Welcome to the Silent Burning: Free Speech in a Flammable America
Welcome to the Silent Burning: Free Speech in a Flammable America
By Larry Kirchhoff, Owner of All Star Mechanical
Once upon a time in America, a business could run a commercial for a furnace or an air conditioner and feel good knowing the only controversy involved was whether to offer 0% APR or a $500 rebate.
But not anymore. Today, you can sell climate control — just don’t try to control the political climate.
I recently produced two television commercials for my HVAC business, which also happens to proudly promote progressive values. As someone who believes in conscious capitalism — the idea that your spending is your vote — I thought, What better way to connect with like-minded customers than with some creative, slightly satirical, but painfully accurate commercials about where we are in America today?
Here’s what happened.
Two local stations approved my scripts in advance, I then spent $13,500 of my small business budget producing the spots. But once they saw the finished product, something changed. One station ran them for a day, then pulled them. The other got cold feet before even hitting “play.”
The reason? Too hot to handle.
Mind you, these stations regularly air content that would make George Orwell sweat — propaganda disguised as news, rage-bait political ads, and reality TV that’s anything but real. But my commercials? Somehow they crossed a line. Why? Because they held up a mirror.
Commercial #1 parodied the infamous Michigan militia trial — you know, the one where a group of grown men plotted to “hog-tie” the governor? We thought it might be time to laugh, cry, and wince at the absurdity of it all. Spoiler alert: no actual books were burned in the making of the ad.
Commercial #2 depicted a Black man peeking through his blinds to see red-hatted radicals chanting and prepping a cross for burning in his yard. A throwback? Yes. A fever dream? Not really. Just ask Charlottesville.
The ads were bold. Satirical. Honest. And maybe that’s the problem.
See, I’m not the CEO of ExxonMobil or a political PAC with dark money to spend. I’m a guy who fixes furnaces in the winter and installs air conditioners in the summer. I’m a small business owner who believes my community deserves to know that the dollars they spend with me don’t fund hate, bigotry, or insurrection.
But apparently, that’s too controversial.
It wasn’t the public that objected — we didn’t even get that far. It was the gatekeepers. The executives, the lawyers, the shadowy figures who say things like, “We’re just not comfortable,” or “We’re worried about liability,” or “We’re not sure this aligns with our brand.”
You know what else used to not “align with the brand”? Desegregation. Gay marriage. Women’s rights.
What’s happening here isn’t just censorship — it’s corporate cowardice masquerading as neutrality. And neutrality, in the face of rising fascism, is complicity.
We are now in an America where satire is scarier than sedition, and where a small business owner using humor to call out extremism is treated like a threat to the Republic, while actual extremists run for office.
Public airwaves, it turns out, aren’t so public. They belong to the highest bidder with the safest narrative. And satire that offends the wrong people? That doesn’t sell.
But here’s the rub: if we don’t push back, this will become the new normal. This is how authoritarianism wins — not with a bang, but with a polite email from Standards & Practices.
So I’ll keep speaking. I’ll keep fixing furnaces. And I’ll keep reminding people that your dollars have power — and so does your voice.
Because if a commercial for a furnace can shake the pillars of power, maybe it’s time to turn up the heat.
You can find these ads on our website at lansingallstar.com where it will redirect you to our YouTube channel, but while you are at our website, you can see what matters to this business.
