PBS NEWSHOUR: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNBC join William Brangham to discuss the week in politics, including the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show and whether the government is taking another dangerous step into censorship and authoritarianism.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM, PBS NEWSHOUR: I mean, Kimmel suffered the consequences for his comments, but he’s not the only one certainly. There’s – USA Today has got a ticker up. I think it’s over 100 people already who have been censured or fired for their comments, some of which those comments were grotesque and horrendous, and others were kind of grounded in fact and not inappropriate. Do you think we have just lost this balance between what is truly dangerous speech and what is protected critique? DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, we have lost the boundaries. I mean, you’re not allowed to say – famously, shout fire in a crowded theater. You can’t urge people to go kill somebody. Like, if it leads to violence, that should be prohibited speech, and especially if you’re a private company and you care about the integrity of your institution. But that boundary has been blurred. Let me try to describe what it feels like for a lot of the folks on the right. So, in their view, I would say to my Democratic friends, imagine you woke up and every media organization you saw preached Christian nationalism. You sent your kids to school, and they were being taught Christian nationalism. You turned on late-night comedy, and it’s all Christian nationalism. For conservatives, that’s how it feels that they… Look in our current culture, and that one of the things that’s happened over the last 50 years is that, as progressives who have gotten control of various cultural institutions, they have excluded a lot of conservative and working-class voices. And so a lot of people feel completely shut out. And late-night comedy is the perfect example. You could be right or left. You could watch “Letterman.” You could watch Carson. And you could laugh. But now late-night TV is – it’s about laughter, but it’s also about making progressives feel good about themselves, making them feel smug. And even I can’t watch late-night TV anymore. But the difference is, you fight culture – if you don’t like the progressive culture, create a conservative culture. And to his great credit – I rarely get to praise Tucker Carlson anymore – but he went on his show and said, if the Trump administration tries to damage free speech using this as a pretext, it’s time for civil disobedience. And so he understands you fight cultural power with cultural – countercultural power. That’s how the game plays. To use federal power is definitely breaching the line.

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