Jimmy Kimmel Won't Save the First Amendment

Celebrating Disney's reversal misses the larger contours of the war on free speech.

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In some ways, Jimmy Kimmel’s return to ABC on Tuesday night felt like a victory. The government had attempted to shut down a powerful voice, and nearly succeeded, until the will of the people won out. Our Jimmy was back on air, leading his show with an impassioned, 17-minute monologue extolling the virtues of free speech.

Yet common wisdom is that problems usually seem worse at night; so too, in this case, do solutions. You can be forgiven for thinking that the world is ending or that everything will be all right or even that Jimmy Kimmel is consistently funny in the hours of 10pm to 2am. But in the daylight today, that win is hollow. The world probably isn’t ending, but everything is not all right.