Hollywood can’t shake its elitism — especially when it comes to free speech

Jimmy Kimmel is a free speech warrior and a man of the people — well, some of the people.

Earlier this week, the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host slammed new U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin as “unqualified” for a curious reason.

“Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber.

“That’s right. We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now. It worked for Super Mario. Why not Markwayne?”

Mullin, who until last week was a Senator from Oklahoma, took over the family plumbing business when his father became ill.

Kimmel couldn’t help himself. He’s been emboldened after a week-long suspension by ABC last year for incorrectly blaming MAGA for Charlie Kirk’s murder.

That punishment turned the far-left host into a First Amendment hero, or so he told anyone who would listen.

Kimmel and his A-list pals have vowed to protect free speech from Orange Man Bad. Yet these patriots repeatedly stood down while everyday Americans, including plumbers, saw their speech rights smothered in recent years — sometimes by the very politicians Kimmel and Co. raised money to re-elect.

Take The Twitter Files. A trove of behind-the-scenes emails showed how the social media giant censored right-leaning opinions and arguments, some of which it turned out to be true.

The Hunter Biden laptop story, which was also shadow-banned at fellow social media giant Facebook, was just one glaring example.

That story could have changed a presidential election.

Think the COVID-19 pandemic started in a lab? You couldn’t always share that view on social media.

A federal district court judge dubbed The Twitter Files “arguably the most massive attack on free speech in US history.”

How many celebrities railed against censorship in the digital town square?

We’ve seen the rise of “sensitivity readers” in the literary world in the wake of the woke revolution. These censors scour classics by Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie, and Ian Fleming, finding “problematic” passages and erasing them to “protect” future generations.

Imagine how many fledgling authors have watched their words go down the memory hole because they triggered a hyper-sensitive reader.

Tom Hanks may have been the sole high-profile artist to slam the woke wave.

“Let me decide what I am offended by and not offended by. I would be against reading any book from any era that says ‘abridged due to modern sensitivities.’”

“American Dirt” author Jeanine Cummins didn’t have the name recognition of a Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates. Cummins still snagged serious buzz for her 2020 novel, including a salute from book maestro Oprah Winfrey.

Had the next literary superstar arrived?

Then, woke critics decided Cummins wasn’t the right person to write about immigration issues, due partly to her heritage. Death threats followed, and she scrapped her book’s publicity tour.

No Hollywood artists rallied to her side. Winfrey, who initially praised the novel to the heavens, offered muted support.

Comedians have been battling speech suppression for years. Sure, we heard about the high-profile attacks on Dave Chappelle for daring to tell trans-themed gags. What about the unknown stand-ups who either lost work for telling the “wrong” jokes, or never uttered them in the first place for fear of public reprisals?

And when the Biden administration was caught forcing Google to censor speech, the usual Hollywood suspects looked the other way.

They did the same when President Biden promoted Nina Jankowicz as a so-called “disinformation” czar, even though she had claimed the Hunter Biden laptop scandal was mere Fake News.

Imagine the voices she might have censored had she actually gained power?

Even if we take Hollywood’s free speech activism at face value, it’s still missing key battles today.

Jewish artists have been routinely canceled for their views, including musician Matisyahu, actor/author Bret Gelman, and comedian Michael Rapaport.

Conservative comic Ben Bankas just had six sold-out Minneapolis shows canceled due to progressive pressure and violent threats.

Kimmel’s silence on these matters is particularly galling.

When Britain’s Channel 4 invited Kimmel to give an “alternative” Christmas address late last year, that gave him a chance to skewer that nation’s extreme social media punishments. He could speak out on behalf of everyday British citizens, the ones without a nightly bully pulpit.

Instead, he bashed President Trump.

Free speech is only for the important people, not the little people. At least according to Kimmel and friends.

Christian Toto is the founder of HollywoodinToto.com and host of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast.

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