Who would ever have thought that Bill Maher would become the voice of reason of the left?
While that’s admittedly a very low bar, Maher has nevertheless managed to surprise several times in recent months, as the rabid extremism of the left has become too much even for him.
“To me, when people say to me sometimes, ‘Boy, you know, you go after the left a lot these days. Why?’ Because you’re embarrassing me,” he said back in September. “That’s why I’m going after the left.”
Maher then spoke out against the left’s overt racialization of everything. He criticized how teachers are making kids “hyper-aware of race in a way they wouldn’t otherwise be,” in an apparent criticism of critical race theory. He also faulted the recent trend of singing the so-called black national anthem at sporting events, arguing that there may be legitimate grounds for debate about whether we should change our national anthem, but we should only have one. “I think when you go down a road where you’re having two different national anthems, colleges sometimes now have different graduation ceremonies for Black and white, separate dorms … This is what I mean: Segregation! You’ve inverted the idea. We’re going back to that under a different name.”
Related: ‘Nobody Likes a Snob’: Bill Maher Tells Democrats Why They’re Losing
In October, Maher also spoke out against COVID-19 restrictions.
“I know some people seem to not want to give up on the wonderful pandemic, but you know what? It’s over. There’s always going to be a variant. You shouldn’t have to wear masks. … I haven’t had a meeting with my staff since March of 2020. Why?” he asked. “Also, vaccine, mask: pick one! You’ve got to pick. You can’t make me mask if I’ve had the vaccine.”
Maher also said red states are a joy to travel to, while blue states are a “pain in the a** for no reason.”
Maher hasn’t let up, either. He recently called out the left for their rabid hatred of people who disagree with them. “I constantly say it: you can hate Trump, you can’t hate all the people who like him — it’s half the country,” he told Advance Local. “And you can’t set yourself up as some sort of superior moral paragon because this is your political belief, and somebody else has another one.”
“There are obviously areas where, yes, if somebody’s advocating cannibalism, I think you can claim the moral high ground if you’re anti,” he continued. “I feel like that’s the Achilles heel of the left right now. They identify issues mostly by what they can feel superior to another person for.”
He used the COVID pandemic to elaborate on this point.
“COVID is a great example. If I’m for more safety, I’m a better person than you. Well, we can take that to the nth degree and never leave our houses. I believe we tried that in 2020: the great medical advancement of hiding. It doesn’t make you a better person if you’re wearing three masks or if you want 10 booster shots. But that is the subtext to all of that, I think. First of all, it’s not true. It doesn’t make you a better person,” Maher said.
He also criticized the medical establishment for trying to nix debate on medical matters. “This idea that the medical establishment should be able to say, ‘Just do what we say. When have we ever been wrong?’ ‘A lot,’ would be my answer to that. You’ve been wrong a lot. You told us that the vaccines would get us out of this. Well, they didn’t.”
None of these remarks change the reality that Bill Maher and I probably disagree on most things. But it seems that the left has become so extreme, even Maher can’t make excuses for them anymore.
While Democrat activists and political leaders preach hate against Republicans, Maher is saying, “Stop. Don’t hate your fellow man over his political beliefs.”
It’s a welcome change in attitude from a leftist. Sadly, it’s generally safe to assume that the Democrats I encounter in real life will hate me if they know my politics. Heck, I’ve lost friends over politics many times over the years. But, surprisingly, Bill Maher, of all people, sounds like someone I could sit down and have a beer with — and have a pleasant discussion.
Who would ever have thought?