Charlatans like Kimmel, Fuentes have something in common — rage bait

What do lefty late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and vile streamer Nick Fuentes have in common?

Both have learned that the best way to get attention in today’s world is to play on emotions, using the most extreme rhetoric possible to get a rise out of their audience and keep them coming back for more.

Delivering an “alternative Christmas message” to Brits on BBC’s Channel 4, Kimmel doubled-down on his Trump hate and fearmongered about “fascism” to his foreign viewers, snarking that “tyranny is booming over here.”

Jimmy Kimmel speaks onstage during the 96th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, on March 10, 2024. AFP via Getty Images

He also baldly lied, claiming his boot from ABC was President Donald Trump’s revenge for not adoring him “in the way he likes to be adored” — when the true cause for his show being yanked was his casual cruelty and misinformation-spreading following the murder of Charlie Kirk.

He knows that, and his left-leaning fans do, too, but the facts don’t matter when the goal is whipping folks into a frenzy.

Kimmel’s one-liners (“From a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year!”) are outrageous bunk, but they provoke a strong reaction — from both sides of the aisle.

Which is exactly what online algorithms, from Instagram to TikTok to X, reward.

In that way, Kimmel understands the online media cesspit the same way as professional hate-pusher Fuentes; a man who rose to fame by shamelessly promoting racism, misogyny and antisemitism in his purposefully offensive diatribes.

There’s a reason “rage bait” was Oxford English Dictionary’s 2025 word of the year — algorithms don’t care about what’s true or whether the content that goes viral is good for societal health; their purpose is to keep people logged in, endlessly scrolling and engaging.

Nick Fuentes holds a rally at the Lansing Capitol, in Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020. AP

The best way to do that is by triggering an emotional response, and nothing gets people’s blood pumping like outlandish, inflammatory political statements.

And so people are liking, reposting and commenting on content that thrills, enrages, radicalizes and divides them — while shrewd performers capitalize on the madness to boost their own profiles.

Of course, Kimmel doesn’t really think the United States is a fascist state; otherwise he’d be doing a lot more than joking in front of a camera.

Discerning Americans should assume Fuentes is being just as cynical, as he hypes Hitler and praises Russia and Iran.

Nor is it just Fuentes and Kimmel.

On the left, hucksters like Joy Reid, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas) and others resort to similar strategies, though the right has its provocateurs, too.

These charlatans are all hawking rubbish that they themselves don’t even believe; their relevance relies entirely on other people buying in.

And when folks do fall for such bait, and let it arouse their rage, as it was meant to, the nation itself becomes more divided.

Anger escalates — and so does, all too often, violence.

Americans shouldn’t be fooled.

Don’t let yourself be manipulated by cynics aiming to monetize your fury and promote themselves at the expense of truth, civility and national unity.

The best thing Americans could do, for their sanity and their country, is to give them the attention they deserve: none.