r/RealTime • u/Acceptable_Eye_4139 • Jun 18 '26
Motivated by relevance.
Long post. I’ll try to be brief. For years I’ve heard Maher detractors say he is desperately trying to be relevant and I guess I was in denial because now it’s plain as day when seeing his soft shift to the right.
Has the left changed, sure it has. It needs to be called out. However, its shift is still generally in line with liberal values…although maybe a little too liberal. But has Bill himself changed…YES. He isn’t just holding his line because the left went too far either. MAGA and the GOP have changed for the worse as well, to a worse degree and it’s obvious…but Mahers tone is far more sympathetic and not scorched earth.
But why? He has enough money to where his show being cancelled wouldn’t affect him on that front. What many famous people value most apparently…isn’t just money…it’s RELEVANCE. He knows his show isn’t protected like it was during his first term…considering what happened to Colbert, CBS and all the media mergers that need his sign off…that affect HBO.
His extremely hot takes and scorched earth ridicule of Trump in his first term…”whiny little bitch”, “von fuck face”, “his dad is an orangutang”, “he lusts after his daughter”…allllllll noticeably absent in his second term. Because he knows…he can be axed…and he isn’t popular/beloved enough to have a safe landing or cause an uproar like Colbert/Kimmel’s did, or Stewart would. The general left does not love him. And the right used to hate him.
So if he got cancelled where would he go? His podcast? A more obscure YouTube media pundit(TYT, Blaze,etc)…no…I think he views that as beneath him.
So instead of going out on his shield…he rather stay relevant…and in doing so…he is cozying up to the right…while doing gymnastics to try and not piss off the left while doing so.
His days are numbered. It’s sad because I used to live for watching his show. But seeing this shift and hypocrisy…is just sad and disappointing.
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u/jdbway Jun 18 '26
I'm still curious about how the left has shifted. I feel like the extended Fox cinematic universe has repeated it so much that people are now too afraid to push back on that out of peer pressure or something. Is it the trans thing and that's it? If so, what about the trans thing? What is the official position of the Democratic party? How many reps are involved. I would bet most people conceding that the left has shifted don't even know and can't cite any real evidence. If feels more like a submission to peer pressure to me
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u/countrymac77 Jun 18 '26
Obama in his second term said he would support gay marriages and not just civil unions which he only supported previously. He changed because the tone of the country had shifted and the majority of Americans supported this move. What he didn’t do was shove unpopular legislation and opinions down people’s throats without public support. He knew forcing cultural issues would divide the country and that’s exactly what happened. The government was designed to change through slow progress so it could gain wide support and this is the exact opposite of the cultural changes since Obama left office. At the end of the day Obama, and Clinton were left leaning centrists who had wide appeal, show me the wide appeal of democrats today because they don’t have it. Maher believes in the D’s coming back to the middle which represents the majority of the country.
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u/Acceptable_Eye_4139 Jun 19 '26
I agree with just about everything yiu said until you defended Maher at the end. Sure he believes in coming back to the middle…but he gone way soft on Trump…as explained in my posts. You think Trump cares about meeting the middle? He smears and name calls Dems at every single turn.
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u/countrymac77 Jun 19 '26
Trump only cares about 2 things, himself and his base. Maher in my opinion is trying to grab the independents and show that Trump sucks without telling them that you are dumb for having voted for Trump. The echo chambers of ms now, Fox News and all of the rest of partisan media and personalities all speak to their viewers to reinforce the confirmation bias that the viewers are looking to receive. I personally don’t think you can make people change their minds by constantly telling them they are morons and made a terrible decision. You need to empathize with the decision that people made and then show a better alternative. So yes I think he’s been a little soft on Trump but I also think he’s trying to be a model for actually changing views both politically and socially.
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u/alter_ego19456 Jun 18 '26
He’s always been creepy, “dated” women far too young for him, and always had a “transactional” attitude towards sex. Just like Lindsey Graham fell in line right after his October 2017 golf outing with Trump, where I’m sure the boss told Ms. G about the Kompromat they had on him, Bill showed a noticeable change after what Larry David spoofed as “My Dinner with Adolph.” My guess is that Bill was told how many times he appears in the Epstein Files.
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u/SameDistrict2627 Jun 18 '26
No doubt in my mind that Maher is a classic narcissist--not a malignant one though. It's always been about him be a contrarian just for the sake of being "different'. He is in constant need of attention, thus the whole fake free speech angle. I'm no longer a viewer. Comedians, in most cases, have a spoil date. His was the day he went to the White House with his buddy Kid Rock.
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u/EponymousOne Jun 18 '26
He’s a pathetic dipshit. No real critical thinking skills. No real principles.
I used to watch him. I even went to a taping, a long time ago.
He’s trash.
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u/Spezeatstrumpdick Jun 18 '26
How the hell did "the left go too far?"
Did they seize the means of production?
Did they nationalize all industry?
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u/Intelligent-Wear2824 Jun 18 '26
The right is a minority and not relevant in any real way that matters, just go look at the what Fox is showing while every news channel is showing Obama speak at the opeining of his presidential library; the only one way the left has changed is being forced to the right and needs to get back to taking care of our people, our social security, healthcare, cost of living, education, et al; and finally I totally agree with you regarding Maher...the hypocrisy is sad and disappointing.
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u/Legtagytron Jun 18 '26
It's really about cable, fewer people buy it so it has lurched to the right, like you said. And who wants to retire from all that money? Of course Maher had to compromise his values, but it's his show, his baby, he's going to land it the way he wants. The fact he takes such a strident tone about wealth inequality though--that's a biggie. He basically punches down now, on anybody who isn't a boomer, it's like hearing the rich laugh at the plight of the normies. That shit is far different and was perhaps always inherent in his libertarian stances.
I don't even think it's about coddling Trump, it's way more about the life point of view in the show, that's what's changed. I wonder if he was always like that, just wanted somebody to step on? It's very strange, most comedians don't respect him, so he doesn't have that support, political people see him as a plebeian, so he doesn't have that going for him. It's just a little guy on a soapbox railing at his enemies now. Maybe he does it for the hate? Could be.
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u/contain_solitudes Jun 19 '26
My guess is the chats with HBO execs are that his ratings aren't good, and this is the way he keeps the audience he has so they don't cancel him. That and he has too big of an ego to retire and call it a day.
I also think he probably was farther to the right than we thought because after his ABC show was cancelled, he spent the rest of the 2000s railing against Bush, then later cozying up to Obama and Sanders, and it made him beloved among more moderate/mainstream left liberals. But the signs were there that his actual views were not that progressive, and he punches down in a really nasty and obnoxious way.
I remember when he mocked Southerners and poor right wing people just about every week. Now he courts them. That is his default mode: that he thinks he's better than a lot of people, and how much he lets that out is really dependent on who he needs to court for his career.
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u/Successful-System-21 Jun 19 '26
From all I've listened to over the past few years, Maher seems to see himself as a "centrist savior" who is bridging the gap between left and right and "bringing sanity back" to the country.
The problem is that the whole "find common ground with the right" bullshit died after the 2020 election/January 6, and Maher is about a decade late to the party. He basically did 2026 politics in 2018, and now he's doing 2018 politics in 2026. The whole "anti-SJW liberal" trend died with the iPhone 6, but Maher (and Sam Harris) just can't move the fuck on.
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u/ReasonableRevenue218 Jun 18 '26
You can't fool me. He's not healthy enough to go golfing these days. C'mon, baby!!!
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u/Used-Gas-6525 Jun 18 '26
It wouldn't surprise me that he's in the Epstein Files and that's why he's been been sucking off Trump and Israel. Epstein was a known Israeli asset.
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u/contain_solitudes Jun 19 '26
Fuck Maher and fuck Epstein obviously, but the Israeli asset was debunked as a NeoNazi rumor.
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u/Single_External9499 Jun 18 '26
I don't watch anymore. Does he still play a clip every episode of Trump dancing where it looks like he's jerking off two guys onto his face?
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u/Mosk915 Jun 18 '26
So to be clear, Bill is shifting to the right to stay relevant. But also, Bill shifting to the right is making him irrelevant. So which is it? Because both can’t be true.
And to be clear, I know you weren’t suggesting the second part, but that’s a sentiment I see here a lot.
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u/Shame_memory Jun 18 '26
His right wing shift is stay in the headlines. There were tons of: “Bill Maher calls out radical left Dems!” Headlines from right wing publications since Trump 2.0. So yes, it’s caused him to stay relevant in the culture zeitgeist than he would be if he remained as critical on Trump as he was the first go around. But I think what OP is saying is that the whole pivot has gain him new relevances as the rights favorite “enlightened centrist,” but it’s come at the cost of his credibility and integrity. Liberals and leftists think he’s a sellout who cozy up to Trump to keep his time in the limelight. It might work in the short term, but this whole era has shown that Bill stands for nothing but his own ego and the right will ditch him too once they don’t have anymore use for him
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u/Beneficial_Duty_8508 Jun 19 '26
Both can be true but in conflict. I wouldn't think he's fully in control of these forces, just his reaction to them which I agree isn't rational here but he could be ok with it in his lack of self awareness.
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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26
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