Brooks and Capehart on censorship and authoritarianism

William Brangham:

To some, the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel's show by the Disney corporation was a much-needed corrective to what they argue is a never-ending tide of liberal politics on the airwaves. To others, this was the government taking another dangerous step into censorship and authoritarianism.

On that and more, we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks and MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart.

Gentlemen, so nice to see you both.

Jonathan Capehart:

Hey, William.

William Brangham:

I want to talk about Jimmy Kimmel.

Before we get to the seriousness of it, several of his late-night comedic colleagues responded to his suspension this week. Let's listen to a little bit of that.

Jon Stewart, Host, "The Daily Show": We have another fun, hilarious administration-compliant show.

(Laughter)

Stephen Colbert, Host, "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert": That is blatant censorship. And it always starts small. Remember, like in week one of his presidency, Gulf of America. Call it Gulf of America. Sure, it seems harmless. But with an autocrat, you cannot give an inch.

Seth Meyers, Host, "Late Night With Seth Meyers": We must all stand up for the principles of free expression. There's a reason free speech is in the very First Amendment. It stands above all others. You might even say it's…

Donald Trump, President of the United States: The ultimate.

(Laughter)

Seth Meyers:

This has been a closer look.

(Cheering)

William Brangham:

So, you guys, we have talked about this all week long about this tide, this current, this — the chronology of what went down here. I'm just curious, David, what is your reaction to this?

David Brooks:

Well, let's go through the chronology. The shooting happened, and I thought most — the political establishment and the media establishment reacted well.

You had beautiful statements from every former president. Most of the media coverage was responsible, sympathetic. They played who Charlie Kirk was. And it was all going great, reasonably well.

But then the conflict entrepreneurs get in the game. And on the right online, you literally had conservative MAGA people saying, this is our Reichstag fire, this is our pretext to crack down on left. The left has been trying to kill us. This shows they're trying to kill us. We need to get back at them.

William Brangham:

Civil war.

David Brooks:

And my advice to the MAGA folks, when you're comparing yourselves to the Nazis, that's probably a bad move.

(Laughter)

David Brooks:

And then on the left you had people like Heather Cox Richardson and Jimmy Kimmel saying, no, that was a MAGA guy with no evidence at all. And then the other reaction on left was, look at his views on the Second Amendment. He deserved it.

And so everything began to deteriorate. And then Donald Trump comes in and uses — or the FCC, at least, and uses the power of the federal government to crack down on Kimmel. And now that takes it to a whole 'nother level. And there it really is censorship. It really is authoritarianism when you get a government trying to use federal power to police speech.

William Brangham:

Is it that clear-cut to you as well?

Jonathan Capehart:

Yes. Yes, I mean, how could it not be, and especially when — and I want to use Brendan Carr, a tweet from February of 2019.

He wrote:

"Should the government censor speech it doesn't like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the public interest."

What did we just see? Or take a look at Stephen Miller. He's deputy chief of staff now, a tweet from April of 2022: "If the idea of free speech enrages you, the cornerstone of democratic self-government, then I regret to inform you that you are a fascist."

And I could read other tweets. There's always a tweet for something.

William Brangham:

Sure. The president's executive order said — defended the First Amendment when he first came into office.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

William Brangham:

How did we get, though, from there to here?

Jonathan Capehart:

Well, you I think we got there, from there to here, because we have to understand what he meant, I think, by the free press.

And, really, what it — to my mind, it is OK for us to do this to them. It was bad, it's really bad if liberals or Democrats say nasty things about me, about our movement, about what we're trying to do, and that's censorship. But now that we're in power and they're still leveling these criticisms and critiques, well, that's really bad and we have to crack down.

And what's really problematic in all of this is, it's not just the president. He is surrounded by enablers who are not willing to tell him, you can't do this, or who are true believers and want — and are more than happy to do his bidding.

William Brangham:

I mean, Kimmel suffered the consequences for his comments, but he's not the only one certainly. There's — USA Today has got a ticker up. I think it's over 100 people already who have been censured or fired for their comments, some of which those comments were grotesque and horrendous, and others were kind of grounded in fact and not inappropriate.

Do you think we have just lost this balance between what is truly dangerous speech and what is protected critique?

David Brooks:

Yes, we have lost the boundaries.

I mean, you're not allowed to say — famously, shout fire in a crowded theater. You can't urge people to go kill somebody. Like, if it leads to violence, that should be prohibited speech, and especially if you're a private company and you care about the integrity of your institution.

But that boundary has been blurred. Let me try to describe what it feels like for a lot of the folks on the right. So, in their view, I would say to my Democratic friends, imagine you woke up and every media organization you saw preached Christian nationalism. You sent your kids to school, and they were being taught Christian nationalism.

You turned on late-night comedy, and it's all Christian nationalism. For conservatives, that's how it feels that they…

William Brangham:

To live in our current world.

David Brooks:

Look in our current culture, and that one of the things that's happened over the last 50 years is that, as progressives who have gotten control of various cultural institutions, they have excluded a lot of conservative and working-class voices. And so a lot of people feel completely shut out. And late-night comedy is the perfect example.

You could be right or left. You could watch "Letterman." You could watch Carson. And you could laugh. But now late-night TV is — it's about laughter, but it's also about making progressives feel good about themselves, making them feel smug. And even I can't watch late-night TV anymore.

But the difference is, you fight culture — if you don't like the progressive culture, create a conservative culture. And to his great credit — I rarely get to praise Tucker Carlson anymore — but he went on his show and said, if the Trump administration tries to damage free speech using this as a pretext, it's time for civil disobedience.

And so he understands you fight cultural power with cultural — countercultural power. That's how the game plays. To use federal power is definitely breaching the line.

William Brangham:

You used the term authoritarianism before, Jonathan. And do you — I mean, this has been now another one of the very successful efforts that the Trump administration has used with law firms, with universities, with media companies.

Where do you see this going? Where do you see this ending?

Jonathan Capehart:

I mean, I don't know.

I would like to think that there would be a media company or a band of law firms or a band of institutions of higher learning who would be willing to push back. It's not enough that Harvard is willing to push back. It's not enough that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are willing to push back.

And I can't think of a media organization, other than The New York Times — I'm thinking of television — where they have been in the crosshairs of the president's rhetoric and have said, no, we're not going to do it. We're not going to do what you want.

And, again, I go back to, sometimes, I wonder, is it acquiescence? Is it obeying in advance? Or is it, I'm kind of down with this, I'm fine with this, and I'm going to ride this wave because, with the president doing what he's doing, maybe we can get some other things that we want?

And that that's why this slide, to me, it just — it picks up speed every week that we sit here. We're talking about yet another level deeper into what lots of academicians and others have said the march to authoritarianism. People say we're sliding into it. I say, no, we're in it.

William Brangham:

I mean, David, I remember a month or two ago you were sitting right here arguing that there needs to be this larger civic movement that you were just talking about.

Do you think that there are any flames of that happening? Do you see it anywhere?

David Brooks:

I think I see little flames, but not the big ones. People are intimidated. People don't understand the nature of the fight there in the middle of.

One big mystery I have had is that I spent parts of this weekend in Central and Eastern Tennessee, and I probably had a conversation with 300 or 400 people. And they all — the way they talked about the Kirk thing was all wonderful. Some people like Charlie Kirk. Somebody didn't like Charlie Kirk. But they had feeling for sympathy.

The conversation I see online has nothing in common with the conversation I had with all these people in Tennessee. And so my question is, if it's only 1 percent of America that really thinks violence is necessary and likes what happened to Charlie Kirk, does that matter?

If 99 percent don't, the problem is, as Damon Linker, who teaches at Penn, said this week on a podcast, 1 percent of America is three million people.

Jonathan Capehart:

Yes.

David Brooks:

If three million people believe in violence, they can do an awful lot of damage. And I'm old enough to remember, when I was 7 years old sitting in my little elementary school, the Weathermen blew themselves up in a New York townhome right by my school.

And in those days, the '60s, there were 4,000 bombings on college campus in the '69-'70…

William Brangham:

Right. We forget that history.

David Brooks:

And it was brutal, let alone Kent State, let alone the riots, let alone all that.

And one thing that happened — I think that was fringes doing most of that, except for the National Guard at Kent State. That was not the fringe. But a lot of people pulled back. They looked into the abyss and they pulled back. And what did they do? They elected, as my colleague David French put it, a Baptist Sunday schoolteacher as president in 1976.

And then they elected the sunniest human being on the face of the earth as president in 1980. So the electorate said, no, we're not going down this abyss. I don't think we're at that point where the whole country is pulling back and getting out of the spiral, but I'm hopeful.

William Brangham:

Hopeful?

Jonathan Capehart:

I'm perennially hopeful.

William Brangham:

Thirty seconds, I'm sorry to say.

Jonathan Capehart:

No, no, I'm perennially hopeful, the but one difference now is that we have a president of the United States who lives online.

And if it's 1 percent who are listening to him and the things he puts on social media, the way he speaks about things, that doesn't help us as an electorate pull back from — pull back from the abyss, pull back from the brink.

William Brangham:

Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, so nice to see you both. Thank you.

(Crosstalk)

Jonathan Capehart:

Thank you.