Boycott Disney's quislings! Anti-Trumpers must stand by Kimmel!

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling is an infamous Norwegian traitor who led Norway during the Nazi occupation.

In Norway, the name Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling is infamous. Quisling collaborated with the Nazis when they occupied that progressive land, who rewarded him by appointing him as Minister President. When the Norwegian anti-fascist resistance movement succeeded in toppling Quisling, they sentenced him to death. At his execution, he predicted he’d be remembered as another Saint Olav, an 11th century Norwegian monarch and famous symbol of national independence.

Spoiler alert: Quisling was dead wrong! Today “quisling” is a term for a despicable traitor, prevalent within and outside of Norway.

Flash forward to 2025: Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment Co-chair Dana Walden pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the popular late night talk show he has hosted for Disney-owned ABC since 2003.

Why? Because Kimmel criticized President Donald Trump’s political supporters, and Trump threatened financial reprisals (through FCC Chairman Brendan Carr) against Disney unless Iger and Walden capitulated.

"We hit some new lows over the weekend,” Kimmel said in his Monday night episode, “with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

At the time Kimmel uttered those words, law enforcement hadn’t confirmed that Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin Tyler Robinson had been raised by Trump supporters. We did already know, though, that Trump and his supporters wanted to smear all liberals over Kirk’s murder. The first third of Kirk’s observation (“the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk”) was therefore objectively true at the time he made it; the second third (“as anything other than one of them”) has since been confirmed; and the final third (“and doing everything they can to score political points from it”) is, of course, confirmed by Kimmel’s firing.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution explicitly prohibits Trump from pressuring Disney in this way:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Clearly America’s own anti-fascist resistance movement needs to protect the First Amendment. Kimmel himself would be well-advised to follow the lead of Gina Carano, the mediocre “Star Wars” and “Deadpool” actress who was fired for posting a right-wing opinion. If Carano can force Disney to recast her through a lawsuit funded by Trump’s billionaire semi-ally Elon Musk, Kimmel can certainly present a much stronger legal case, given that (unlike Carano) he was fired as a direct result of governmental pressure.

The rest of us must find other ways to make Disney pay.

It is obvious that Iger and Walden will only be motivated by financial consideration. Iger and Walden are shame-proof; if moral consideration were going to guide their conduct, they would have done so long ago. Since we are dealing with avaricious quislings, we must hit them where it hurts the most — their wallets.

That means no Disney animation. It means no Marvel. It means no Star Wars. It means no Pixar. It means no ESPN. It means no ABC. It means no FX.

All of it.

If your response to this is to argue that it’s unfair to abstain from vast swathes of entertainment, all because they’re owned by a single company, I reply that this merely underscores the problem of corporate behemoths dominating entertainment.

If your response is to say that this seems like an extreme sacrifice, I’d remind you that America’s founding fathers vowed to literally “pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” in the name of freedoms like those embodied in the First Amendment.

America’s founding fathers would have boycotted Disney. Only quislings capitulate to tyrants.

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Back Seat Socialism

Back Seat Socialism is a column by Matthew Rozsa, who has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently, he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.