Bill Maher dines with The Donald

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I don't think this was any kind of gimmick from Maher, unless his whole career has been gimmick, and maybe it has. It's been a profitable one, though. Dude is worth 9 figures, I doubt he's grasping at straws in order to "stay relevant." He's been mighty successful at doing what he does and has pretty solid core of support. I doubt he's worrying about too much of anything...
 
Zoo_View said:
Early in his opening comments, Maher says, “A dinner that was set-up by my friend, Kid Rock, because we share a belief that there’s gotta be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 miles away.”

Yes, Kid Rock doesn’t believe in hurling insults.🙄

I thought Maher’s piece was trite and simplistic; and, done to show that Bill is the principled centrist who speaks truth to power.
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If you could buy all of Trump, Rick, and Maher for what they are actually worth and sell them for what they think of themselves, youd put Musk's wealth to shame.
 
I used to watch Dennis Miller's show on HBO and enjoyed it. Then Dennis made a tactical decision to veer right because he apparently believed he had maxed out his liberal audience and wanted to "expand" his base. Sort of the same thing with Bill Mahr. His Covid and vaccine denialism was the breaking point for me. I really don't need someone like Bill Mahr "educating" me on the perils of vaccines. My grandparents told me pretty much all I need to know about how vaccines and antibiotic medicines changed society. And any remaining doubts I had were pretty directly addressed when I started dabbling in genealogy and found out how many children didn't survive childhood and how many women died in childbirth back in the "good old days."
 
hedge said:
unless his whole career has been gimmick, [snip] It's been a profitable one, though.
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I think it’s possible Maher may have been sincere early in his career, but he jumped over to “gimmick” a long time ago.

But, yeah, it’s been profitable for him and I’m sure with interviews like this it continues to be so.
 
Well, most entertainers of his ilk, particularly if they're comics or comic adjacent, have their schtick. Can you imagine Jerry Seinfeld doing Don Rickles' act, or vice-versa? I don't think Maher (or rather, his writers, but really, he himself either) is all that funny. Mildly amusing at times, but when he's in unscripted conversation he's just not very nimble in terms of zingers or even comments that are very funny. But whatever his act/schtick, it's been a pretty big hit, esp. in his field. Dude has had steady, lucrative work for decades...
 
New Rule:
When you’re a rich asshole known for treating your employees like shit and creeping out young women your embrace of trump just makes sense.

Maher’s time of relevance is coming to a close. Start the clock.
 
I'm not sure I've ever considered Bill Maher "relevant," but I guess that term can mean different things to different people. Still, if someone thinks his time of relevance is coming to an end, I would assume that implies that he had 3+ decades of relevance, b/c he's more or less been peddling the same act that whole time. Again, pretty impressive run for an entertainer/comedian/talk show host/political provocateur...
 
dukeman92 said:
Maher strikes me as someone who's a leftist but ashamed of it.
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He strikes me as someone who wants to prove how open minded he is by embracing some of the dumbassery of the right.

It's like people who say the real problem with our basketball fanbase is the people who loudly and annoyingly support Coach Davis.
 
Maher just does whatever keeps him relevant and makes him money. He doesn't really care either way. He doesn't have a backbone and just bo-sides everything to keep getting paid.
 
King Hippo said:
Maher just does whatever keeps him relevant and makes him money. He doesn't really care either way. He doesn't have a backbone and just bo-sides everything to keep getting paid.
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I think he honestly believes what he says. The problem is that he is pretty dumb, and the other problem is that he thinks he is pretty smart.
 
heel79 said:
I don't know. I saw it a first time two days ago. Might have. Was there thread on it before?
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I think it was discussed, but don’t think it had a full thread.

The thread is fine, I was just concerned that Bill Maher might have dined with Trump a second time.
 
Maher has been pretty consistent his whole career so I'm not sure I understand what "gimmick" you think he's now peddling. Going back to his show "Politically Incorrect" in the '90s he would take the same jabs at the hard left for what we now call "woke." He's ramped his criticisms up recently because the left keeps digging deeper and he wants his side to win.
 
dukeman92 said:
Maher strikes me as someone who's a leftist but ashamed of it.
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I've watched him off and on (much more "on" in his early years, declining from probably the late-90s and increasingly "off" since the early 2000s) for a long time and I've never gotten that impression of him. What gives you that impression of him?
 
SnoopRob said:
I've watched him off and on (much more "on" in his early years, declining from probably the late-90s and increasingly "off" since the early 2000s) for a long time and I've never gotten that impression of him. What gives you that impression of him?
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Admittedly, I haven't watched him as much as you. But he seemingly leans left on most issues and realizes the current state of the republican party is a shell of itself, but champions talking points against the left that are popular amongst Trumpers in an effort to seem centrist. And the way he does it, a lot of the time to appease guests, leads you to believe he knows better.
 
dukeman92 said:
Admittedly, I haven't watched him as much as you. But he seemingly leans left on most issues and realizes the current state of the republican party is a shell of itself, but champions talking points against the left that are popular amongst Trumpers in an effort to seem centrist. And the way he does it, a lot of the time to appease guests, leads you to believe he knows better.
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He’s trying to guarantee revenue and a TV show.
 
I actually find myself more aligned now with Maher then when I was younger.

In part because I’m certainly more of a “free speech” (not merely in the legal sense but, also, in the social construct) liberal. But also I think, for the most part, he fairly gives the left a hard time when it buries itself on the wrong side of 80-20 issues.

I think both parties are … lost right now. So I’m certainly open to criticism on the institutional parties in particular.

But yanking Trump for “being nice” … eh … Maher used to criticize people for this exact same approach to Trump … and GWB for that matter. Not his best segment. And yes, this is from a couple of months back:
 
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