Rules for thee, but not for me?
Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night ABC talk show host, funnyman and noted critic of former President Donald Trump, stirred quite a round of criticism after an attempt at humor clearly went a bit awry.
As chronicled by The Federalist, on Wednesday night, Kimmel proffered the following quip:
Jimmy Kimmel: “If you want to vote for Trump, vote late. Vote very late. Do your voting on Thursday or maybe Friday.” pic.twitter.com/Il1Ch6S0eE
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 31, 2024
“If you want to vote for Trump, vote late,” Kimmel said on his show. “Vote very late.”
Just to drive the point home, he added: “Do your voting on Thursday, or maybe Friday.”
The “joke” appeared to be a jab at Trump supporters, effectively telling them to go try and vote long after Election Day.
For many, this sort of politicized joke is generally viewed as just that: a joke.
Should Jimmy Kimmel be charged with election interference?
Yes: 85% (1659 Votes)
No: 15% (293 Votes)
But not for the Department of Justice under the purview of incumbent President Joe Biden.
No, this sort of “misinformation” is a deeply punishable offense, according to the DOJ. Just ask Douglass Mackey.
Mackey became a lightning-rod topic when, in the lead-up to the 2016 general election between Trump and then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, he made a joking social media post telling prospective Clinton voters that they could easily vote from the comfort of their own homes by sending a text message to a certain number.
While many viewed Mackey’s joke in the same vein as Kimmel’s, the DOJ clearly did not.
Fast-forward four years to 2020, and Biden’s DOJ came down hard on Mackey, convicting him of election interference and slapping him with a seven-month prison sentence.
Trump supporters and Republicans were obviously outraged at the Mackey conviction, given the joking social media posts were so absurd that they would have to be considered parody by most.
And that brings everything back to Kimmel, who, according to social media, cracked the exact same sort of joke, or “election interference,” that Mackey did.
(If anything, Kimmel’s pulpit is much, much larger than Mackey’s.)
The Federalists’ John Daniel Davidson took that idea to its logical conclusion: “If Trump Wins, He Should Arrest And Prosecute Jimmy Kimmel.”
Connecting the dots, Davidson even argued that Mackey was simply the guinea pig the DOJ was experimenting on before targeting Trump.
“It was an outlandish reading of the federal statute, the true purpose of which was to create a precedent for its application against Trump himself in the January 6 case brought last year by special counsel Jack Smith,” Davidson wrote. “It was also a prosecution obviously motivated by politics. The Justice Department didn’t go after Mackey until two days after the inauguration of Joe Biden in January 2021, more than four years after he posted the offending memes.
“The danger with this sort of thing is that once you criminalize internet memes, you can criminalize almost any speech the state wants to suppress.”
Swathes of social media agreed with Davidson’s interpretation.
“Prison should be in his future,” one user posted on social media platform X.
Prison should be in his future. pic.twitter.com/sbVaNkvevZ
— 🇺🇸Silly Girl 🇺🇸 (@travis_5head2) October 31, 2024
Another X user called out the judge who sentenced Mackey, saying she needed to get Kimmel too, “because ‘nobody is above the law.’”
@jimmykimmel should be prosecuted and sentenced by United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly just like the guy she put in prison for a similar joke.
Because “no one is above the law”. That’s why.
— Warmonger ® (@OneManRepublic) October 31, 2024
Yet another X user asked if you can only get punished “if you confuse dem voters.”
I thought saying something like this was election interference that lands you in federal prison. Or is that only if you confuse dem voters?
— Conservative Mamas (@MamasOnTheRight) October 31, 2024
Davidson and like-minded thinkers won’t have to wait long to see whether Trump will act on this, with the election just days away.
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