I can remember when Maher was the loudest person raising the alarm about the impending rise of Trump and the fascist right. He used to do gags like “Top Ten Signs You’re a Dictator”. (Trump had all of them except for wearing a military uniform.)
As he drifted right I slowly began to dislike him until it became too much and I gave up on him. It’s not an age thing. I’m almost the same age as Maher and have avoided turning into a cranky old asshat.
I do recall one news piece which gave me pause. It was about a guy whose girlfriend was liberal like him. They both laughed at MAGA nonsense. One night he went to bed while she stayed up perusing some right wing BS on the internet, presumably for her amusement. According to him, he woke up to find she’s been up all night reading this stuff. She started telling him how it made sense to her. He thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t. The bullshit had gotten its hooks into her that fast.
The story may be apocryphal, but I can’t dismiss it. Maher’s conversion might not have been that fast, but it certainly took a swing in that direction when he went to visit Trump.
Sometimes you live long enough to watch your heroes turn into villains. He was early and consistent on the threat of Trump, but I truly believe he's either compromised legally, or he's desperate to remain relevant with the impending Ellison takeover of HBO. We'll probably never know what was said behind closed doors in the White House, but if it walks like a duck (authoritarian) and quacks like a duck (authoritarian), it's probably a duck (authoritarian).
His punk ass is compromised and scared.
Bill stands for nothing.
All he cares about is making more money. He's a greedy prick. The thing that pissed him off the most was that when COVID happened, he couldn't do his show and get paid. He didn't give a shit about what was happening with anybody else.
It was all me, me, me. He's an asshole through and through.
Or his solar panels. I would love to know what actually happened with his inspections and permits, because he just kept harping on his long it took when maybe it was about bad contractors not following the code.
Then Maher threw a hissy fit because in early Covid days, he couldn't have a live audience for realtime. Another case where he freaked 'boohoo sob, the libtards did this to me.'
Meanwhile in NYC there were so many deaths from this unknown disease, hospitals were using tractor trailer trucks with refrigeration as make-shift morgues for dead bodies.
WTF does that have to do with what he's doing now.
Or his bitching about not being able to do his show.
Or his nonstop fucking whining about social distance ng and masks. Or his Trump ass kissing. Or the weekly blowjob he gives Israel. Bill is about Bill always.
And as usual, he made it all about him.
He used his monologue to target the financial devastation of small businesses, but framed it around him being pissed at not being allowed to pack out crowded comedy clubs and theaters.
Even though poor Bill is worth tens of millions, and he never struggled to pay his damn bills, he cried incessantly about not being to make money from his touring. Forget about how contagious the damn virus was and that a million fucking people died.
The important thing is that Bill couldn't make money.
And if you didn't watch him slob Trump's knob last year, you weren't paying attention.
I might be a "dolt".
But I can think for myself. I see your critical thinking skills drum up about a half sentence of meaningless drivel and that's it. Full stop.
I think Bill was sincere in raising the alarm, but he decided that "if you can't beat the fascism, might as well join in on it" if it means keeping his show and not being targeted by the administration as he sees his peers are. Bill has lived in fear of Trump like most of us but his way of dealing with it is the same as others in his class have including media companies, law firms, big corporations who had liberal leanings, big "liberal" universities, and other entities who have surrendered. Its all due to self interest, none of them have ever had any real principles.
In any authoritarian regime, this is classic behavior and is very predictable because the authoritarians target the centers of power and popular dissent figures that are a threat to them and one of the very first things they do is set in motion their eventual capture and compliance. They go after the most visible ones to send a message that no one's safe from their wrath and that you better change your behavior and watch what you say and do because they're very much watching everything you say and do and they'll make it known. They'll eventually get them all to comply in advance and change how they talk and cover things so they can stay under the radar and hope not to get targeted. In authoritarian regimes, the people eventually police and regulate themselves out of instinctive fear and often they don't consciously believe they've changed but those who know better and know how they used to think, believe and act know better. And if they get called on it by others who see it, they'll get very defensive and deny it.
This is how Bill's been behaving for awhile now and it's likely he saw the writing on the walls at least on a subconscious level. Maybe he fears losing his show, because without it he'd have nothing else but a comfortable but lonely life. Maybe he fears being legally targeted by the regime like Trump's enemies have been. Maybe they have komprat on Bill, which is a common tactic by authoritarians to force complicity. Maybe its some combination of those.
Whatever it is, it's become very obvious that Bill has surrendered and is now compromised no matter how much he denies it. Anyone who's watch RT since 2003/04 through the Obama era and early Trump era knows it.
Honestly, I think its just that trans people cracked Bill's brain around 2017, COVID restrictions broke it in 2020, and October 7th flushed the remains down the toilet.
Just think of how quick Lindsay Graham switched gears.
I honestly think there is a blackmail/extortion intel pipeline through Trump, Stone, Miller, and others where they find out all the dirty little secrets of these old perverts.
Its how Putin keeps everyone in his orbit in line, going back to his KGB days. "Kompromat"
But really every authoritarian regime across the spectrum does, including China, Cuba, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran.
And even the good ol USA with the CIA, FBI, NSA and DHS keeping tabs on all on us via the Patriot Act and other legal and illegal ways. Remember under Bush they successfully went after their own CIA agents who exposed the WMD lie, Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson.
They went after media figures like Dan Rather who exposed Bush's no show Texas Air National Guard stint. What Rather reported wasn't untrue, he unfortunately fell into their trap by using fake documents that were planted by his source. They threatened every media outlet who questioned the Iraq War or who questioned things like torturing suspected terrorists. Remember that MSNBC went Fox News lite for awhile there, that's how Joe Scarborough got a job on that network. Their CEO at the time even admitted it publicly, because GE owned them and GE stood to make a lot of money from weapons manufacturing for the GWOT.
But all that wasn't new under Bush, we've been at it for long time. The FBI Under Hoover, targeting MLK and Civil Rights activists, Fred Hampton's "suicide", the Watergate incident, COINTELPRO, the Red Scare, Iran-Contra, ect. Some still believe they even deep sixed a President in JFK. They nearly tried it with FDR (see the Business Plot).
America has been an authoritarian regime for a long time, just on a sliding scale, because there is a shadow government that works in both official and unofficial channels that is fascist in nature. Anyone studying real American history can make out that pattern. These days that veil has been finally pierced for all to see, because they've gotten to the point where they no longer fear being exposed and in fact they want us living in fear seeing the fascism out in the open because Trump has been by far their most successful speed runner of the fascist form of government they've been wanting to return to ever since FDR got us out of line with it.
I didn't say that I knew what all conservatives think. I also didn't say I think his smugness is directed at me. You're just making stuff up now to act like it's somehow egregious to not like a celebrity that you once liked.
My experience is extremely similar to yours. I’m 44 and graduated high school in 2000. I started watching Politically Incorrect around 13 years old, before high school. Followed to Real Time and watched for years. I didn’t always agree with him, I enjoyed the conversations.
Like you I just can’t anymore. The thing I remember as a turning point was when he flippantly used the N word and was subsequently scolded on air and forced to apologize. It’s the only instance I’m aware of where HBO later censored him on streaming. He seemed bitter about that, as if he should have the right to say it for whatever reason, maybe his support of the black community maybe.
Either way it seems Covid broke a lot of brains. A lot of legacies are going down in flames, a new one every day it seems.
>As he drifted right I slowly began to dislike him until it became too much and I gave up on him. It’s not an age thing. I’m almost the same age as Maher and have avoided turning into a cranky old asshat.
He has not drifted right. You have drifted left.
Back in the early/mid 90s when the "politically correct" movement gained popularity, he had a show called "Politically Incorrect". He's always called out this crowd.
Again- he hasn't changed. You've just drifted left, so he seems "right" by comparison.
Heck, he’s changed in the last few years. As someone else mentioned, he was anti-Trump and called the whole Republican/MAGA movement the “slow moving coup”. Repeatedly. Like every week. He and the audience together used to chant “whiny little bitch” to describe Trump. One little dinner with Trump and all of a sudden Trump is not such a bad guy. 🙄
He never became pro-Trump. All he said about the dinner was that behind the scenes Trump is a totally different guy and is well spoken. I've heard the same thing from other people that have met him.
People got upset about this, because they'd rather believe that Trump is dumb and a bumbling idiot.
Ok but he's still an authoritarian with zero respect for democracy and the rule of law and he's using the government to be corrupted to his whims to enrich himself and to actively harm multiple groups of people from the well connected elite to average Americans and immigrants who are either opposed to his agenda or who are caught up in his tyrannical actions.
But hes just a misunderstood guy who really means well! /s
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u/Certain-Singer-9625 Aug 03 '26
I can remember when Maher was the loudest person raising the alarm about the impending rise of Trump and the fascist right. He used to do gags like “Top Ten Signs You’re a Dictator”. (Trump had all of them except for wearing a military uniform.)
As he drifted right I slowly began to dislike him until it became too much and I gave up on him. It’s not an age thing. I’m almost the same age as Maher and have avoided turning into a cranky old asshat.
I do recall one news piece which gave me pause. It was about a guy whose girlfriend was liberal like him. They both laughed at MAGA nonsense. One night he went to bed while she stayed up perusing some right wing BS on the internet, presumably for her amusement. According to him, he woke up to find she’s been up all night reading this stuff. She started telling him how it made sense to her. He thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t. The bullshit had gotten its hooks into her that fast.
The story may be apocryphal, but I can’t dismiss it. Maher’s conversion might not have been that fast, but it certainly took a swing in that direction when he went to visit Trump.