A global crackdown on free speech (that now includes the U.S.)
Humor is dangerous for autocrats.
Seven months before the outbreak of World War II, Hitler’s propaganda minister ended the careers of five comedians, calling them “brazen, impertinent, arrogant and tactless” and their fans “parasitic scum.”
Their firing made the front page of The New York Times on Feb. 4, 1939. The article explains what got them into trouble. The comedians “deftly, but unmistakably, caricatured the gestures, poses and physical characteristics of National Socialist leaders.”
This month, the American late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was suspended and then reinstated. I spoke to my colleague Damien Cave, who has written extensively about the growing restrictions on speech around the world, to see if he could put what is happening in the U.S. into a larger context. (I really recommend reading his full story.)
Damien, what does the Jimmy Kimmel saga look like to you?
It reminds me of all the other countries where leaders have tried to silence speech, whether it’s taking over newspapers or shutting down TV stations or going after comedians. For the past decade, the trend line has been moving away from freedom of expression, whether it’s in hard-core authoritarian countries like Russia or China, or backsliding democracies like Turkey and Hungary. The degree of crackdown differs, but the number of countries cracking down is rising. What’s shocking is that the U.S. — specifically its government — is now among them.
Why is humor so dangerous to autocrats?
Authoritarians tend to have thin skins, and insist on being seen as great. Some scholars argue that the perception of competence is what keeps dictatorships in place — and that unlike anger or protest, which seek to compete with power, laughter and mockery are entirely dismissive, essentially insisting, “This guy is a joke.” In that sense, humor is the ultimate weapon.
Is there a pattern in how authoritarian leaders try to crack down on speech?
It often starts with broad media criticism. Next come suggestions that individual people and publications are somehow an enemy of the people. After that, it moves to takeovers of media companies.
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