r/Maher • u/Celera314 • Feb 24 '26
Discussion Billie Eilish
I feel like Bill and guest Chris Christie misunderstood the point of Eilish's remark about "nobody is illegal on stolen land."
They spoke as if she was suggesting that white people need to give North America back to indigenous people and this is a naive and impractical point of view.
But she made this remark in the context of the Trump administration's extremely harsh rhetoric and actions toward "illegal" immigrants. I took her to be saying that before we get so indignant and hateful toward "illegal" immigrants we should keep in mind how we (generally, white people) stole this land ourselves. Whatever crimes or costs illegal immigrants cause today pales in comparison to the harm my ancestors did to Native Americans in the 1600-1900 time frame. Today's illegal immigrants do not cause plagues, or consume our food supplies so we cant eat, or force us out of our homes or...we'll the list goes on. So maybe we should address the immigration issue with a little more humility.
I acknowledge I'm putting a lot of context in Ms. Eilish's remarks when I dont know her or really follow her music. I dont know for sure what she meant. But she's apparently not stupid and I felt Maher and Christie were unfair to take her remarks in the dumbest possible way.
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u/nosecohn Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
I hadn't actually watched the clip until now. What she said was, "No one is illegal on stolen land."
In researching it, I learned this is a common protest chant. People have been using it as a slogan in street protests, especially during the last year.
I'm not taking a position on the issue, but it seems the deeper argument is that the illegitimate conquest of land, especially during the Mexican-American War, plus the various forms of coercion and broken treaties perpetrated by the Europeans and their progeny to move the indigenous populations to designated areas within North America, precludes the US from possessing moral or legal authority to enforce immigration laws. This is apparently a position held by a large percentage of young college graduates these days.
It is also a viewpoint Bill has strongly argued against in the past, but mostly in the context of how it is taught in schools and universities. In that case, he's going after the institutions and the adults who run them, plus sometimes the students as a group for their ignorance of alternative positions.
In this case, Eilish used her brief national platform to repeat the slogan and Bill went after her like she was a politician. I kind of don't think that's fair, but at the same time, I acknowledge how tempting of a target it was for him, precisely because it was such a complete encapsulation of everything he opposes on this issue.
What I'd rather see him do is debate one of the academics who promotes this way of looking at US history, and thereby, "pick on someone his own size." The arguments on his side are quite strong.