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Adam Carolla is spiraling.
For decades he’s been frozen in surly, unimaginative adolescence, trotting out recycled provocations for a MAGA audience that often mistakes well-worn resentment for wit. In the past few months, his material has become slightly more original, but that’s only because he’s leapt far beyond mere provocation and landed instead in the converging area of obscenity and hate speech.
On Monday, he accused Colin Kaepernick of sporting a “26 foot afro.” Last week, Carolla ranted about Texas Senate candidate James Talarico: “He’s just at The Breakfast Club, so he’s there to chug some black c*ck.” That’s a sentence so graphic it can’t be safely Googled. (Trust me, I tried.) It’s so vulgar that most write-ups of tirade skipped it entirely, focusing instead on comparatively mild assertion that going on The Breakfast Club makes Talarico a “race hustler.” (If targeting your message to a specific demographic audience makes someone a race hustler, Donald “I love the Black population!” Trump is surely one, too.)
In July, Carolla shrugged off the sexual assault accusations made toward former Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner. “This stuff sounds like drunken dude behavior,” Carolla said. “Most every guy I know did what he’s being accused of at one point or another with their girlfriend at some point after a night of drinking.” In my personal experience, the only people who claim that “every guy I know” has engaged in questionably consensual sex are people who have engaged in questionably consensual sex.
If it were still possible to cancel someone, I would nominate Carolla to be cancelled. But it’s hard to cancel a podcaster who owns his own network and caters to a fanbase that’s already eager to slurp up slurs. No, for Carolla to feel the smallest pinch of consequence or understand the harm that he’s done, the only thing left for him to lose is the implied validation of people who know that ignoring misogyny and racism only gives them room to grow. These people do not need to cut Carolla out of their lives; research on pulling extremists out of hate groups suggests that friends can play an important role in confronting and countering misguided beliefs.
There is someone in Carolla’s life perfectly suited to that role: Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel is open and effusive about their thirty-year friendship, forged in the “Man Show” era when they were both indulging in their immaturity. In recent months, he has spoken at Carolla’s Walk of Fame induction and shown up for Carolla’s Vegas comedy set. Kimmel’s only reference to their diverging paths has been to note, “Adam and I, as you probably know, don’t agree much when it comes to politics, but I love him dearly.”
If Kimmel is as good a friend to Carolla as he insists he is, then he should stop palling around with his increasingly unhinged buddy as though their disagreements are merely “political” in some vague technocratic sense. I do not imagine they sit around debating changes in maritime law or the proper marginal tax rate. Speaking warmly about Carolla at his Walk of Fame induction and showing up at Carolla’s stand up is a normal way to support a friend under normal circumstances. But Carolla’s behavior has crossed a line. He doesn’t need someone to stand by him in public, he needs someone to perform an intervention in private
Kimmel’s own perspective has sharpened enough over the years that he would surely spot the problem if it weren’t him: The ability to dismiss bigotry as a mere difference of “politics” is a luxury only the unaffected can afford.
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
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