Jimmy Kimmel's baby may save healthcare for 30 million people

Welcome to 2017, where the American government has ceded its already crumbling moral authority to the former host of The Man Show.

Don't you miss the 2016 election now?

Still, the last few days have produced some of the best material late night television has ever had to offer, and all it's because of former Man Show star, Win Ben Stein's Money co-host, and late night host, Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel has not only taken on the Senate's practically homicidal Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, he's done it without resorting to lies or distortions (how quaint!). He accomplished this by speaking from a place of deep empathy, and by centering on a character that remains untouchable across the political spectrum: his baby.

Back in May, Kimmel's newborn son had to undergo an emergency open-heart surgery. It was this hardship that brought America's perilous healthcare situation into sharp focus for the comedian. And as he's grown more vocal about the issue, he returns to his own child as the impetus for his outspokenness.

That's why every counter-attack by GOP politician and pundits against Kimmel has fallen flat on its face: in the symbolic war between sick babies and man-baby Senators, the sick baby will always win.

By positioning his baby at his monologue's heart and center, he's created the most sympathetic protagonist imaginable and made anyone who opposes that character a hateful antagonist by extension (which, I mean, is accurate). Everyone who attacks Kimmel's position, is essentially attacking his baby.

Not a good position for a politician.

"Before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there’s a good chance you would never be able to get health insurance because you had a pre-existing condition," Kimmel said in May. “If your baby is going to die, and it doesn't have to, it shouldn't matter how much money you make ... we all agree on that, right? I mean, we do!”

When I was a social worker, we talked a lot about "worthy victims" and "unworthy victims." "Unworthy victims" are people a society has collectively decided are victims because of their own poor choices: the poor, victims of sexual assault, the homeless, welfare recipients, people of color, criminals and undocumented immigrants. "Worthy victims," by contrast, are folks that society has deemed sufficiently worthy of empathy (and consequently, of charitable donations) including sick children, the elderly and people with *certain* disabilities.

That doesn't mean that worthy victims are exactly living large in America. Just think of the folks who were cruelly pulled from their wheelchairs by Capitol police while protesting Trumpcare that summer. But it does mean that they, culturally at least, have tremendous worth. I can't think of a stronger symbolic lead than Kimmel's son -- a sick, wealthy kind with a devastating illness -- followed closely by his acerbic father. Is there anything Americans love more than a cynical man, who simultaneously knows his facts and is deeply in touch with his own tenderness?

Of a Fox and Friends host who attacked Kimmel for his monologues, Kimmel had this to say:

"And you know, the reason I’m talking about this is because my son had an open-heart surgery and has to have two more, and because of that, I’ve learned that there are kids with no insurance in the same situation,” Kimmel said. “I don’t get anything out of this, Brian [Kilmeade], you phony little creep. Oh, I’ll pound you when I see you."

Just look at how these Republican politicians and pundits tiptoed around his attacks, especially as they relate to Kimmy's son, and relied on the tired excuse than Kimmel wasn't smart enough to analyze the bill because's he's a late night comedian.

Remember: these folks voted for a man who recently made up an African country in front of Africans and didn't realize that Frederick Douglass was dead, so we're not exactly dealing with "wonks" here.

All late night comedians have in some ways impacted culture and by extension, politics, but Kimmel might become the first late night politicians to have an immediate, substantive impact on policy. There's a Jimmy Kimmel test Senator Cassidy once told Congress it has to pass. Kimmel even ended his monologue with a screen full of Senator's phone numbers, amplifying his personal story and turning it into collective action.

Babies work. There's a reason why every politician is required to take a photo with them at some point in their campaign. There's a reason why political ads that include children, like this one of Hillary's, are far more effective than those that feature rehabilitated criminal -- even though both would be endangered by Graham-Cassidy. Kimmel even admitted that he was "politicizing his baby" for the greater good.

Doing anything that might directly harm babies is one the last moral lines we have around these broken parts. Let's see if one man's 13-minute monologues are powerful enough to keep us from crossing it.