Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time,” is a freethinker, despite leaning heavily to the left on a number of issues facing the country. What I mean by that is he comes to his own conclusions based on his own worldview, rather than going along with the groupthink of the radical left and the Democratic Party. Thus, he engages what liberals do on a case-by-case basis and really tries to look at the facts on certain things. Well, much more so than most progressives anyway.
Maher recently spoke with CNN host Fareed Zakaria where he stated what we’ve all been thinking about the vast majority of ideas cooked up by the left: They’re stupid.
The comments were made while the popular host was promoting his new book, “What THis Comedian Said Will Shock You.”
Here’s more from The Daily Wire:
Zakaria noted that in the book, Maher wrote, “Some people think I’ve changed. I assure you I have not. I’m still the same unmarried, childless, pot-smoking libertine I always was. I have many flaws, but you can’t accuse me of maturing.” He asked what Maher would say to people who say they love him but that he’s become “cranky” and “crotchety,” that he has become one of those old guys who says “the kids are crazy.”
“They’re wrong, “ Maher the plain speaking host, stated. “I mean, they’re wrong and the kids are crazy. It’s interesting, they have this idea the younger generation, maybe every generation does, that just because something is new makes it better and that’s not true. New is not synonymous with better.”
“You’re just sounding like an old-fashioned conservative,” Zakaria lobbed at Maher.
“I heard a couple of people say, or maybe they wrote it online that, well, I’m a hypocrite because you were for the demonstrators in 1968 or whatever it was when they were demonstrating against the Vietnam War,” Maher explained during the segment. “Yes, that was very different. First of all, the students weren’t against their own. These students were threatening other students. That didn’t happen in the Vietnam War. And being against the Vietnam War made sense. It was a war that we probably should not have been in. … This is demonstrating and protesting for a terrorist group, I mean, Hamas is –”
“Well, to be fair, a lot of students — there were a lot of outside, you know, people have mixed together what students are doing, what outside protesters are doing,” Zakaria butted in. “But let me ask you a broader question, which is, a lot of people will say, look, this is how you get change. You — it’s noisy. Some people say the wrong thing. Some people go too far. But the whole tradition of this kind of expansion of rights, it’s messy, it’s chaotic.”
“You know, yes, we’re — you know, there’s probably a bunch of excesses as there were probably was in the ’60s,” Zakaria added during the interview with Maher. “There was the Black Panthers and the Weathermen and things like that. But they think of you as somebody who was, you know, you were okay with all that, but you’ve turned.”
Maher responded to the comment by saying he hasn’t turned, noting that people have accused him of poking fun of the left a lot more in recent times than he used, which he said he’s definitely guilty of doing. However, the reason he’s taken that road is because the left has changed in significant ways.
He then turned the conversation and launched an attack on conservatives, particularly former President Donald Trump, saying, “Now, the Right has changed also, and even worse. I mean, the right doesn’t believe in democracy anymore. I mean, they’ve thrown their lot in with the sociopath named Donald Trump, who only thinks elections count when we win. Okay, well, that’s worse.”
“But it’s not like the Left hasn’t changed also,” he admitted. “So I’m going to call it out wherever I see it. I mean, there are things that have to do with, you know, gender and race and free speech, and just ideas about, you know, you can be healthy at any weight and gender is always a social construct and maybe we should give communism another try and maybe we should get rid of capitalism and the Border Patrol. And let’s tear down statues of Lincoln and get rid of the police. Just, you know, know, no. It’s not that I’ve gotten old, it’s that your ideas are stupid.”
Maher then discussed former President Ronald Reagan, recalling how the Gipper used to sit down for a drink at the end of the day with Tip O’Neill, a Democrat. He noted how they maintained a friendship despite political differences. They didn’t hate each other, which is common today.
“They could drink together. That is inconceivable today. Can you imagine Joe Biden having a drink with Mike Johnson? It just would never happen. When you hate people, you don’t listen to them. So, it doesn’t matter how reasonable they might be,” Maher said.
“We have reached this place where each side thinks the other side is an existential threat. You hear that term from both sides all the time. That is just a terrible place to be. Because we find ourselves in this situation where both sides are literally siding with enemies of America rather than the opposition party within the country,” the comedian added at the end of the discussion.
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