Bill Maher’s November 10 episode was another shocker, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) dropping in for an interview, where the two men found agreement. Yes, you read that, right? The two couldn’t be further apart on politics, but there was an area where agreement could be found. If you’ve followed the insanity of the Left and Maher’s utter disgust toward it, you’d know it by now: the illiberal drivel from cultural Marxists.
How appropriate that Maher invited the Texas Republican who wrote a new book about it. I’ve watched Bill Maher since high school, being one of a few liberals who I followed to get the other side—all of whom would be smeared as ‘conservative’ today by left-wingers because they’re not into the pronoun game. Maher, most of all, is not one to kowtow to these insane social protocols. The comedian apologized to Cruz for past jokes about him while reiterating his long-held belief that he hasn’t changed—his party has. That would be correct. The Maher of 2005 is just as funny and unabashedly liberal (though he used to describe himself as libertarian) as he is today (via Deadline):
Oil and water. Oscar and Felix. Entering tonight’s Real Time, you’d expect Sen. Ted Cruz and Bill Maher to fit into that “don’t mix” category.
You’d be wrong, for the most part. Although they sparred at times, the two political opposites found that they were often on the same page.
Cruz is out supporting his new book, Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America, and surprisingly admitted his admiration for the “old-school liberal” Maher, who Cruz said was “funny as hell” and “believes in free speech.”
[…]
Maher seemed taken aback. “I feel really bad about the jokes I did about you,” he said. He acknowledged he is often accused of slowly getting more conservative, basically because he refuses to “bend the knee” to the more “crazy train” ideas of the left.
Cruz said that the “echo chambers” that people create are troubling. “If you watch Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity,” he said, the result is “not good for America that we don’t talk to each other.”
Maher asked Cruz how he defines “woke.”
“It’s intertwined with cultural Marxism, Cruz said, blaming major institutions that have been captured by the extreme left,” starting with universities.
Universities were a target of Maher’s new rules amid the Israel-Hamas war, noting they’ve become epicenters for abject stupidity and anti-Israel hatred, the latter being almost a prerequisite to join the progressive Left.
Things got confrontational about the 2020 election, where Maher tried to get an election-denier debate going. Cruz pointed out that he felt funny business occurred, which Maher pushed back heavily, citing numerous court decisions and a strong bipartisan consensus that 2020 was fair. Cruz brought up past Democrats protesting the certification of the 2000, 2004, and 2016 results. Cruz did well to expose Maher’s double standard. However, Maher added that in all three instances—the Democrat finally conceded despite purportedly having substantial evidence to continue the legal fight to recount votes. Maher even brought up Nixon in 1960, where some dirty Kennedy politicking skewed some key precincts in Cook County and elsewhere.
Yet, even when things got heated, both men could still have a discussion, which the Left is not interested in anymore.
