Was Bill Maher political in the first commentary of the new season of Real Time on HBO? Yes. Was it overly nasty toward Republicans? No. Maher spent most of the time taking shots against those on his side of the aisle. Maher has been going on this route for months now. He takes brutal swings at progressives who have lost the plot in multiple episodes.
Sure, he must hurl a grenade or two into the GOP tent. However, Maher isn’t nearly as creeped out by conservatives as he is by his side, who have fallen for science fiction during COVID, muzzling free speech rights on college campuses, adopted insanity with the pronoun game, and sided with radical Islamic terrorists. His New Rules segment centered on the real battle for the soul of America. It's not Left versus. Right. It’s normal versus crazy.
And his first example of crazy was seeing people driving alone while wearing a mask. He then slammed Republicans for holding a debt ceiling debate, likening it to a meal where the table votes on whether to dine or dash. It then leads to forcing whoever is the Speaker of the House when Republicans are in the majority to take the unavailable dash option and then booting that person when they don’t. Where he would find agreement is his take on Congress: it’s not a deliberative body anymore; it’s a rave without a permit in a burning paint warehouse.
Where you heard audible groans from the audience was when the comedian admitted that we shouldn’t be shocked if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, adding that normal people find it insane that some are trying to prove that he wanted to overturn the 2020 election, while the former president is on the stump saying the courts should have done so. There was also a bit about how it’s ridiculous that Trump supporters adore a man who did not reject becoming a dictator.
I would like to add that Trump said he would only be one for a day. It was also made half in jest, which is something liberals have failed to parse during his presidency. Not everything is literal because Trump isn’t a polished politician, which is part of his appeal. A judge asked Trump’s legal team if they thought the president had the authority to use Seal Team Six to execute their political rivals—the lawyer’s answer: a qualified yes.
Oh, wait, this will become an exclusive anti-Trump segment, right? Nope. Maher felt like the lawyer should have said no, just like how three college presidents should have made such a forceful declaration when asked about their campuses enabling calls for Jewish genocide.
“Can anybody just say f**k no, anymore?”
The battle for the soul of America isn’t right vs. left. It’s normal vs. crazy. pic.twitter.com/xRDMuJpAGT
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) January 20, 2024
Maher then veered into radical Islam, where we wondered if we knew who to root for anymore since we had college kids supporting the Houthis and cheering Hamas after their heinous October 7 attacks against Israel:
A terrorist organization in the Middle East that treats women like slaves invaded Israel last October and shot hundreds of young people at a music festival in the desert. And now America’s streets are full of parades in support of the shooters led by the exact kind of people who would be at a music festival in the desert [Burning Man]. That’s the literal standard for involuntary commitment—when you’re a danger to yourself.
The Houthi slogan is “God is great, death to the U.S., death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.” Maher quipped that all college kids needed to hear to support this band of psychopaths was death to America.
The comedian also noted the insanity surrounding a Lululemon employee who was fired for trying to stop shoplifters juxtaposed with Trump’s shoot-the-looters position, which is a hilarious clip, and wondered if there could be some middle ground found on this.
Is this that hard, asked Maher. Trans people should be respected, but maybe no penises in women’s prisons; legalize pot but stop giving hard drugs to drug addicts; Nikki Haley saying America’s never been racist and leftists declaring America’s made no progress since Amos n’ Andy.
In many ways, Maher took an AR-15 to everything that’s trending because it’s all a little ridiculous, some more than others, but supporting terrorists and embracing virulent antisemitism is a progressives-only activity and an action that makes whatever Donald Trump says on the trail relatively tame.