Friday Round Up! 9/19/25

There was "free speech" for court jesters even if they insulted the king. But not for comedians under Trump.

“The Liar King,” by cartoonist Pat Bagley

In 1351, the English Parliament passed a law called the Statute of Treasons. The statute specified seven different crimes that could be considered either “high treason” or “petty treason.” Six of them actually required some kind of criminal action, like levying war against the king, or sleeping with his wife, or killing one of his ministers.

But one of them didn’t require any action at all: It was a thought crime. Known as “compassing the death of the King,” merely imagining the king’s death (or the queen’s, or their heir’s) was a crime unto itself. Professor Carlton Larson, author of On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law (an excellent book and a must read, especially for these times), writes that in defining treason in the Constitution, the Framers easily dispensed with including compassing the king’s death, because “[n]ot only was there no king in America, but this provision had generated some of the worst abuses under English law.”

The crimes against the king — including thought crimes — are an interesting juxtaposition against the role of the court jester, who could get away with quite a lot apart from providing entertainment, including criticizing, mocking, and even insulting the king directly (and perhaps referencing his death, I suppose, if they were funny enough). Shakespeare’s plays have many examples of this “jester’s privilege,” from As You Like It’s Touchstone to King Lear’s Fool. This delightful TED-Ed video narrated by Beatrice D. Otto, author of Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World, shows how close to the line jesters could come across various cultures:

One of the main purposes of the jester — the entertainer and comedian of the court — was to speak truth to power…even if you were a king or an emperor.

But that role doesn’t extend, apparently, to being a comedian under a U.S. president. Disney’s suspension of late night host Jimmy Kimmel under pressure from the Trump administration follows in the footsteps of autocrats around the world, who are clearly more thin-skinned than their divinely-appointed historical counterparts.

For instance: In 2000, soon after coming to power, Putin became incredibly irked by a late night political satire show featuring puppets called “Kukly” — watched by over half the households in Russia — that mercilessly critiqued his administration. Kukly had also skewered Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, when he was president; Yeltsin apparently hated the show too but, as the first post-Soviet president who had made claims to support free speech, he “ground his teeth and bore it all.” Putin, not so much. This contemporaneous New York Times article describes the shift after Putin took office:

'Things changed dramatically,' [the program’s writer] said. ‘There were no requests for physical changes. But we've received threats from his political family — not threats to close the program but that the program may have some “difficulties.” And this Russian phrase, “to have difficulties,” can mean many things.’

The threats peaked this March in a private conversation between a senior Kremlin official and a top executive at NTV. Yevgeny Kiselyev, the network's general director, said the official proffered a list of tasks the network would have to meet to escape the government's wrath, including less skeptical political coverage and toned-down reporting on the war in Chechnya. ‘One of those demands was to get Mr. Putin's look-alike — his rubber look-alike, that is — off the “Kukly” show,’ Mr. Kiselyev said in an interview.

At the time of the article’s publication, NTV’s chairman, Vladimir A. Gusinsky, had just been jailed. The show was still on the air, and the show writer was quoted as stating, “I'm not saying we don't have freedom of speech. I'm saying that the field of that freedom is being narrowed. There are fewer and fewer who can speak the truth. And maybe ours is one of the last.”

The show was later canceled, and replaced with milquetoast programs that were allowed to criticize people — as long as they were popular celebrities or enemies of the Kremlin, like President Obama.

Since then, everyone is joining the Autocrat Crybaby Club. Turkey’s Erdogan prosecuted a Turkish man for making a meme that compared him to Gollum. Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sissi threatened to fine a comedian dubbed as “Egypt’s Jon Stewart” with a $10 million fine (he Feld to the U.S….oops). Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes at Lucid that Berlusconi brought the power of the state against media outlets in Italy.

Of course, all of them are following the OG fascist playbook:

With Trump, don’t forget that this has been something he been trying to do for a long time. Comedian Michelle Wolf got canceled for her jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sander’s eyeshadow at the 2018 White House Correspondent’s Dinner (which was in my opinion a pretext for the real reason, which was that she roasted Trump, a lot). This year’s dinner’s comedian was canceled after she criticized the Trump administration on a podcast. In fact, the WHCA president decided they wouldn’t have a comedian, at all.

The crackdown at ABC is one that is sure to be the beginning of many more, especially if we don’t resist and speak up, now. Perhaps the silver lining of Disney’s actions against Kimmel is that it might get some ordinary folks who have been in denial that we have crossed a Rubicon to finally wake up and take notice.

Renato and I discuss more about the legal implications of Kimmel being taken off air, as well as the charges against Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, in this week’s pod:

Join me and Renato in Alaska!

It’s complicated is cruisin’! Renato and I will be hosting an Oceania cruise to Alaska! It’s a small ship, and there will be lots of opportunities to talk to us both, plus we will have an opening and closing reception and dedicated democracy discussion tables throughout the cruise. You can find out more at this link, and fill out your info here to have an agent call you with more information. We’ll also be doing another happy hour for people book and/or interested in the cruise on Tuesday, September 23, at 7 p.m., so please join us!

My podcast, radio, and TV appearances this week:

I did a lot of chatting about the FBI under the leadership of Director Kash Patel this week:

• I joined Greg Sargent on his podcast at The New Republic, The Daily Blast

• I was on NPR’s Here and Now to discuss Patel and the Kirk murder investigation

• And I was on PBS News Hour to talk about Patel’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as claims about where on the political spectrum extremist violence comes from:

Upcoming events:

• COMING UP! The It’s Complicated Cruise happy hour, with Renato Mariotti, Tuesday, September 23 at 7 p.m. EDT. Interested in our “democracy cruise” to Alaska? Join the happy hour to learn more — we are so excited to get on board with like-minded people to have important conversations and also see a beautiful part of our country! RSVP here.

• COMING UP! Class Guest Speaker, Georgetown Professor Dan Nexon on Authoritarianism, Democratization, and Coalition Politics, Wednesday, September 24 at 5 p.m. EDT. I read this thread by Professor Nexon on BlueSky about how coalitions are the key to defeating authoritarianism, and had to have him speak to our class. Come listen to a clear-eyed assessment of where we are and the challenges and possibilities for getting our democracy back on track. Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers three hours before the event. A recording will be posted for this who cannot make it live.

• Class Guest Speaker Professor Jay Van Bavel, co-author of The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony and co-author of the The Power of Us Substack, Tuesday, October 7, 11:00 a.m. EDT. I am loving this book, and feels like it offers a path forward out of our current dystopia. Please join to find out more about how social identities shape the way we perceive the world, and how we can use that for our collective benefit! Zoom link sent to paid subscribers three hours before the event. A recording will be posted for those who cannot make it live.

• The Freedom Academy Book Club with David S. Abraham, author of Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metals Age, Tuesday, October 28, 8 p.m. (sorry for the late timing but David is in Jakarta!) If you’re trying to follow the debate about critical and rare earth minerals (or want to know the difference between the two), you won’t want to miss this talk! Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers three hours before event. The talk will be recorded and posted for paid subscribers.

• Class Guest Speaker Professor John Witt, author of the forthcoming The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America, Wednesday, November 5, 7 p.m. EST. Our current moment has many parallels to the Gilded Age. The Progressive Era, which followed, generated many grassroots movements and jumpstarted our democracy towards what Scholar Robert Putnam calls an “upswing.” Professor Witt’s book is about one of those movements, which may hold lessons for us today. Please join! Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers three hours before event. The talk will be recorded and posted for those who cannot make it live.

• NEW! Time/Date TBA (likely late November/early December). Class Guest Speaker David Pepper, author of the Pepperspectives Substack, on Local Affairs and the Habits of Democracy. So excited to have my friend, law school classmate, and colleague David — who has been a previous guest speaker for my Substack class on the role of state politics in facilitating autocracy — come and talk to us about how we can effect change at the local level. Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers three hours before event. The talk will be recorded and post for those who cannot make it live.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

I am getting a lot of questions from friends and colleagues asking what they can do in this urgent political moment. I have three potential actions steps you can take now:

1. Pro bono lawyers are on the front lines to stop Trump’s breakdown, takedown, and shakedown of the federal government. You can contribute to this effort on the donation page of State Democracy Defenders Action

2. Resist the encroachment on our First Amendment freedoms by exercising your rights! Share satire and humor — particularly stuff that mocks Trump and the companies that are caving. Why? Because you (still) can. I personally loved this fantastic clip from Late Night with Stephen Colbert:

3. Self care tip of the week: Practice gratitude. I got a reminder to do this early last week and my initial thought was, “The country is going to hell in a handbasket and you want me to be grateful?!?!” But then I tried to be intentional and do it, every day…and you know what? It works. When my mind is spinning out, reminding myself of the things in my life I am grateful for (at this moment, the fact that you have read to the bottom of this Round Up!) helps me feel more centered, calm, and…OK. Try it (and feel free to share in the comments!).

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’

— The Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley, stanza XXXVIII