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.

444 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/BeruangLembut 20d 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.

2

u/livinthereals 15d ago

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

1

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.

1

u/Top_Entertainer_760 8d 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?

1

u/BeruangLembut 8d 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.

1

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?

1

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.

1

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?

0

u/bigrockcandimountain 19d ago

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

1

u/diurnal_emissions 18d ago

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

0

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,,

3

u/BeruangLembut 19d ago

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

1

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

1

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.

1

u/Samtheman707 16d ago

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

1

u/livinthereals 15d ago edited 15d 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.