I've watched Bill Maher for many years, beginning with his Politically Incorrect show and continuing through his Real Time show on HBO. It seems clear that Maher has gotten more conservative, or at least, is considerably more critical of Democrats than he used to be.
I still enjoy Maher's show.
I just find myself frequently getting irritated with him when Maher does his false equivalence thing: taking some isolated incident of progressive "wokeness" and making it sound like this is more serious than, say, Trump wrecking the economy, trashing the constitution, and behaving as a wanna-be dictator.
The past few weeks, my Irritation Button has gotten pushed when Maher talks on Real Time about his recent dinner with Trump, Kid Rock, and Dana White at the White House. The invitation came at the request of Kid Rock. Trump didn't sound thrilled about it in a pre-dinner post on Truth Social.
You can read a transcript of Maher's report on his show of how the White House dinner went. It's obvious that Trump manipulated Maher, but Maher apparently was so awestruck at meeting Trump he left his critical thinking on the White House steps.
I'm just reporting exactly what I saw over two and a half hours. I went into the mine, and that's what's down there. A crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is (expletive) up. It's just not as (expletive) up as I thought it was.
So somehow Maher concludes from his two and a half hour dinner at the White House that the "measured and gracious" Trump on display during those 150 minutes proves that Trump actually isn't the crazy, hateful, lying, vindictive, ignorant, authoritarian that Americans have come to know (and hate) for over ten years, ever since Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential run.
Nope, Bill Maher saw the real Trump, and it isn't the public Trump. Astonishingly, Maher doesn't consider that it is much more likely that the opposite is true: the side of Trump shown to Maher during the private White House dinner was the play-acting Trump, and the real Trump is who we see in his public appearances.
This Reddit post is right on.
From the Epstein tapes and Trumps autobiography this is actually pretty normal behavior for Trump at the beginning of his relationships with people.
Epstein describes Trump as an excellent manipulator that could make the ugliest girl at the party feel beautiful. This is his preferred method of networking.
Much like how an abusive sexual partner will love bomb someone at the beginning of the relationship, then go on to demand more and more concessions from them as the relationship develops.
This is how his ex-wives and former friends describe him as well.
As is another Reddit post:
I watched the video. He basically says "Trump wasn't a crazy person when I met him in person, he just seems to play one on TV. That surprised me and I'm happy about that."
In what way should I take that statement, exactly? Should I be happy that Trump is only pretending to be a crazy person whenever he makes public statements? Should I be happy that Trump is privately more of a slightly normal person, but not publicly? Should I be happy that Trump treats some people better than most people?
Because none of those things make me happy or make me feel good about any of this.
We have to judge someone by their actions, not by how they privately treat you behind closed doors. Especially the president. "But he was nice to me in private" just isn't an argument for anything here, regardless of whether it is even true.
And if that wasn't the point of Maher, what was his point?
Not to mention, all of this feels like a setup for him to slowly become more of a Trump guy. Let's see if the becomes less critical of Trump in the coming months. Let's see if he uses the usual "I know he sounds crazy here but he's just acting for his base so it's not that bad!" argument going forward.
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