Jimmy Kimmel used Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message on December 25, 2025 to lecture British viewers about American politics, calling this year “a really great year” for fascism and warning that “tyranny is booming” in the United States. The remarks were heavy on theatrical outrage and light on self-awareness, and he even offered what amounted to an apology to the UK “on behalf” of Americans for the state of our politics.
Conservatives should defend free speech, but there’s a difference between defending the right to speak and applauding a celebrity who jets across the Atlantic to grandstand while his own network quietly sheltered him. Kimmel’s holiday sermon came after ABC briefly pulled his show in September following controversy over his comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk — an episode he’s since treated as proof that the “establishment” was ganging up on him.
What Americans watched on Christmas was less an act of conscience and more the same sanctimony that defines Hollywood’s political class: lecture the country, collect the applause overseas, and expect little consequence at home. Kimmel’s tone suggested he speaks for all Americans when in reality he represents a coastal bubble that pretends to be the moral conscience of the nation while turning a blind eye to the damage its own rhetoric sometimes causes.
Channel 4’s “alternative” message has a long history of provocative choices, but handing the mic to a U.S. late-night host to scold the American electorate shows how interconnected global media elites have become — united in their disdain for anyone who challenges their narrative. British viewers deserve honest voices, not imported virtue-signaling from a man who benefited from a corporate safety net when his jokes crossed the line.
The larger point for conservatives is this: cultural elites will always weaponize sympathy and label dissent as authoritarian to protect their own power. Kimmel’s theatrical “we are a right mess” lament is a convenient cover that avoids accountability for the entertainment industrial complex’s role in polarizing the country. We can defend free expression without bowing down to a media class that pretends to be the only guardian of democracy.
Hardworking Americans shouldn’t be shamed by celebrity sermons delivered from across the pond. We are the people who build, defend, and fund this country — not the handful of TV personalities who travel the world to tell others how to run our affairs. If Kimmel wants to lecture, fine — but don’t act surprised when millions of patriotic Americans respond with the same skepticism and toughness that rebuilt this nation time and again.
