Comedian Bill Maher recently dined with Donald Trump at the White House (along with the UFC’s Dana White and “singer” Kid Rock) and came away with his mind blown. He described Trump as gracious and “not fake.” He says he found that a crazy person doesn’t live in the White House but a guy who plays a crazy person on TV does.
I’ve been a long time Bill Maher fan, ever since his old show, “Politically Incorrect” on ABC. I’ve watched “Real Time with Bill Maher” since it’s inception. I’ve seen Bill Maher live twice, the second time being just days after Trump won the 2016 election. That comedy show was like a wake with an audience of stunned and horrified liberals and Maher onstage going through the motions, admitting he’d been drinking a lot since the election.
I considered Bill Maher the second best political comedian working behind the incredible Will Durst.
But if you’ve been watching Maher in the last few years you’ve seen a shift in the comedian. He claims he hasn’t changed at all but that’s bullshit. Maher used to treat Trump like the dangerous narcissistic authoritarian con artist he is.
In fact, Bill Maher was one of the early voices saying Trump was never going to leave office. Notice I said “one of.” To hear Maher tell it he was the lone voice out there saying this and he pats himself on the back regularly about it. Lots of us thought he wasn’t going to leave. He was talking about rigged elections before he won the first time, as a way to save face if he lost.
But a funny thing happened between the first Trump term and the second. Bill started taking up Fox News talking points on “wokeness.” And soon after he started receiving praise on Fox and other right wing circles. They labeled him a truth teller. The same guy who used to roast Trump on his show mercilessly, mock the stupidity of his voters and blast MAGA politicians suddenly found himself being lauded by those right wing voices. And Maher liked it. Maher liked having his ego stroked by the other side.
And what helped push him along was an incident in 2017 when Maher had Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska on his show. When Sasse joked that Bill should come to Nebraska and work the fields, Maher joked, “Work in the fields? Senator, I'm a house nigger!" The backlash came fast and furious. Many called for Maher to be fired.
The following week Maher had Michael Eric Dyson, Symone Sanders and rapper Ice Cube on his show. Maher apologized for the remark but what really got under his skin was when Cube said, “It's a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they're a little too familiar. Or, guys that, you know, might have a black girlfriend or two that made them Kool-Aid every now and then, and then they think they can cross the line. And they can’t." Maher had long been linked to black women at that point and you could see that Cube’s words left a mark.
Maher didn’t like being held accountable. I believe he felt betrayed by the liberals who watch his show. I think he felt that he’d been a loyal progressive and should’ve been given an easy pass. Ever since, Maher has raged against cancel culture, wokeism and on several shows took blacks to task for complaining about racism, especially in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, preaching that blacks should be more appreciative of how much progress they’ve made.
This resentment, coupled with the ego stroking he’s been receiving from Fox News has him believing his loving press clippings from the right. He still criticized Trump but it’s been clear for a long time that his stock and trade now is whataboutism and both sides-ism. He likes to see himself as the lone centrist in the country, floating above us all. Can’t we all just get along? The man who spent years stoking the flames of the left, now suddenly wants to be hailed as some middle ground peacemaker.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Bill Maher, along with the rest of us, have watched Donald Trump’s rhetoric and behavior for the last ten years. We’ve seen him mock a disabled reporter, admit to sexual assault on camera, be accused of sexual assault by two dozen women, try to ban Muslims from coming to America, call Mexicans rapists, call African and Central American countries “shithole countries,” separate children from their families, ask his Justice Department to investigate his opponents, try to extort a favor from a foreign president, try to trash the postal service and use fake electors to rig an election, send a mob to stop the count of a lawful election that he spread lies about, pardoned said mob, be impeached twice, steal classified documents and obstruct justice, be held civilly liable for rape, be convicted of 34 felony counts and undermine our democracy and judiciary. Then Maher dines with Trump for two and a half hours and now claims to see the real Trump. Two and a half hours versus ten years.
You got played by a conman, Bill. And you got played because you’ve been seduced by MAGA for years. Trump got exactly what he wanted out of Maher, for Maher to go on his show and report that Trump isn’t crazy. Just misunderstood. And that not dining with him would be like mean girls not letting someone sit at their table. Yeah, he said that.
It would be laughable that a formerly liberal comedian is prostituting himself on behalf of Donald Trump but it’s no laughing matter when Trump 2.0 disappears people off the street and sends them to a foreign prison, threatens to do the same to American citizens, shakes down universities and law firms, pardons his friends, orders investigations into his enemies, is destroying a good economy with moronic tariffs, has a group of hackers combing through Americans’ private information, defies court orders and muses about running for a third term. Fascism has come to America and it’s a shame that Maher, who used to stand for something, is greasing the wheels.
What I used to like about Maher was that in addition to being funny, I appreciated his intellect and judgement. I have to hand it to Trump. When people get into his orbit, he “trumps” them. They lose their judgement. He somehow charms them into bending to his will. We saw it happen with his White House doctor during his first term. We’ve seen people who used to be respected like Bill Barr, turn into Trump’s puppet once he became attorney general. One after another, we’ve seen formerly respected people get close to Trump and throw their self-respect out the window. And now, we’ve seen that even Bill Maher isn’t immune to the flattery of a malignant narcissist.
Finish drinking the Kool Aid, put on the red hat and rebrand your show, “MAGA Time with Bill Maher” you fucking sellout.
