We won the battle over Jimmy Kimmel. Here's how to win the PR war with Trump

When ABC/Disney indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel, it seemed unlikely they’d reverse their decision within a week. Trump and his allies aimed to suppress not only Kimmel’s voice, but to intimidate anyone opposing them. Instead, the suspension backfired, energized the Trump opposition, and offers lessons on how to push back on the administration’s other attacks on democracy.

Let’s recount the history. After the killing of Charlie Kirk, Kimmel posted, “Can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human.” He also sent his family’s “love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

But the attacks on Kimmel didn’t mention that, focusing instead on his statement that “the MAGA gang [is] 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.”

Suspect Tyler Robinson’s parents were indeed strong Trump supporters, so he did come out of a MAGA background, even if he likely left that culture. Maybe Kimmel could have been clearer. But Kimmel’s point about the Trump team trying to score political points has only been proven more true.

Trump had already warned in July that Kimmel should be fired, after Stephen Colbert of CBS. After Kimmel’s statements following the assassination, Trump FCC head Brendan Carr threatened to fine and revoke the licenses of stations carrying Kimmel’s show, stopping just short of leaving a dead horse on the bed. Nexstar and Sinclair then jumped in saying they wouldn’t air Kimmel’s episodes, and Sinclair demanded Kimmel personally donate to Turning Point USA, Kirk’s group, and to his family. ABC/Disney caved. Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs would have be proud.

Except that Americans responded with appropriate outrage. The cancellation site of the Disney+ streaming service reportedly crashed. Late-night talk hosts and Disney stars spoke out. People demonstrated in front of Disney HQ, led by the Writer’s Guild and supported by the other film industry unions, and at ABC headquarters in NY. More than 400 actors and other entertainers, including some of the biggest names in Hollywood, signed an ACLU letter.

Grassroots reactions accelerated as progressive organizations engaged. Common Cause launched a Turn Off Disney campaign. FreePress.Net started a call-in campaign. Indivisible offered a menu of approaches, MoveOn circulated a petition. Hashtags trended: #BoycottDisney, #CancelDisneyABC, #CancelDisneyPlus, #CancelHulu,#BoycottSinclair, #IstandWithJimmyKimmel.

The pushback even crossed party lines, with Kimmel getting support from conservative-leaning comedians. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) focused on Carr’s threats of suspending licenses, saying it was “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”

So what are the lessons for continuing to push back against Trump and all he represents? How can we make it more difficult for Trump and his allies to silence Kimmel later, or others who’d challenge them?

• When consumer-facing companies like Disney support Trump’s agenda, they make themselves vulnerable. The boycott campaign targeted theme parks, cruises, movies, and channels like Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu. While the political right runs boycotts as well (and has threatened Disney), the company’s craven submission to Trump gave a chance to levy pressure and remind people that if they can target Kimmel, they can target anyone. We can use boycotts in other contexts as well — like the oil companies that helped pay for Trump’s election in return for his doing his best to smash renewable energy. We just need to pick effective targets where it’s straightforward to highlight their dubious actions.
• The response built a broad coalition of fellow-citizens who were outraged, whether or not they were Kimmel fans. If we’re going to stop Trump’s attacks on democracy, it means working with people we don’t necessarily agree with. The courageous Russian dissident Alexei Navalny talked about why, when there was more space for dissent, he supported the right of Russian nationalists to protest Putin, and even helped them organize, although he found some of their views repugnant. We need to make our coalitions as broad as possible.
• Disney caved, but Nexstar and Sinclair jumped in to lead the charge following Carr’s FCC threats. And have so far refused to put Kimmel back on. So continued pressure on them makes sense, particularly as Sinclair played a longtime role demanding that their stations air their right-wing segments and talking points. Nexstar hasn’t historically been as aggressive, but is asking Trump’s FCC to relax market concentration rules to let them merge with Tegna. Even if we can’t block the merger their actions around Kimmel lets us highlight the danger of allowing a handful of oligarchs to dominate what people see and hear. Continuing to targeting Nexstar, and Sinclair’s local stations is a way to give people a way to continue involvement, with local public protests echoing the Tesla Takedown campaigns in giving people ways to act within their own communities.
• Culture matters, as the Trump supporters know well. Just because a high-profile entertainer comments on an issue or supports a candidate, it doesn’t automatically mean the positions of their fans will change or their candidate will win. But speaking out with passion and heart, as people did around Kimmel, can move others to act.
• Boycotts can pressure station advertisers. Local groups can announce targets. People can find advertisers by watching local broadcasts. The Kimmel suspension even inspired a crowdsourced map where people can take pictures of TV ads and upload them with links to which advertiser and which station. Supportive congressional representatives can investigate the conversations FCC head Carr did and didn’t have related to Kimmel.

Because Kimmel was such a visible public figure, the efforts defending him were able to ride a wave of major news coverage and massive spontaneous public reactions, including by people who weren’t political junkies. But if we’re to build on this momentum, it’s going to take coalitions that act together, persist, and coordinate, instead of over-relying on spontaneous reactions or self-organizing maps. Local Seattle groups, for instance got excellent coverage for organizing a protest at their Sinclair affiliate KOMO. But when individuals launched a boycottdisneyabc.com site and listed a separate protest the next day at the same station, along with other ABC/Nextstar affiliates, literally zero people attended. Successful pushback takes both organization and individual action.

Kimmel wasn’t the only media figure targeted for questioning Kirk’s values or how the administration was using the murder to attack political enemies. MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd and the Washington Post fired columnist Karen Attiah, but they had far less presence than Kimmel, and responses so far have been limited. So lots more work remains to be done, particularly since Trump made clear at Kirk’s funeral that he’s coming after more organizations and people.

By reversing Kimmel’s suspension, however, those of us who acted got a taste of our own power. The Kirk shooting was a tragedy on multiple levels. It escalated American political violence. It gave Trump and his allies a martyr, whose death energized them with an even further sense of righteousness. It sowed a fear that if you spoke or wrote the wrong words and didn’t toe the line, you’d be a target next. But because the administration so immediately jumped to weaponize the murder against their enemies by targeting Kimmel, and because so many individuals and organizations successfully pushed back, the restoration of his slot gave the majority of Americans who oppose Trump a sense of possibility and agency — which we can carry forward. They showed that a would-be dictator can try and shut down people who disagree with him, but when enough of us act and stand together those efforts will fail.

• Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While, with nearly 300,000 copies in print between them. Sign up for his Substack here.