Monday April 14th 2025
I have had mixed feeling about Bill Maher for a long time - Still do.
i have followed Bill Maher's career for a long time. I thought Bill was treated very unfairly by ABC who canceled his excellent show "Politically Incorrect" when he made a comment about the bravery of the 9/11 hijackers killing themselves for their cause.
He was telling the truth, after all
He lucked out after this by agreeing to host a Controversial Comedy and Interview show on HBO called "Real Time With Bill Maher." which has been a mainstay of HBO programming for many years, at this point.
When I finally broke down and got HBO I began watching Maher's show as often as I could catch it.
His show was excellent much of the time and for the most part for a long time I found myself agreeing with much of his comedy and commentaries that tended to be rather left leaning and progressive. He was an early supporter of Bernie Sanders and other Democratic causes, from what I could see. He wasn't afraid to express controversial opinions and was from early on a blistering critic of Donald Trump. That Blistering Criticism has continued for many years now but something weird has been happening to Bill Maher for some time now.
His Left leaning Liberal view of the world has been showing some cracks in the Foundation more recently. He has always been controversial but usually that controversy has been more left leaning than right leaning. The obvious change of Bill Maher's world view has been hard to watch for me. Although I still enjoy his comedy I find it many times harder and harder to laugh at the strange and terrible things that are happening in our world.
I certainly found Maher's shameless, undeserved and humiliating statements about our previous Honorable and Capable President of the United States, Joe Biden, Objectionable and certainly Not Helpful to the Democratic Party at a time when Democratic Unity was certainly called for to save Democracy in our country.
Maher was one of the early critics demanding that Joe Biden step aside and give up the Presidency even before the Disastrous Debate Fiasco. Certainly, watching the result of what has apparently happened in the last election (I still don't trust the election results based on Elon Musk's statement that "Anything can be hacked") when Donald Trump regained the Presidency We Americans have watched in Horror as Trump, with Musk's assistance has begun to tear this country's Government apart with a Vengeance.
After Maher has pretty much built a career on, among other things, trashing Donald Trump throughout much of his HBO Television career it was disturbing to say the least when word leaked out about the prospect of Bill Maher planning to meet with Donald Trump at the White House.
In this past week's HBO Show Bill Maher sat on a stool to talk about his meeting with Trump.
In preparing for the meeting with Trump Maher prepared a paper listing all of the disparaging comments that Trump had made about Maher. Maher took the list along and seemed to be impressed by the fact that Donald Trump was willing to sign the sheet and Maher produced the sheet for the camera to show the oversize Trump signature. That was not the only thing about the meeting that impressed Maher. Throughout the meeting Trump apparently acted like a normal human being would act and Maher seemed to be impressed with that.
Indeed, the entire explanation of what happened while Maher was at the White House was that Maher was impressed by Trump's normalcy during their meeting and especially the fact that Trump actually laughed like a normal human being.
Seriously Bill, What the hell had you been expecting?
Maybe you were worried about being carried off to some CIA Black site to be tortured and Trump surprised you by acting like a normal human being.
As someone who has admired Bill Maher's long history of independent thought I am recognizing that Bill Maher may not have joined the Donald Trump Fan Club but certainly seems to be doing what he can to normalize Donald Trump. Although Maher seems to think that is a good thing I don't agree with him. I do agree with his premise that there is too much hate in politics these days but I don't think that we should forget about how reckless and far out of the mainstream Donald Trump's politics has become.
Trump is a menace to all Americans who believe in Democracy and who care about our allies, including supporting Zelensky and Ukraine over Invaders from Russia.
Donald Trump has been an actor and a phony all of his life so Bill Maher is surprised by the fact that he can act normally for a couple of hours. Maher has shown himself to be a phony himself as he has continued to normalize not only Trump but Kid Rock and Steve Bannon and other right wing nuts on his program. He seems to be proud of the fact that he is joining the Republicans in Congress, Trump's Cabinet, many Law Firms and Tech Giants in Capitulating to the Fearless Leader like those poor Fools in Germany did in the Thirties.
I probably should state that I will never watch Bill Maher's show ever again but I will not do that. Despite Maher's rather shameless capitulation to Donald Trump Maher does continue have a very interesting show with many interesting and relevant guests.
I will continue to watch "Real Time With Bill Maher" but with far less trust in Bill Maher than I have ever had before.
Sincerely Yours
Jerry Gallagher
