Jimmy Kimmel and the progressive epistemic bubble. The remark that got Kimmel in trouble was this: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” This is not merely “insensitive”, in which case I wouldn’t have Kimmel on this list. Rather, from the best evidence available, the implication that “the kid who murdered Charlie Kirk” is MAGA is false. You would call it “misinformation” if that term weren’t usually deployed so one-sidedly (the overwhelming majority of misinformation researchers are on the left) by progressives to things that conservatives say rather than the other way around.
Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, appeared to confess to the murder in Discord chats. While Robinson’s motivations seem somewhat confused, as is often the case with assassins, and while we should approach any reporting on this topic with caution, the notion that Robinson was some sort of “Groyper” who killed Kirk because Kirk was too liberal appears to be wrong. “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” Robinson wrote to his roommate, whom Utah governor Spencer Cox described as “a romantic partner, a male transitioning to female.” (I mention that just because high levels of trans acceptance typically isn’t a MAGA trait.) Kimmel has reportedly been obstinate in refusing to correct the record.
So where was Kimmel getting this from? Well, maybe from Bluesky. Or (gulp) maybe from Substack. As Gabe Fleisher pointed out, Heather Cox Richardson, the author of the #1 U.S. politics newsletter Letters from an American, wrote this weekend that Robinson “appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical.” Richardson presented no evidence for this; it’s wishful thinking at best. But really, it’s just a falsehood; like Fleisher, I’ll be polite and not use the term “lie” just because I don’t know what’s in Richardson’s head.4
I’m not looking to pick a fight with Richardson (I know some of you subscribe to her) or Kimmel. But the progressive epistemic bubble is getting really bad. Maybe not worse than the MAGA bubble — but bad, and progressives often rationalize bad behavior by saying whatever the other side is doing is worse. This has already had serious consequences, such as denialism about Joe Biden’s deteriorating condition last year, which they blamed on unfair media coverage. Kimmel is a relatively mainstream figure, so if this sort of misinformation about Robinson is making its way to him — and in scripted remarks, not off-the-cuff comments like Dowd’s — that suggests the bubble is expanding, slowly devouring the reality-based community, and that formerly rational commentators have trouble escaping it once they’re past the event horizon.
