The cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel should set off alarm bells across the continent.

Love him or loathe him, Kimmel didn’t deserve to be axed by his own network. If his ratings were falling, fine—let him sink or swim in front of the audience, not under the weight of some corporate impulse to sanitize the airwaves. Shows should rise and fall on their own merit, not at the whim of executives deciding what the public can handle.

I’ve watched Kimmel, and I’ll admit it: the man was getting long in the tooth. The monologues felt recycled, the outrage performative. It was the same jokes night after night with the audience nodding along like it was gospel. But the point isn’t whether Kimmel was still funny. The point is that late-night talk shows have always been something more than entertainment. They have been cultural touchstones.

For generations, late-night hosts have been our........

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