Well, that was fast. Jimmy Kimmel is returning to your televisions tonight, after what will ultimately have been a suspension of less than a week. 

Disney said in a statement: “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” 

One wonders whether Kimmel will suitably address the misinformation that he spread about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 

Democrats, liberals and the mainstream media love to pretend that we have a big misinformation problem in this country — and it’s all the fault of Republicans spreading conspiracy theories, junk science and other lies on social media. We are told that progressive Democrats, on the other hand, are honest people who trust what the experts say and form conclusions based on reason and logic, unlike the pro-Trump MAGA cult. 

That’s why I’m always amused when we are presented with a high-profile example of a liberal Democratic commentator gleefully asserting something that is flat-out wrong, as Kimmel did last week on his late-night show. 

Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” was trying desperately to deny that the 22-year-old Utah man, Tyler Robinson, who allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk was not one of them; in other words, he falsely implied the killer was right-wing, or motivated by rightwing dislike of Charlie Kirk. But we know that’s not true. The suspect’s family and friends described him as increasingly left leaning, particularly on issues of gender (Robinson was living with, and reportedly dating, a male roommate who was transitioning to a woman), and Robinson himself said of Kirk, “I’ve had enough of his hatred.”  

If you think Charlie Kirk — one of the best-known conservative speakers in the country — was too hateful and thus had to die, then you are left-leaning, almost by definition. 

But here’s what I wanted to mention today: It’s not just Kimmel who misinformed his audience by promoting this falsehood about the shooter. A huge chunk of self-identified Democrats also believe the lie. 

That’s according to polling from YouGov, which found that Democrats were more likely to believe that right-wing views had motivated the shooter than left-wing views. 10 percent of Democratic respondents thought the killer was left-wing, 33 percent thought he was right-wing, 20 percent thought he was motivated by something other than politics, and 37 percent said they weren’t sure. 

To be fair, “not sure” is a perfectly valid response, and “something other than politics” is probably incorrect but maybe not explicitly disproven. But 33 percent of them said the shooter was right-wing, and just 10 percent said he was left-wing! That’s a healthy dose of misinformation. (Hat tip to my friend Ben Domenech for noticing this poll and calling it to my attention.) 

Now, I don’t think it’s some catastrophic crisis when a large chunk of the populace is misinformed about something, but Democrats certainly do. Remember all the efforts during the Biden administration, and during the COVID pandemic, and during the debunked Russiagate hoax, to say that misinformation on social media was a cataclysmic problem, necessitating government involvement? Remember when prominent right-wing dissenters were labelled Disinfo Superspreaders? Remember when conservative news site were secretly blacklisted at the behest of state-funded disinformation research groups?  

Those efforts were pushed by Democrats, and by Democratic administrations. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and liberals are really mad that Kimmel is facing the kind of consequences for spreading misinformation that they themselves advocated. They reaped, and now they sow. 

Of course, the best thing to do now would be to mutually stand down, reassert basic free speech norms, and promise not to purge dissenting or incorrect opinions from the internet. Because it’s not just Republicans or Democrats who have them: Everybody is wrong about something.  

We’ll be watching to see if Kimmel addresses his error on the show. 

Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.