Comedy, Protest, and the Future of Free Speech

The First Amendment is often described as the cornerstone of American democracy, but in 2025 it feels increasingly fragile. Two recent developments highlight how vulnerable free expression has become: the cancellations of late night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, and President Trump’s designation of ANTIFA as a terrorist organization. These actions are very different from the Biden administration’s pandemic-era efforts to counter misinformation, yet taken together they suggest a troubling trajectory for the future of American democracy.

Kimmel and Colbert were not silenced by lack of ratings. They were sidelined while their parent companies sought government approval for multibillion-dollar mergers and sales. Nexstar Media Group suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! as it pursued a major deal. CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert just as Paramount Global prepared to sell. Both hosts had been sharply critical of President Trump, with Colbert going so far as to describe a settlement between Trump and Paramount as a “big fat bribe.” The timing is hard to dismiss as coincidence. When a company’s financial future depends on regulatory approval, political pressure can become an invisible but powerful censor.

At the same time, Trump’s decision to label ANTIFA a terrorist organization threatens to criminalize political association itself. Unlike traditional terrorist groups, ANTIFA is not a centralized entity with clear leadership or membership rolls. It is a diffuse protest movement, a loose set of tactics and identities rather than a structured group. Declaring it a terrorist organization risks branding anyone who aligns with its ideas, or even protests under its banner, as a criminal. That is not law enforcement targeting violence; it is the government punishing ideology.

These moves differ sharply from what the Biden administration did during the pandemic. Federal agencies under Biden communicated regularly with social media platforms, urging them to flag or remove content they considered false or dangerous. Platforms did suppress or limit the reach of stories, most famously the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden. Critics argued this crossed the line into censorship, while supporters claimed it was necessary to protect public health and election security. Courts examined the issue but stopped short of declaring the government’s actions unconstitutional. Biden’s approach was framed, however imperfectly, as a response to an emergency.

What we are seeing now under Trump is different in both scale and intent. Late night comedians are not public health threats. They are commentators whose role in a democracy is to challenge those in power through satire. ANTIFA may include individuals who commit crimes, but criminal acts are already punishable under existing laws. Declaring the entire movement a terrorist organization shifts the focus from actions to ideas. That is a leap the First Amendment was designed to prevent.

The danger is that these tactics normalize the use of regulatory power and national security labels to silence opposition. If a television network can lose its most prominent critic of the president while chasing a merger, other companies will take note. If a protest movement can be designated as terrorism simply because it opposes those in power, then dissent of any kind can be chilled. The cumulative effect is a narrowing of the space in which Americans feel safe to speak, protest, or even joke.

The pandemic years should have taught us that even well-intentioned efforts to manage information carry risks. Today, the lesson is harsher: once the boundary between public interest and political convenience is blurred, it can be exploited for direct suppression of dissent. Free speech cannot survive on a case-by-case basis, depending on who holds office or what corporate deals are pending. It survives only if it is protected universally, for satirists and protesters alike.

The First Amendment is more than an abstract principle. It is the guardrail that prevents democracy from sliding into authoritarianism. When comedians are cancelled under political pressure and protest movements are branded as terrorists, those guardrails start to give way. The question now is whether Americans will demand they be rebuilt before the road ahead is lost.