Bill Maher announced weeks ago that he’d agreed to have dinner with the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump. This has made a lot of people very angry and was widely considered a bad move. On his Friday show for April 11, he took the first part of the show to give a ‘book report’ detailing exactly what went down.
I should link it, but that would mean giving his show more exposure, so no.
He started by saying that this all started because he got an invitation to the White House “from my good friend Kid Rock” – and I imagine a lot of liberals would say ‘there’s the problem right there.’ Not necessarily. Remember when Kid Rock played with Sheryl Crow? He used to be cool, or at least not AS much of a douche as he is now. I actually liked Kid Rock before he started rhyming “things” with “things.”
But Kid’s cultural relevance has declined in proportion to his political alignment, and maybe Bill should have taken that as a clue. Maher said that Trump had a sense of humor and could laugh at himself. Which was a tell that Maher isn’t as clued-in and informed as he believes. Even I have seen speeches where Trump could make jokes at his own expense. Bill said “I never felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him, and honestly, I voted for for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk to Donald Trump.”
Maher’s own conclusion, that Trump is a different person in private than the image he projects, ought to have told him something. One of those presentations is an act. Probably both.
The real tell I see in the long term was in what happened afterward with the guests and the Overtime debate panel after the scheduled show. On the Overtime bit played on CNN and YouTube after the HBO show, Maher had Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin on with none other than Steve Bannon and courtier journalist Piers Morgan. Bill’s previous idea of hearing out both sides was to have a debate panel with one token conservative on with two establishment/media liberals, and Bill would gang up with the liberals on the conservative. This week it was the other way around.
Rogin said “I think you’ve fallen into the trap, and I think I represent 99% of the internet when I say this: you’ve played the game of proximity is principle.” Rogin said that Maher got buttered up to get Trump’s approval. Himself recognizing this tendency, Rogin started to play to the crowd, saying “We all love Bill, right?” And Bill just said, “Don’t patronize me … I don’t even know you, I never met you.”
I mean, Bill did enough of a heel turn last Friday that I thought he was going to hit Josh Rogin with a steel chair.
Trump might not be book smart, but he is an idiot savant when it comes to conniving and grifting. Emphasis on the idiot. If Trump is reasonable and self-aware in person, why does he act like a half-orangutan for the press? How did Trump enthrall the entire Evangelical movement, when he is that much less an Evangelical than Bill Maher? Because he played to them, he flattered their expectations, and he told them what they wanted to hear. So now they serve him. And now, so does Bill Maher.
Like any other con man or stage magician, Trump has no miraculous power in and of himself. He needs his marks to buy in to what he’s selling. They give him power by giving him validity.
Bill Maher of course said years ago, “Look, conservatives: I know you don’t like it when I call you stupid, but you’ve really gotta meet me half way and quit being stupid.” They didn’t, so Bill decided to meet them halfway, and started being stupid. Or at least, willfully oblivious to the things he has already observed, and which have not changed. I like the take from Vlad Vexler: “Maher said insubstantial things and made substantial conclusions from them.”
Is the important take that, yeah, Trump acts like a goon for the camera but can be a real human when he wants to? What’s on camera is what’s making policy. Why is the allegedly pro-wealth, anti-socialist president forcing economic controls that will destroy the global market? Why can’t the president pressure the dictator of a tiny country to release one legal resident who was sent to him by our leave, if he can pressure Ukraine to surrender its provinces and thousands of citizens to Russia?
Perhaps these questions should be a stronger focus than whether Mr. Trump extends his pinky when drinking a Diet Coke?
In the abstract, yeah, I can see Bill and Kid Rock’s point that you need to have dialogue with the other side. That you need to “break bread” with them. But not here and not now. You want us to break bread with the guys who tried to stop Joe Biden’s inauguration by force? You want us to break bread with the guys who started the Civil War? Sure. AFTER Sherman has his march to the sea. AFTER Sherman marches through Atlanta and turns it into a pile of smoking rubble. AFTER the traitors have learned their lesson. NOT BEFORE. Because we are at war, and it started when they declared war on the rest of us.
This idea of the Bill Mahers and Chuck Schumers of the world, that we can just get back to dialogue and negotiation, is exploited by the alternative-to-being-Right, becase reasonable dialogue was not working for their side, and it will not come back in this era because they destroyed it, and now are just exploiting the liberal need for good faith negotiation, when they will never act in good faith. People like Steve Bannon are self-described Leninists: not in the sense that they want to destroy global capitalism (though they are doing a fine job of that) but in the sense that they only act within liberal-bourgeois systems until they have gained enough control over them to neutralize opposition, and at that point, there is no dialogue, just dictating.
Bill, don’t give us this “I’m not important, I’m just a comedian” spiel. So was Zelenskyy, when he started out. You are good enough at what you do that people pay attention to what you say, and that’s why Trump wanted to coup you. And he did.
Now you will be just like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, elitist liberals who used to be on the completely opposite side and bought into Trump for the sake of their ulterior motives, and in exchange he destroyed their brands by association. Your reputation as a truth-teller is gone. And just like how Trump switched and told his cult to buy electric vehicles to support his new friend, all the “conservatives” who despised you for repeatedly making fun of them are going to yuk it up and cheer you on like you’d agreed with them all along. Because they are gullible and stupid. But as we can see, you don’t need to be stupid to be gullible.
Fuck you Maher, I am never watching your show again.