He’s baaaack…Less than a week after the Walt Disney Company and ABC suspended late night host Jimmy Kimmel – under threat from Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communication Commission – ABC announced that he would be back on the air on Tuesday (tonight). And by all accounts, he came out swinging – in an impassioned monologue for free speech. His comeback received more than 20 million views from all over the world, along with 83 million comments. “Watching with awe from Uganda,” one viewer wrote. “We followed this story like hawks and are thrilled it ended with your return and this amazing monologue. Americans got a brief taste of how bitter government censorship is and swiftly rejected it in words and action! This will go down in the right side of history ! Congratulations…”

In his earlier Sept. 15 monologue, Kimmel said Trump supporters were “trying to score political points” for “trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” In an interview with a conservative podcaster, Carr called Kimmel’s comments “truly sick“ and suggested that ABC would face pressure from the FCC if it failed to “take action” against Kimmel. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said.

What followed, wrote progressive commentator and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, was “blowback against ABC (that) has been hurricane level.”

“Civic engagement can benefit your mental health.”

– The Jed Foundation

Protestors organized by the screenwriter’s union picketed outside of Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. More than 400 Hollywood stars signed onto a letter put together by the ACLU that condemned Kimmel’s suspension. “We must never accept government threats to our freedom of speech,” the letter said. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power — because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

Even Republican Senator Ted Cruz said Carr’s “easy way or hard way“ threats against ABC was “right out of Goodfellas.”

As Reich noted in his Substack, there was also substantial economic pressure – an organized effort to have people cancel their subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu. And it didn’t hurt that Disney stock tumbled following the company’s suspension of Kimmel, shaving off $3.8 billion in market value. 

It’s a victory for the people, Reich says: “When our outrage translates into withholding our consumer dollars, a big corporation like Disney is forced to listen — and respond.”

And as our friends at the Jed Foundation noted in a recent blog, “Civic engagement can also benefit your mental health.”