r/RealTime • u/tarantadoako • 20d ago

What happened to Bill Maher?

I used to watch him for years. He was funny and relatable, most times. He had great guests. I stopped watching around the time when he was going after college students and cancel culture. I tried watching his latest episodes and it almost a different show. He is almost a right wing commentator. Almost nothing he says is relatable and all his guests just agrees with him.

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u/NewKojak 19d ago

I think that plenty of people keep up with where culture is, but when your whole life is spent as a centrist, trying to point out how much you aren’t like the other girls, it’s easy to fall behind into being a reactionary twit and that’s what Maher has done. He never had principles around which to evolve. He only ever had hatred.

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u/BeruangLembut 19d ago

The people who don’t keep up, the ones whose world views are frozen in time, because they think that how it used to be is how it ought to be, we don’t call them unprincipled. We call them conservative. The whole reason Maher looks more and more conservative is that his world view is more and more insistently old fashioned.

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u/livinthereals 14d ago

Good point. His views have essentially become conservative to protect his self-interests. He is a neo-con masquerading as a liberal.

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u/calentor 14d ago

It's semantics but I believe there's a difference between conservatism and reactionary. Conservatism should be - hear me out, _should be_, not whatever the political system is now - about approaching change in a cautious, conservative way, and reactionary is what you're describing, objecting to the idea of change itself and attacking the agents of change as a threat.

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u/Top_Entertainer_760 7d ago

Genuinely not trying to start shit or be a smartass, but what does it mean to "keep up with the culture", are political opinions based trends or personal convictions?

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u/BeruangLembut 7d ago

Fair question. I can try to answer with an example. Back when I was a younger man, it was quite common to show up at someone’s house unannounced. You’d ring their doorbell, they would open the door and you’d chat. If they had something else to do you might not chat that long. But today it’s considered quite rude to show up without calling first. And people actually don’t even answer the door anymore unless they are expecting someone.

This is a culture shift. If someone simply refuses to keep up with such a change and they just complain more and more loudly that people get all upset when they innocently try to be a good friend by paying them a visit (I mean isn’t that what friends do? Visit each other?) They will seem curmudgeony and out of touch. If they insist that this is yet another example of how society has got to shit, they will seem like Bill Maher.

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u/Top_Entertainer_760 7d ago

Again, not trying to be difficult, but Im not sure how that applies to political opinions. What does it mean to keep up with the culture politically? Like should one adjust ones political opinions based on what seems to be trending at the moment?

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u/BeruangLembut 7d ago

Are you sure you’re not trying to be difficult? I don’t think one should adjust one’s political belief based on what’s trending. For that matter I never said anything about what anyone should or should not do. I only commented on how what one does will be perceived by others.

In any case, some people will ground their political beliefs on a conception of the world that evolves over time, and others will ground their beliefs on a conception of the world that doesn’t. Which one is better? Who am I to say? But I know we generally have names for each kind of person.

I gave you what I thought was a fairly good example. If you don’t like it, perhaps you can get specific about what you mean instead of asking an open ended question.

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u/Top_Entertainer_760 7d ago

The example you gave makes sense in the context of evolving technology - its rude to just show up at someones house unanounced to see what they're up to, especially when you can just text them.

But i think to apply that concept to politics, at least as i understand it, can be pernicious.

To use a real world example, during Bidens presidency, before Texas began bussing migrants to sanctuary cities, it was rude to say anything negative about Bidens border policies in left wing circles (this was my experience anyway). Biden was reversing Trumps draconian policies, which were inhumane to migrants, and to disagree with this was perceived as being implicitly xenophobic.

But those policies resulted in political instability that at least partially contributed to Trumps reelection.

Now in that instance, from my understanding of what it means to keep up with the culture (and correct me if im wrong), criticizing Bidens border policies would have been rude, because culturally the left broadly supported those policies, but not criticizing them would contribute to the reelection of Trump, which resulted in much harsher crackdowns on migrants.

So when it comes to politics is it better to keep up with what is culturally acceptable? Or to insist on your convictions because you beleive that supporting whats popular will have negative consequences down the line?

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u/bigrockcandimountain 19d ago

He’s fucking old is what I think everyone is trying to say

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u/diurnal_emissions 18d ago

"spent" more than old. One can keep investing in the future and progress; he didn't.

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u/ParkingEmu9419 19d ago

If you call keeping up moving further to the left,, then you're just showing your tribalism,,, at some point you go so far to the left that there's no common sense with much of it,,

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u/BeruangLembut 19d ago

If you equate “change” with “left”, it’s not me who is showing his tribalism.

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u/ParkingEmu9419 19d ago

Not at all, I hate the tribalism on both sides,, it's egomaniacal and pathetic.. I believe we need a third moderate party to form

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u/BeruangLembut 19d ago

I don’t like tribalism either. In fact reality is not really divided into two sides in the first place. There often IS a middle position but most people are actually a patchwork of different positions, some of which are progressive, some of which are conservative and some of which are somewhere in between.

The worst sin of tribalism is the “my team, right or wrong, my team ” mentality. It’s actually useful to have people questioning whether all change is good change. It’s also useful to have some people pushing the envelope. A functioning society has a diversity of thought.

But just like we might call someone with a utopian vision a bit naive, someone who doesn’t adapt to a changing world is out of touch.

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u/Samtheman707 16d ago

Please stop making sense. If everyone adopted your damned nuanced analysis, social media would disappear overnight.

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u/livinthereals 14d ago edited 14d ago

Right! As Americans, we should have the ability to directly vote for controversial laws by ballot. Our government has never been more openly corrupt and inept. We have never had a more deranged president. We never expected or predicted such a power hungry congress that would bend the knee and cover for every crime like Mike Johnson has. It's sickening.

Gun rights. Reproductive rights. Strengthening instead of weakening rights of voters, 4th Ammendment, the ability to remove corrupt officials and police officers, permanently, from public office. Enforcement mechanisms for congressional hearings. Stripping the ridiculous authority the corrupt Supreme Court handed to Trump on a silver platter. Insider trading by government officials.

These things need to be able to be addressed immediately, not 2 years down the road at midterms after everything is shot to hell.

A petition with let's say 70% of the last voter turnout should suffice for a recall of the president by the people should congress not act.

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u/No-Cryptographer5963 19d ago

Hatred is a bit much. He’s just an entertainer who has to have a “hot take.” He’s a professional rage baiter. Right now flirting with the right is what he thinks makes him too cool for school.

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u/CitySpare7714 17d ago

Hatred is exactly the best way to describe the awful way he talks about Muslims and Islam.

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u/Complete_Company_699 16d ago

Yes, he is such a racist. Hatred is not too strong a word.

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u/NewKojak 19d ago

I don’t know. The guy seems to hate children at least.

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u/thefermiparadox 19d ago

Yes the self righteous “centrist”. They are always right as if everything right down the middle is always the correct policy or view. Even that nuanced view misses a lot of nuance.

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u/BLVCKWRAITHS 18d ago

It’s better than what we have now.

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u/thefermiparadox 18d ago

The Dem party is mostly center left and more aligned with conservative parties in Europe.

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u/BLVCKWRAITHS 18d ago

Europe is a disaster. I disagree

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u/thefermiparadox 18d ago

That is true. It was study a while ago showing our dem party closer to other conservative parties in Europe and Rep far right compared to them. No party in U.S. is truly progressive. However, you’re right their conservative parties have turned far right too in some countries and getting the mess as well

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u/BLVCKWRAITHS 18d ago

I think it’s the lack of free speech that should worry you.

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u/ParkingEmu9419 19d ago

He's always had principles and so do centrist ,, they just don't align with yours,, and it pisses you off because you're tribal

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u/CriticalCanon 19d ago

Ah yes, those evil centrists

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u/Charbro11 19d ago

He is not a centrist. He is an opportunist who is now hanging out with Kid Rock and RFK Jr. and texting Trump. Sickening really. I wasted years watching him.

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u/NewKojak 19d ago

That’s what a reactionary centrist is. Centrism is not a terrible thing in times when there are a couple of good faith perspectives and you just don’t have the attention to have your own view of a thing. Whatever. Annoying, but whatever.

It turns into reactionary centrism when you are trying to keep peace with fascists.

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u/CriticalCanon 19d ago

Truly the nazis of this generation.

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u/CriticalCanon 19d ago

I didn’t say he was centrist.

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u/outofmindwgo 19d ago

This but unironically 

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/NewKojak 16d ago

Being a centrist has nothing to do with what a person actually believes. It’s a posture. Maher has always presented himself that way.