Comedian Bill Maher is no conservative, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Maher has veered off the liberal path on Islamic extremism, admitted that his side doesn’t know anything about firearms regarding Second Amendment issues, and unapologetically points out the false equivalence between Christian and Islamic-inspired terror attacks.
With the 2016 election over and President Donald J. Trump now in the White House, Maher has some advice for how liberals can win: stop being politically correct. Granted, I hope liberals continue with their insufferable ethos of trigger warnings and safe spaces, so we can undo the damage done by the Obama presidency—but I think we can all agree that the authoritarian agenda of political correctness is a cancer on the nation.
[Editor's Note: some strong language]
Maher went into his usual New Rules segment on his HBO show Real Time, where he ripped his side for getting angry at things that don’t matter, specifically voicing outrage on behalf of people who themselves are not offended.
“You know that whole controversy about the name Washington Redskins; they did a survey nine out of ten actual Indians don’t give a shit,” said Maher. The HBO host named instances, where the PC police called out Chris Hemsworth, Justin Timberlake, Steve Martin, and Hillary Duff for being culturally insensitive, calling the late Carrie Fisher beautiful and witty, or wearing a Halloween costume deemed racist. The Carrie Fisher incident is not a joke. Steve Martin said that when he first saw Fisher, he thought she was beautiful and turned out to be “witty and bright as well.” He was forced to take that down during the international shock of the Star Wars star’s death because apparently looks aren’t everything. Duff and Hemsworth were caught wearing Indian costumes at Halloween parties.
Justin Timberlake faced torches and pitchforks for tweeting words of support for actor Jesse Williams’ BET speech. Williams had won the 2016 Humanitarian Award spoke about cultural appropriation, which Timberlake responded that he was inspired via Twitter. He got raked over the coals for no reason. And that’s the point Maher is making. None of these things matter.
“What matters is that while you self-involved fools were busy policing the language at the Kids Choice Awards, a madman talked his way into the White House,” he said.
Of course, I don’t agree with the latter part, but as Maher closed his segment, he noted that while liberals were complaining about nonsense, “the Tea Party was taking over school boards. Stop protecting your virgin ears and start noticing you’re getting f*cked in the ass!”
He also said that the public was with the Democrats on the environment, raising the minimum wage, sensible gun laws (that’s debatable), path to citizenship, and abortion rights. Why don’t they win?
Well, there are many. One is that they apologize too much, which is true, as noted from the examples above. The second is that “Democrats remind people of a man who has taken his balls out and placed them in his wife’s purse.”
As for cultural appropriation, Maher took that to the woodshed as well since it’s inherently anti-American.
“That’s the idea that white people shouldn’t adopt things from other ethnic groups, how dare you mix and match cultures to produce something new; where do you think you are some kind of melting pot?” he said.
The point is that Maher is against political correctness, where we can find common ground, and he says that this mindset is what keeps liberals from conducting effective outreach—which is true. Working class voters felt that the Democrats cared more about transgender bathrooms than job creation, hence they broke for Trump. These are the very people Democrats need to reconnect with if they want to win again. Yet, unlike Trump, Maher’s reach isn’t that extensive. I’m pretty sure most progressives will scoff and be offended. Maher says he was offensive, and baited his fellow liberals to come after him so he can tell them to “go f**k themselves.”
Even on the left, it seems the road out of the wilderness rests with those who are not politicians.