Jimmy Kimmel’s Sad Transformation Is Complete
The former 'Man Show' host is now angry partisan with less time for laughs
Remember Jimmy Kimmel?
Most of us don’t. Not anymore. He’s unrecognizable in his current form, a hard-left comic with little empathy for those who lean to the right. That’s roughly half the country.
What a shame.
The jocular comic shot to fame by hosting “Win Ben Stein’s Money” and palling around with Adam Carolla. The duo created “The Man Show,” a gleefully macho series that wouldn’t be allowed on Comedy Central today.
Gorgeous women jumping on trampolines? Skits mocking the women’s suffrage movement? The online petitions by outraged progressives to shut the show down would break records. Comedy Central would quickly take a knee.
Those were less “woke” times, though.
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He parlayed that Everyman persona into late night fame. His “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” now in its 14th season, never threatened “The Late Show” or “The Tonight Show” in the ratings wars. The ABC show still draws a sizable crowd and occasionally inspires viral gags that crush YouTube.
That was then. Before the rise of Donald Trump and a media landscape that threw away the remaining shreds of its integrity.
Kimmel wants in, apparently. And if his aw, shucks brand has to hit the circular file, so be it. The transformation began with a heartfelt tale tied to his ailing newborn.
FAST FACT: Jimmy Kimmel’s first Oscars hosting gig last year scored a nine-year ratings low. He’s slated to host the gala again March 4.
Last May the comedian shared an update on his young son’s health. The lad required significant medical attention to fix a heart birth defect. A teary-eyed Kimmel shared the latest updates on his son’s condition, slipping in a plea for better health care options for all.
Weeks later, Kimmel got more pointed, and partisan, in his defense of ObamaCare. A quick note: Kimmel never shed a tear, or weighed in in a similar fashion, when we learned President Barack Obama’s pitch for his health care overhaul was riddled with lies.
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro deftly explained the flaws in Kimmel’s baby strategy.
“But the invocation of personal experience in political debate is generally obtuse because it is a soft form of identity politics. It puts those arguing in the position of supposedly rejecting your personal experience, thus impugning your integrity or the veracity of your feelings … The whole point of determining policy is that empathy shouldn’t outweigh reason.”
Shapiro runs a conservative web site where lucid, right-leaning arguments are encouraged. Good luck finding that sensibility across mainstream outlets.
The old Kimmel was fading fast. In recent months he’s cranked up the partisan rhetoric. The Daily Beast reported that he sought out the counsel of Sen. Chuck Schumer, a hard-left Democrat, before one energized monologue.
Kimmel even called out Rep. Paul Ryan in a way the “old” Kimmel never would.
Search all you want, you won’t ever find it https://t.co/jy2fhtoIMT
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) December 14, 2017
He waded into the gun control debate following the Las Vegas shooting massacre. Naturally he demonized those with whom he disagrees.
“They should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country,” Kimmel said of the GOP.
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Over the weekend Kimmel spoke to the folks at Pod Save America, a liberal chat show. Here’s a tweet sharing one of the comedian’s comments.
“It just so happens that almost every talk show host is a liberal and that’s because it requires a level of intelligence” – @jimmykimmel @PodSaveAmerica live pic.twitter.com/yNKbpzVNUp
— Emily Black Favreau (@ebfavs) February 4, 2018
Fellow late nighter Stephen Colbert once said, “reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Even Colbert wouldn’t push the comment as far as Kimmel did.
Kimmel’s hard-left opinions can be seen in many of ABC monologues. Here’s a sample rant from his Feb. 1 telecast. See if you can spot any gut busters in the following:
To call Devin Nunes Donald Trump’s lap dog would be an insult to dogs. And laps …”
He then targeted President Trump and his Fake News assault.
“When a newspaper digs whatever you did up, and publishes a story about it, you don’t just attack the facts, you don’t just attack the story, you attack the newspaper. The newspaper is biased. Even if the newspaper clearly isn’t biased.
“That’s Step 1. Step 2 is when multiple newspapers, and news organizations, and reporters, further an investigation, whatever it is, when they report something you don’t like. If you’re the President now, you don’t just attack the newspapers or the news networks, you attack the media. You say the media is biased. You call them the elite media. They’re all in league together. Everyone except Fox and Friends is plotting to get you. Because they don’t want America to be great again!”
“And then, once the media is playing defense, you climb another rung…When the FBI steps in and starts sniffing around and handing out subpoenas…what do you do? Same thing you always do…You discredit the FBI, you discredit the special counsel, you discredit anybody who might possibly come up with information you don’t like.”
Is anyone laughing? What you just read sounds like a Daily Kos diarist, not one of the country’s notable late night comics. Fact checking his comments, an easy effort, is besides the point.
So why the Kimmel transformation? He’s no longer the bratty young comic trying to cut his teeth in comedy. He’s 50. He’s also aware how the media treats comics who lean left.
Hero worship hardly describes it.
RELATED: Kimmel Beclowns Self Defending ObamaCare
Today’s media outlets regularly share Kimmel’s liberal rants … just like they do any “Saturday Night Live” skit attacking the GOP.
What you’re not seeing in the media love fest for Kimmel? Anyone digging into Kimmel’s Comedy Central past. Shouldn’t a woke reporter or two remind us how he ogled bikini women jumping on trampolines? What about Kimmel, in blackface, imitating basketball legend Karl Malone for the same show?
Kimmel is hardly the only late night show leaning to the left. They all do, save Jimmy Fallon. There’s still a big distinction between the “new” Kimmel and his competition.
Colbert has always been politically progressive. His shift from Comedy Central to CBS didn’t change that. HBO’s Bill Maher has been acerbic his entire career. Samantha Bee broke out of the late night gate by calling Sen. Ted Cruz a “fish-faced horsesh** sandwich.” She was never a lovable progressive.
It’s what makes Kimmel’s transformation so jarring.
Arrogant. Self-satisfied. Finger wagging. This isn’t the Jimmy Kimmel we got to know over time. Sadly, Kimmel 2.0 is likely here to stay.
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And the right is finally treating these spitheads with the disdain they deserve and the disdain they have long expressed for the conservative right . We have too long been civil to these animals . No longer they must be crushed verbally, socially ,politically and financially, by any means necessary . No justice ,no peace.
I actually think it is pretty sad. I used to like Kimmel, Franken and Stewart. It seems like once a comedian embraces left wing politics (maybe any serious politics) they just stop being funny. He, like the others I named, just seem bitter and sad, not funny. It is a shame because they stand in the way of other real comedians working in the high visibility jobs they occupy.
Jimmy Kimmel is an embarassing clown. Johnny Carson would slap him upside his stupid liberal head if he were alive today.
Comrade Kimmel knows that there big socialist wave coming. He wants to be on the side of victors, for they have no mercy.
kimmel is just another comedian/musician/actor who somehow believes he knows better. he’s a policy expert, because he stands in front of a television camera each day. just like joy behar, another policy expert.
lmfao.
what kimmel is, is a rich, insular, self-directed little twerp, a man arrogant enough to bleat on subjects he knows literally nothing about. another caustic liberal that sees fit to publicly insult and ridicule those he disagrees with. he’ll be left with an audience of fawning millennial idiots and clueless old hippies. good riddance, a-****
When you want to make people laugh, acting more like Keith Olbermann is not the way to go. The entertainment world is such an echo chamber. Throw in a contagious mental disorder like political correctness and a dash of race and gender dogma, and pretty soon, you’ve got an ideologue.
With the notable exception of Stephen Colbert, political comics (Bill Maher, Helen Cho, Sarah Silverman and Samantha Bee) are almost never funny. Even the great George Carlin was at his unfunniest when he took the political route. The laughs turn to cheers – but the cheers only come from those who agree. Same thing happened to Letterman – He got liberal and not coincidentally, more mean. Even Dennis Miller, who made a hard turn to the right, is less funny as a result – He’s all anger and outrage, rather than just laughs.
I’ll take Jimmy Fallon, Jerry Seinfeld, Brian Regan…guys like that any day, over a preachy condescending political type.
Why are late night show hosts progressives? That’s their audience. Who else can stay up late and sleep in the next day…certainly not hard working people with responsibilities.
As a mother of a child with an unfixable handicap who then, tragically, died, never did my husband nor I think ourselves experts on the subject of healthcare. My husband is an ivy-league educated professional in the health field but never would he attempt to lecture the public, the citizenry on how his tragedy should be borne. Kimmel’s arrogance is embarrassing but, worse for a Hollywood type, it’s cheesy.
Maybe he is trying to get back together with his old girlfriend Sarah Silverman.
Nice article, succinct and well written.
Isn’t His Smugness in for the shock of his life. I doubt his vaunted liberal “intelligence” will allow him to process the extent of the smackdown his leftist heroes are about to get. He’ll likely be left a gibbering denier that Obama, Clinton & Co did all those nasty things, even as they are perp-walked after a fair trial.
Right wingers are just dislikable human beings. Thats all.
But winners. Don’t forget, winners. In fact, some of us are (almost) getting tired of all this winning. Thanks to our Very Stable Genius.
yeah, cause you know all of them, right tool? trust me, in your circle of friends and family are some who hide their conservatism, specifically to avoid your scorn and insult. but when they pull that lever, they pull right….
I would be curious to know what a right winger is according to your personal definition. Are they dislikable because they differ with you on one or more policy positions? Or do you think they all just have terrible personalities? The latter would be highly illogical as you would have to personally know literally every “right winger”.
Lol at Kimmel. “A certain intelligence is required. . . .” So says the dropout from a third rate university? To get into ASU you basically have to be able to fog a mirror.
Um. The poorly educated are the back bone of Trumps RedHat followers. Screw you Mr Elite school. Just cuz someone does not have a GED makes them smart…not stupid. Got it??!!
Kimmel is the medieval equivalent of the dancing fool at court. Like most of the empty-headed actors/hangers-on in Hollywood et al.
Where does he get off feeling superior to anything higher up the evolutionary scale than a sponge.
Wait a minute. Just a little further up, you were talking about how it’s the educated who are liberals. Now you’re getting all uppity over somebody who’s more educated than Kimmel for not being a liberal. I’m now no longer certain which way you actually go on this, but I am certain of one thing: if you have a degree from any institution, even a community college, then you’re a perfect example of a person whose degree outpaces their intellect.
GOT IT??!!
I think Trump voters knew exactly what they were doing.. preventing the most hapless and corrupt candidate in history from occupying the WH. She cheated and screwed Bernie over, used the very anti-democratic super-delegates to max advantage, and she lied publicly, repeatedly despite knowing evidence proved her lying.
Thank goodness all those uneducated Obama states flipped to Trump.
I am an ASU grad and I find your comment funny as hell. Thanks.
I saw in here something about Samantha Bee and comedy. I was surprised at the pairing.
Kimmel wants people to be able to abort a baby up until the cord is cut, but he also wants everyone to treat his child as the second coming!
Yes. Kimmel wants to murder babies. You are so rational.
The left’s platform is now abortion at any time!
And you, (the right wing), possess a platform of ignorance “all the time.”
Okay at what point in a pregnancy do Dems, object to an abortion?
Supporting abortion on demand at any time until delivery IS murdering babies, at some point. If you support that, you support murdering babies. Simple as that.
No one I know does. I assume you support family planning and sex education to prevent pregnancy, and support for mothers without means to raise their non-aborted children?
I support adoption. Too bad the national social workers association opposes transracial adoption, which can affect as much as 40% of the adoptable population in this country. And if no one supports late 2nd and 3rd term abortions for non-therapeutic reasons, how was Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia able to preform over 500 before he got caught, when a female patient died during one. And, why did the late George Tiller brag about having done over 1000 at an AMA Convention in Kansas City in 2008? That boast, when published, led to his death a year later. Here in California, the poor get virtually cradle-to-grave support. That is why we’re about to go bankrupt, even with the world’s 7th largest economy. A single mother with two kids can make as much as 32,000/year tax free. That is the equivalent of 60,000 in the real economy.
Perhaps you didn’t read the Dem platform from the convention and their desire to also make the public pay for said abortions.
Perhaps you also missed the recent vote where Dems killed the bill that would disallow abortions at the age where it is scientifically proven that babies feel pain… just keep ramming spikes in their little heads and dismembering them slowly is what you advocate Seahawk. Keep patting yourself on the back though for the illogical hoops you jump through to ignore science.
Kimmel has to kiss up to his rich Hollywood neighbors or he won’t get invited to the parties, and his wife didn’t marry him for his looks, so he better get invited to those parties!