painful.
Instead of building on that legacy, the current Supreme Court’s conservative majority has too often moved in the opposite direction. In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to new voting restrictions in several states. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion and leaving access subject to state law. Citizens United v. FEC helped unleash more outside money into American politics. Taken together, these decisions reflect not only legal reasoning but also a broader retreat from the spirit of inclusion and equality that Brown embodied.
The Court has also made it harder to challenge partisan gerrymandering in federal court, limited LGBTQ protections in public accommodations, made it harder to defend gun-safety laws, constrained environmental regulation, and expanded presidential immunity, all of which threaten basic democratic accountability. For example, after Shelby County, Texas and other states quickly implemented strict voter ID laws and reduced polling places, these measures disproportionately affected communities of color.
These are not isolated decisions. Proponents argue that the Court is restoring constitutional limits, protecting individual liberties, and correcting earlier judicial overreach. Critics see something very different: a broader legal and political project that shifts power away from voters, workers, consumers, people seeking health care, marginalized communities, and regulatory agencies — and toward corporations, wealthy interests, religious-liberty claimants, gun-rights advocates, and executive authority.
Reasonable people can disagree about constitutional interpretation. But we should not pretend the Court is merely calling balls and strikes. The judiciary is shaping the nation’s future as surely as Congress and the president. When the Court narrows voting rights, democracy suffers. When regulatory power weakens, public health and the environment suffer. When it removes protections people have relied on for generations, trust in the law suffers.
Brown reminds us that courts can open doors, but it also reminds us that progress is not inevitable. It must be demanded, defended, and renewed.
The lesson of Brown is not nostalgia. It is a responsibility. I still remember learning about Brown in school not as a dusty legal milestone but as proof that American institutions, however flawed, could be pushed toward justice. Progress happens when people organize, vote, litigate, teach, write, march, and refuse to accept injustice as settled law.
Seventy-two years ago, nine justices helped open the schoolhouse doors. Today, democracy requires us to keep them open — not through nostalgia, but through vigilance, voting, and organizing, and by refusing to treat the erosion of rights as normal. The promise of Brown endures only if we defend it together.
X recently suspended my account for “violating our rules against inauthentic behaviors.” That was the entirety of the explanation. X cited no specific post, identified no pattern of misconduct, and offered no definition of what, precisely, it considered inauthentic about my activity. There was no warning. I appealed, asked for specifics, and followed up. I received nothing in return. X’s own policies state that its authenticity rules target manipulation through fake accounts, coordinated behavior, and deceptive content — and that users may appeal suspensions made in error. In my case, the appeals process has led nowhere.
That silence should concern more than just me.
Today is the anniversary of the Civil War’s opening shot. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, beginning a bombardment that would launch four years of slaughter. That war did not erupt because America had settled its deepest racial contradiction. It erupted because the country had postponed it — and postponement, in America, has a way of becoming a habit.
America has settled into a troubling rhythm: roughly every hundred years, the nation makes a major formal advance against racial injustice — only after long resistance, bitter struggle, and blood. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 gave us the principle. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 dismantled segregation and legal discrimination. None arrived cleanly or uncontested.
Start with the Declaration. Americans rightly celebrate it as the nation’s statement of human equality. But even at its creation, the promise was narrowed by political cowardice. Congress deleted Jefferson’s passage condemning slavery and the slave trade — in part to satisfy South Carolina and Georgia, and in part because northern commercial interests were implicated. The founding document offered a universal creed while shrinking from a full confrontation with human bondage. The first great American statement against inequality was compromised before the ink was dry.
Then came the century of evasion, rationalization, and bloodshed. Defenders of slavery wrapped themselves in the language of property, local control, and constitutional restraint. But the historical record is unambiguous: secession was driven by the determination to preserve slavery. Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens said so plainly — the Confederacy, he declared, rested on slavery and white supremacy as its cornerstone. Even emancipation was denounced as ruinous, lawless, and socially catastrophic. Yet the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery nationwide. It was a giant step, but one taken only after war, slaughter, and years of arguments designed to make justice seem impossible.
A century later, the country had to fight again over whether Black Americans would enjoy rights already promised on paper. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in public accommodations, addressed employment discrimination, and promoted school integration — but it did not emerge from consensus. It came after years in which Southern states and local authorities met civil rights demands with arrests, beatings, police dogs, fire hoses, and organized obstruction. In Birmingham, police attacked young demonstrators with dogs and high-pressure hoses. In Mississippi, Freedom Summer volunteers faced beatings, arrests, bombings, and murder. In Selma, state troopers brutally assaulted peaceful marchers on a bridge the whole country watched. The law passed, but force was used again and again to delay, block, and punish its moral logic.
That is the real pattern. America does move — but only after making the targets of injustice endure another generation, or three, of excuses. The 1770s gave us the promise. The 1860s abolished slavery. The 1960s dismantled legalized segregation. We should take hope from that progress, but not comfort from its pace.
A hundred years is too long to wait for another leap forward. We should not resign ourselves to hoping that the 2060s will finally bring the next great breakthrough. The pattern has repeated twice. A country that has already postponed justice through slavery, segregation, and generations of excuse-making forfeits the moral right to postpone it again. Refuse to let the pattern repeat a third time. Demand change now — not after another century of delay.
The federal government recently agreed to pay roughly $1 billion to TotalEnergies to abandon offshore wind projects in U.S. waters. Those projects were expected to power more than a million homes. Instead, that capital is being redirected into dirtier, less sustainable oil and gas development. This is not deregulation. It is a deliberate, taxpayer-funded intervention to halt one form of domestic energy production in favor of another.
That alone should give pause. But it's part of a pattern—across energy, science, public health, civil rights, and institutional governance—that suggests the country is pulling away from the very foundations that built its strength. And not by accident.
Science and Research
Energy decisions make headlines. Science policy rarely does. But the consequences of underfunding it outlast any news cycle.
For decades, American leadership has been built on sustained investment in research through institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, investments that produced the breakthroughs defining modern life, from cancer therapies to semiconductors. Recent funding constraints and disruptions are already affecting research pipelines. Universities are scaling back. Grants are stalled. Researchers are reconsidering where to build their careers.
This isn't theoretical. It's arithmetic: slow the investment, slow the innovation, lose the ground. China has spent years building out its research capacity. The EU keeps deepening collaborative funding. The U.S. doesn't need to outspend them. But walking away from the table is a different thing entirely.
Public Health
The costs in public health are the most immediate. The United States spent decades creating a system capable of responding to outbreaks, developing vaccines, and protecting population health. It took a long time to build. It’s taking a far shorter amount of time to break.
Recent shifts in vaccine policy and public health messaging are accelerating that erosion. Growing political interference in agencies like HHS, combined with amplified skepticism toward vaccines despite overwhelming scientific consensus, is undermining the institutional confidence that makes public health systems work. Vaccines are one of the most effective tools medicine has ever produced, and the trust behind them took generations to earn.
Eroding confidence in that system doesn't create freedom. It creates a specific kind of vulnerability—the kind that shows up as outbreaks, as misinformation taking hold, as people dying from diseases we know how to prevent. And once that trust is gone, it doesn't come back easily.
Environmental Policy
Not every regulation is worth keeping. Some rules are outdated, some are redundant, and a serious case can be made for trimming them. But that's a different argument from what's actually happening.
Efforts to weaken water protections, emissions standards, and pollutant tracking may reduce compliance costs in the short term. But many of these protections were established after costly failures: industrial contamination, unsafe air, widespread health consequences. Rolling them back doesn't eliminate risk. It shifts it onto communities and future taxpayers. When guardrails are removed, the consequences tend to arrive later and cost more.
Voting Rights and the Press
A country's strength depends on whether people trust the system that governs them. The proposed SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Noncitizen voting is already exceedingly rare, yet millions of eligible Americans lack ready access to such documentation—rural voters, lower-income individuals, many married women whose legal names differ from their birth certificates. When barriers rise, access falls. Policies that reverse the trajectory toward broader participation reshape who governs and who does not.
The same pressure is bearing down on the press. The First Amendment isn't an abstraction—it's the mechanism by which power gets scrutinized, challenged, and held to account. When the government threatens broadcast licenses, targets specific media organizations through regulatory pressure, and repeatedly labels journalists as enemies of the state, the effect is a press that pulls its punches. A country without independent journalism doesn't become more stable. It becomes less informed, and more easily misled.
The Pattern
Each of these areas can be debated individually. But taken together, they point in the same direction: away from investment in the future, away from scientific expertise, away from broad democratic participation, and away from the independent institutions that hold power accountable. That is not a neutral shift. It is a deliberate one.
And because these systems are connected, the damage doesn’t stay in one place. Weaker research means slower medical breakthroughs and fewer competitive industries. A less trusted public health system means a less healthy, less productive workforce. And when people stop trusting institutions, the effects are harder to trace but impossible to ignore.
It's tempting to view these developments as inevitable, as if they're simply the product of forces too large to name or change. They're not. They are the result of decisions made by elected officials, supported by voters, and enabled by disengagement.
Many Americans supporting these policies are doing so in good faith, responding to legitimate concerns about economic security and eroding trust in government. But good intentions don't guarantee good outcomes. In practice, these policies often work against the very interests they claim to serve—gutting research slows the medical breakthroughs that save lives, weakening public health infrastructure puts families at greater risk, and turning away from future industries shrinks the economy those families depend on.
This isn’t really about left or right. It’s about whether the choices being made actually serve the people they’re supposed to serve.
The United States is not in irreversible decline. It remains one of the most dynamic and capable countries in the world. But direction matters.
Spending $1 billion to shut down offshore wind development is not the defining policy of this era. But it’s a clear signal of what the priorities are—and those priorities reach well beyond energy. Countries don’t usually fall behind all at once. They do it gradually, through decisions that each seem defensible on their own but add up to something much harder to reverse.
That process can be reversed. But it won't reverse itself. It takes attention and engagement—and if left unaddressed, it can last for a generation.
The future of DTC should foster understanding, trust, and improve clinical conversations.
Prescription-drug commercials have been a recognizable part of American TV for nearly 30 years. Their production values have kept up with the rest of the advertising world, and in the costliest broadcast spaces, they now look almost identical to ads for consumer tech, cars, and sports betting. As The New York Times reported, spending on direct-to-consumer drug advertising is rising again, driven by competition in high-profile therapeutic areas – a reminder that DTC advertising is not fading but growing in scope and influence.
I have been writing about DTC pharmaceutical ads for nearly 20 years, and the dissonance – cavorting cartoon characters or people climbing mountains while vital information is voiced over – has remained remarkably consistent. Patients and clinicians often start the clinical conversation inside a narrative that the advertising has already shaped.
DTC advertising is the biggest untapped resource for public health education in the country. The concern isn't about the presence of risk information; it's whether the overall experience helps people understand what those risks mean and how they should affect treatment choices.
An ad for Vanda Pharmaceuticals’ antipsychotic Fanapt highlights this disconnect: a calm voice lists stroke risk, cardiac complications and sudden death while smiling, anime-style characters move through bright, cheerful scenes. The disclosure follows regulations but trivializes the seriousness of the condition and distracts from the importance of the adverse-event information.
Regulators have started to recognize the gap between mere compliance and actual understanding. The FDA’s letter to Novo Nordisk about a TV commercial for oral Wegovy criticized how the ad implied broader emotional and lifestyle benefits than the evidence supports. In another letter concerning a commercial for argenx’s Vyvgart Hytrulo, the agency noted that “attention-grabbing visuals, frequent scene changes and background music” might hinder understanding of the major risk statement. That language matters because it acknowledges that production techniques influence how risk is perceived. However, it stops short of addressing the core creative decision in most branded campaigns – whether the story enhances the safety message or competes with it.
Direct-to-consumer advertising grew rapidly after the FDA relaxed its broadcast guidance in 1997 and finalized the approach in 1999. Drug names became part of everyday conversation. Awareness increased, but public trust in the industry did not follow the same trajectory. The American Medical Association’s 2015 call for a ban on DTC advertising reflected ongoing concerns that brand narratives can influence the clinical encounter before a diagnosis is made. Physicians interviewed by The Times this week described spending valuable visit time recalibrating expectations created by advertising – explaining why a widely promoted therapy may not be suitable or why its risks and benefits are more complicated than the commercial suggests. That debate is unfolding at a time when trust in health institutions remains fragile.
The conversation still tends to frame DTC as a choice between maintaining the current model and eliminating it. But this overlooks a bigger issue. The pharmaceutical industry now controls some of the most influential health-communication platforms in the country – including television, streaming, social media, search, and digital video. How this multi-channel infrastructure is used has huge implications for how patients understand their health.
That reach is most visible during the Super Bowl. In 2024, Pfizer chose not to promote a specific therapy but to “celebrate science” on its 175th anniversary. Instead, the message was muddled and abstract. Pfizer missed an opportunity – not because its creative execution was weak, but because the platform’s power far exceeded the depth of what it chose to say.
That same media moment has also shown what a different objective looks like. Novartis’ Super Bowl LX screening initiatives and Bayer’s heart-health risk campaign used the industry’s most expensive media real estate to encourage early detection and informed action. They are not simply creative templates for branded advertising; the regulatory environment is different. They demonstrate that when education takes priority, storytelling shifts – and viewers leave with knowledge rather than just an impression.
Branded advertising operates within stricter regulatory constraints, but it still makes choices about tone, pacing, and imagery. These choices determine whether safety information is incorporated into the story or hidden beneath it. The issue is not about fair balance. It's whether the surrounding narrative trivializes the disease and distracts from the risks that should influence treatment decisions.
In many product campaigns, the narrative reassures, while the safety information warns. The viewer receives two emotional signals at the same time and must reconcile them. This split may work well for recall, but it weakens the credibility on which long-term brand success now depends.
Eliminating DTC would remove a source of awareness that has encouraged patients to seek care earlier and discuss stigmatized conditions with their physicians. The opportunity is to use it more effectively. A better approach would replace distraction with decision support – focusing on the moments when a patient and clinician weigh options, reassess progress, and adjust the course if a therapy is not suitable. In this model, safety information is not an interruption; it becomes part of the narrative.
This isn't a call for longer risk language or more data on the screen. It's a call for creative alignment. When tone, imagery, and narrative support the medical reality instead of competing with it, the advertising sets the stage for the clinical conversation rather than pre-empting it.
That shift has business implications. The industry has long argued that informed patients achieve better outcomes. In a crowded and scrutinized market, credibility remains one of the few durable advantages for brands. Creative work that distracts from risk might boost short-term recall, but creative approaches that aid decision-making builds trust with patients, clinicians, and regulators.
Direct-to-consumer advertising has become a permanent feature of American culture. Its future credibility will rely more on whether it bridges the gap between marketing and medicine than on disclosure adherence. In a medium where a 30-second story can reach tens of millions, aligning the message with medical truth is no longer optional; it is essential for understanding.
For some leaders, refusing to apologize is a sign of strength. Apologies are often seen as a weakness or as proof that a leader has lost control of the narrative. The louder the criticism, the more they resist saying “I’m sorry.”
Recent events show how flawed this mindset is. After Donald Trump shared – and later deleted – a video showing a blatantly racist clip of Barack and Michelle Obama, criticism came quickly from across the political spectrum.
But what prolonged the controversy wasn’t the post itself; it was the response. When confronted, Trump stated flatly, “I didn’t make a mistake.”
That statement perfectly illustrates why so many public apologies fail before they even start. What’s notable, however, is that this refusal to accept responsibility is no longer just personal; it has become institutionalized. Trump operates a communications apparatus designed to quickly and aggressively deflect blame or dismiss it as media distortion.
Karoline Leavitt gave a clear example when she scolded the news media, saying, “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.” In such an environment, offering an apology isn’t merely discouraged; it is fundamentally incompatible with the messaging strategy.
A helpful way to think about apologies comes from an unlikely source: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In communication, especially with issues and crisis management, we constantly question whether a response is too much, too little, or just right. Apologies are no different. Does the situation call for one? And if so, will it land as too weak, overly apologetic, or just enough?
The problem isn’t that we apologize too often. It’s that we apologize poorly – or avoid it altogether.
As the importance of apologies has grown, so has the demand for them. But not because society has become more sensitive or civil. Increasingly, apologies are used as leverage – a way to put someone on the defensive. Perceive a slight? Demand an apology. In today’s world, it’s easy to see why leaders become defensive and why a blanket “never apologize” stance can seem appealing. Mitt Romney embraced that stance right in the title of his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. There’s an argument that we’re entitled to this because of all the good the country has done in the world. But a history of good deeds, whether personal, corporate, or national, doesn’t shield anyone from responsibility when serious mistakes occur. Banking goodwill may buy some benefit of the doubt, but it doesn’t excuse causing harm.
After years of studying political, corporate, and personal apologies, I’ve realized it’s partly a discipline rather than a reflex – something that can be learned, refined, and measured. That realization led me to create what I call the 6 A’s of Apology:
No apology can begin without acknowledgment. When a leader says, “I didn’t make a mistake,” the process ends before it starts. No acknowledgment, no acceptance, no empathy, and no repair. What may feel like defiance to the speaker often registers as indifference to the audience.
Bad apologies generate headlines of their own and can cause real harm. Actions that should help heal can instead deepen wounds. Silence, defensiveness, or half-hearted apologies often do more damage than saying nothing at all. A slow, insensitive response can overshadow good intentions and magnify the fallout.
Good apologies, however, can defuse tense situations and reduce media attention. They tend to shorten controversies rather than prolong them. They reaffirm shared values rather than challenge them.
This is where so-called “tough guys” often go wrong. They confuse apology with submission and assume that admitting fault means losing power. In reality, refusing to apologize often signals insecurity – fear that acknowledging error will shatter a carefully constructed image of dominance. When that fear is reinforced by an institutional communication strategy built around denial, it predictably fuels escalation rather than projecting strength.
Leadership isn’t about never being wrong. It’s about how you respond when you are, since responses determine both the extent of the damage and how long it lasts. How you say “I’m sorry” might matter more than the original mistake.
A sincere apology doesn’t weaken a leader. It demonstrates confidence, emotional intelligence, and moral clarity. The real weakness isn’t in apologizing; it’s in the inability – or unwillingness – to accept responsibility when it’s necessary.
Comedy, Dissent, and the Far Right’s Campaign to Silence Satire
We’re still laughing. For now.
American politics has long been divided along emotional lines: Republicans evoke fear, while Democrats respond with humor. The right energizes followers with grievance-filled slogans like “Take Our Country Back,” “Stop the Steal.” The most impactful responses from the left often come through late-night monologues, sketches, and stand-up routines.
Ask yourself: how many hard-right comedians with mainstream audiences can you name? Talk radio features conservative stars, and primetime opinion shows can rage for hours. However, the current lineup of popular political comedy mostly includes people like Bee, Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers, Noah, Oliver, and Stewart.
That imbalance matters. Humor is a strength of democracy. It punctures pomposity and invites self-correction. Fear narrows; comedy opens. Today, the far right isn’t trying to out-joke comedy – it’s trying to silence it through economic, political, and legal pressure.
Silencing the jesters
On September 17th, Disney’s ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live after Kimmel made a remark about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and then joked about Donald Trump’s reaction to a question about how he was dealing with the loss. (“I think very good,” Trump said. “And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years. And it’s going to be a beauty.”).
The action followed public warnings from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr that affiliates airing “distorted” content could face penalties; Nexstar, which owns many ABC affiliates and is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2 billion acquisition of TEGNA, preemptively removed the show.
Donald Trump publicly celebrated the suspension and called on other networks to cancel more late-night shows, signaling retaliation instead of debate.
The network returned Kimmel to his show on September 23rd after public outrage and a rash of cancellations of Disney-owned streaming services. But Nexstar and Sinclair, owners of local ABC affiliates, kept him off the air. That is, until September 26th, when they caved to the backlash and, more importantly, faced lower ratings without Jimmy.
Weeks earlier, in July, CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, officially citing financial reasons related to the Paramount–Skydance deal. Since Colbert had criticized that very merger, the move raised questions – fair or not – about whether corporate and political interests were aligned against a prominent satirist.
These examples reveal a larger pattern: dissent expressed through comedy is being labeled as distortion, punished as indecency, or viewed as a regulatory liability. Some critics argue that these recent cancellations are no different from ABC’s 2018 decision to cancel “Roseanne” after Roseanne Barr tweeted a racist insult about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. However, that comparison is misleading. Barr’s case involved a private employer enforcing conduct standards after an openly racist outburst. The attacks on Colbert and Kimmel today are about political revenge and corporate caution in response to satire targeting those in power. One concerns accountability for hate speech; the other aims to intimidate dissent. Conflating them is a false equivalency that hides the real danger.
Lessons from the past
The recent threats by the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses are new, but individual comedians facing government pressure and legal threats are not. Lenny Bruce, a pioneering comic of the 1950s and 60s, was repeatedly arrested on obscenity charges for routines that challenged religious and political authorities. His prosecutions discouraged performers and sparked national debates about free speech. George Carlin, another legend of political comedy, was arrested in 1972 for performing his 'Seven Dirty Words' routine. The case, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the FCC’s authority to regulate 'indecent' broadcasts. Both Bruce and Carlin show that even in a democracy, government institutions have tried to punish comedians when their words challenged prevailing norms or threatened those in power.
Historians note that autocrats have always feared humor. In 1930s Nazi Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels reacted angrily to satire, considering it as a threat to morale and authority. He shut down the Berlin cabaret Die Katakombe, and its host Werner Finck was detained in a camp; later, Finck was banned by the Reichskulturkammer. Performers like Fritz Grünbaum and Paul O’Montis faced persecution or death.
Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly imprisoned satirists, from the 2016 prosecution of German comedian Jan Böhmermann to the 2025 arrest of staff at the satirical magazine LeMan. In North Korea, humor is tightly controlled by the state; in 2016, Kim Jong Un even banned sarcasm, fearing it was used to mock him. Remember the death threats he made after the release of “The Interview”? China fined comedian Li Haoshi’s company $2 million in 2023 for a joke about the military, and censors foreign sitcoms that cross political red lines. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government canceled the satirical puppet show Kukly in 2002, called dissenting comedians 'foreign agents,' and has jailed or exiled performers who mocked the war in Ukraine.
They understood what modern cognitive science confirms: emotion influences people more than facts. Comedy, however, has always been a remedy for fear. No wonder authoritarian regimes want to eliminate the jokes. Laughter exposes their fears and threatens their hold on power.
Why this matters
Comedy is not trivial. It’s one of democracy’s pressure valves – a way for ordinary citizens to laugh at the powerful and prevent fear from swallowing the public square.
Lyndon Johnson, of all people – the powerful, driven, bullying, visionary president – understood the importance of humor and free speech. Though the Smothers Brothers (popular back in the day) performed a controversial satire of him and his Vietnam War policy on their TV show, LBJ said:
“It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.”
Contrast this with Trump’s vindictiveness – gloating over Kimmel’s removal and publicly urging other networks to cancel shows. The difference isn’t about taste in comedy; it’s about whether satire is recognized as part of the democratic bargain.
If the far right succeeds in silencing satire – through lawsuits, regulatory threats, and corporate caution – we’ll lose more than just late-night shows. We’ll lose one of the oldest, most humane defenses against authoritarian politics.
Democracy cannot be sustained by fear and force. It requires dissent – even when dissent comes as a joke. The far right understands this. That’s why it’s trying to kill the laughter. The question is whether we will let it.
The canary in the coal mine of free speech has died. We are living in dangerous times for truth.
The American public square is under attack – not just from misinformation and propaganda, but also from systemic forces that seek to silence dissent, control what we hear, and limit the scope of legitimate debate.
If optimism means believing change is possible, then today, optimism requires courage. This is a call to those who still believe facts matter, who refuse to give in to despair, and who want to face what is happening honestly. Your ideas and perspectives are needed.
The New Reality: Power, Pressure, and Fear
You probably heard that Disney’s ABC abruptly pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live off the air after his comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The decision was made quickly after the FCC chair threatened fines and license reviews for broadcasters who aired what he called “distorted” content. Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliates and is seeking regulatory approval for a multibillion-dollar acquisition, proactively stopped airing the show.
Only weeks earlier, CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, officially citing financial reasons. Yet many pointed out the timing: Reports indicated that political and corporate pressures influenced the decision because of the impending Paramount-Skydance merger.
These are not minor programming changes. These actions go beyond being a pattern or signal. They are the predicted outcomes from the Project 2025 playbook.
Some will argue that this is no different from ABC’s 2018 decision to cancel “Roseanne” after Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. But don’t fall for this false equivalency, this form of whataboutism. In Barr’s case, the network acted in direct response to a personal racist outburst from its star, behavior that violated company policy and alienated advertisers. In the current situations with Colbert and Kimmel, comedians are being removed not for violating standards of decency but for satirizing those in power. One involves private accountability for bigotry; the other involves political pressure and corporate leverage to silence dissent. Do not conflate the two; it only serves to erode our ability to discern real threats to free expression.
It’s not new, of course. From the start of his first campaign, Donald Trump has frequently called the mainstream press “the enemy of the people.” He has threatened to revoke licenses, sue outlets into silence, and openly praised actions that remove critical voices from the airwaves.
This is not just mere bluster; it reflects an ongoing strategy to undermine independent journalism and weaken the institutions that mediate truth. If the President can decide what content is “distorted,” what is “garbage,” or what qualifies as “radical,” and if regulators and corporations act accordingly, then the line between governance and censorship has already begun to disappear.
The Battlegrounds of Truth
If there is a chance to preserve our Constitution, restore democratic values, bridge the deepening chasm between left and right, and combat the increasing incivility infecting our country, we must at a minimum, have plans and commit resources to fight mis/disinformation and propaganda.
This is where the community of optimists must come together and find some solutions. No one can solve this on their own. Right now, I have four strategic imperatives and a lot of questions.
Invest in education and media literacy. But how can this be done when government is defunding public education, dismantling resources, and actively attempting the elimination of the Department of Education? How can media literacy flourish when the very structures that support critical thinking are being eroded?
Support independent journalism. But how can this be achieved when newsroom employment has dropped by more than a quarter since 2008, when hundreds of local communities have become “news deserts,” and when media ownership is increasingly concentrated in partisan corporations or wealthy individuals? When “both sides” rhetoric or “everyone’s biased” framing dominates (False Equivalencies: The Danger of Treating All Information Equally), lies are elevated to the same plane as facts.
Debunk falsehoods effectively. But how can we do this when the number of professional journalists and fact-checkers has fallen sharply, and when falsehoods travel faster and further online than carefully reported truths? As cognitive linguist George Lakoff argues, what people believe to be true can outweigh what is demonstrably true.
Increase transparency on social media. But how can this happen when platforms are controlled by highly partisan owners and global corporations, when algorithms are hidden, and when accountability mechanisms are weak or nonexistent?
The Cost of Silence
We are closer than some realize to a media ecosystem defined not by freedom but by fear, not by evidence but by power. The decline of independent journalism, the weaponization of regulatory agencies, the concentration of media ownership, and the replacement of truth with belief all point in one direction: a society where public discourse no longer functions.
Today’s optimism does not mean ignoring these dangers. It means refusing to look away, confronting the reality before us, and demanding accountability. The question is not whether the crisis is coming. It is already here. The question is what we, the citizens, do in response?
Please respond.
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