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It is a climate that has been littered just this week with Trump鈥檚 who had the temerity to ask about his business dealings as well as a for allegedly trying to 鈥渢arnish his legacy of achievement, destroy his reputation as a successful businessman, and subject him to humiliation and ridicule.鈥�

On top of these are pledges in the wake of Charlie Kirk鈥檚 assassination to , by bringing criminal charges or ending their tax-exempt status.

It adds up to a suppression of full-throated debate in America 鈥� a country where the only thing more sacred than a gun is, or has been, the right to express oneself.

And it traces a pattern established by the autocratic leaders in the likes of Russia, Hungary and Turkey, countries led by strongmen who have harnessed laws, regulations and company ownership structures to blunt critics and opponents.

Kimmel didn’t need to be a martyr-in-the-making for America鈥檚 speech and press freedoms.

In Monday night’s opening monologue, he accused Trump supporters of 鈥渄esperately 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.鈥�

Kimmel hasn’t commented publicly, so it鈥檚 unclear what he meant by referring to the alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, as 鈥渙ne of them.鈥� Taken literally, Kimmel would appear to be mistaken.

The charges against Robinson, released on Tuesday, state that he 鈥渉ad become more political and had started to lean more to the left鈥� over the last year.

It also hinted at a potential motivation for the killing: that Robinson was dating a biological male who was transitioning to the female gender and that this coincided with Robinson 鈥渂ecoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,鈥� according to his mother.

If it was a simple error, he could have been suspended or disciplined internally by ABC for breaches of company practices or policies. Instead, ABC’s affiliate broadcasters, owned by and , dropped the show from their lineups Wednesday.

But signs that something more sinister was afoot appeared hours earlier, when Trump鈥檚 Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, said in that he was outraged by Kimmel comments and expected ABC to penalize him.

鈥淲e can do this the easy way or the hard way,鈥� Carr said. 鈥淭hese companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there鈥檚 going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.鈥�

The FCC broadcast licenses have聽聽which allows the commission to investigate complaints about 鈥渋ntentional falsification of the news.鈥�

But the First Amendment protects broadcasts which 鈥�,鈥� the FCC says on its website.

鈥淧eople must be free to say things that the majority abhor.鈥�

That principle has made the United States a political paradise for exiled dissidents throughout history, but it has injected domestic debates with a troubled and often-toxic political charge.

The Trump administration’s targeting of media, non-governmental organizations and, now, comedic voices that are seen as disloyal or dissenting (after Kimmel’s suspension was announced, calling for fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers to lose their shows and referencing CBS’s cancellation of Stephen Colbert) is a stark departure from that democratic tradition.

The threats and targeted actions are more in line with post-Communist Russia, where a newly elected Vladimir Putin began slowly but systematically squeezing critical voices out of the country’s media landscape almost as soon as he came to power.

Russia’s most ambitious, independent and critical media outlet, NTV, was among the first targets, raided by investigators wearing balaclavas and toting machine guns, Ann Cooper, a professor emeritus at Columbia University and former Moscow correspondent, wrote in .

NTV’s oligarch owner was arrested and forced to hand over the company to state-controlled oil giant Gazprom before he fled the country.

Another media baron and former Putin ally, Boris Berezovsky, fled threats of criminal prosecution for exile in the United Kingdom and saw his television channel taken over after he sided with the Russian opposition, warning as early as the turn of the century that Putin was putting in place an authoritarian regime.

There are countless other cases, and not only in Russia, where it is today illegal to advocate for LGBTQ rights, criticize the Russian military or speak out against the invasion of Ukraine.

Reporters Without Borders 聽about 90 per cent of Turkey’s media is controlled by the government, while independent journalism is repressed through “almost systematic online censorship, arbitrary lawsuits against critical media outlets and the exploitation of the judicial system.”

And in Hungary, the media industry has been battered by more than a decade of increasing government restrictions and control.

The country’s independent outlets have largely been聽bought out by individuals allied to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling聽Fidesz party and strictly regulated by a powerful Media Council armed with powers to fine and revoke licenses.

Currently, Orban’s government has put forward that would bar Hungarian groups deemed to be a threat to national sovereignty from accepting outside funding, even from the European Union, of which Hungary is a troublesome member.

If it seems like an improbable stretch, or back-to-the-future scaremongering to connect an authoritarian turn two decades ago in post-Communist Russia to the fate of a popular American comedian weighing in controversially on a political killing, consider the case of Ivan Urgant.

The Russian entertainer took to Russia’s state-controlled Channel One in 2012 as the distinctly Kimmelesque host of a popular American-style late-night talk show.

His star was as ascendant as those of his guests: the F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, singer Justin Timberlake, director Denis Villeneuve, and soccer star Zinedine Zidane were among the thousands of famous people to sit on his couch over a decade of shows.

Urgant’s television career came to a screeching 鈥� but not entirely surprising 鈥� end on Feb. 21, 2022. On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he posted an all-black image to his Instagram account with the message: “Fear and pain. No to war.”

He hasn’t been back on Russian television since.