One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was this one in January of 2005, entitled, “The fine art of insulting half your audience.” Here’s an excerpt:

It happens nearly every time. I’ll be reading a short story, let’s say, enjoying myself, lost in the experience—when suddenly, there it is: the gratuitous and mean-spirited and out-of-context slap at Bush, or at those who support him. It’s not as though the story is even tangentially about politics, either; it can be about anything at all, it doesn’t really matter.

The Bush-dissing will be thrown in when you least expect it, just to let the reader know—well, to let the reader know what, exactly? To let the reader know that the author is hip, kindly, intelligent, moral—oh, just about everything a person ought to be. And that the reader must of course be a member of the club, too—not one of those Others, the warmongers, the selfish and stupid and demonized people who happen to have voted for Bush.

Back when I was one of the gang, too, back when I was in with the in crowd (“if it’s square, we ain’t there”), did I notice when authors dragged in their political credentials from left field? Or perhaps it wasn’t quite as commonplace back then for them to do so?

At any rate, now it seems positively obligatory. I’m reading along, sunk deep within the story, bonding with the characters—and then, suddenly, it’s as though the author has reached a hand out of the pages of the magazine (OK, I’ll confess, sometimes it’s the New Yorker—yes, I still read it for the fiction, just as some people claim they read Playboy for the interviews) and slapped me across the face.

Authors, do you really want to do this? Because, with a single sentence, you’ve managed to alienate and offend (not to mention insult) up to half your audience.

Well, it’s only gotten worse since then. Sometimes it works out for the artist; after all, one-half of the population of the US is still a lot of people. Plus, if the person is offering something of value – is a good singer or actor or writer – people on the opposite side of the political divide may decide to still buy their product rather than boycott them. But what of someone like Jimmy Kimball? Unfunny, unentertaining; all he’s got is dissing Trump and even the way he does that isn’t the least bit clever. Plus, he seems to consider himself some sort of hero.

Therefore, should anyone be surprised at his perhaps-pending cancellation? Of course not. But Jimmy seems to think he’s being persecuted, poor thing:

The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host opened up in a new interview with Vulture about the future of the genre following the cancellation of Stephen Colbert‘s “Late Show” on CBS and his own run-ins with Trump, including his suspension following comments made about the death of Charlie Kirk.

“I feel a little bit defeated about it,” Kimmel told Vulture after Colbert’s final episode aired on May 21. “In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m looking at my own future.”

Kimmel went on to say he was assured by the network that his show is still profitable, and yet they only renewed him for a year. Plus:

Asked if he has thought about retirement, Kimmel said he’s still unsure when his time will come. “It’s important to me to be responsible,” he said. “I know I could go out in a blaze of glory and get a lot of applause for it, but it would be a very selfish thing to do.”

That is, if he isn’t ousted first. Trump has repeatedly called for Kimmel to be fired, most recently when he made a joke about Melania Trump having a “glow like an expectant widow.” In that case and that of Kirk, Kimmel said he “had the truth on my side as a defense. What if I actually do do something wrong? I mean, that’s inevitable.”

Of the president, Kimmel said: “I don’t love him. I don’t hate him, either. I feel sorry for him. He obviously didn’t get hugged a lot.”

Sure thing, Jimmy; you don’t hate Trump at all. And that remark about not being hugged is about the typical level of Kimmel’s wit.

Makes one yearn – positively yearn – for the days of Johnny Carson, who must have had his political preferences but kept them to himself while being genuinely entertaining. But that was a long long time ago.