r/Maher

Ten minutes in and he's already bitching about the "far left"... which, at this point, seems to mean anyone who he thinks used to like him but no longer does.

Never heard of Amini before. For a comedian, he does not seem particularly funny... we'll see how it plays out.

Tonight's guests are:

• Ryan Holiday: An American author and media strategist, and proponent of Stoicism as a lifestyle and philosophy.

• Fmr. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY): An American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in 2021.

• Kirsten Soltis Anderson: A Republican pollster, television personality, and writer whose work has appeared in The Daily Beast, Politico, and HuffPost.

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Does Bill Maher have any self-awareness at all? Does anyone know him? I really want to know if he could possibly be as logically incoherent as he presents himself on the show.

At the beginning of the episode, he said that (of course) "the problem with the left" is that they don't engage with ideas, only with identity. He said he welcomes any debate about ideas but that progressive people only care about whose ideas they are. I noted that as a means by which to assess the rest of his show.

Of course, many of his topics were hinged to identity. He discussed transgender people and preferred pronouns in a derogatory way while simultaneously saying that Jewish people are being shot all around the world, substantiating his hatred of Muslim people based on LGBT freedoms and safety, and he talked about what he believes is pervasive anti-white hatred. It's possible that the majority of his stated opinions were about identity, not ideas—exactly what he accused his opponents—liberal people—of doing.

I will note as I write this that what I am observing is his ideas, not his identity.

Then at the end he may have set a new self-ignorance record for himself.

He kicked off his closing rant by criticizing Rand Paul for claiming to be libertarian whose "brand" is personal privacy and keeping the government out of people's bysiness and then securing and publicly exposing Anthony Fauci's personal diary in the Senate. Maher spent a fair amount of time pointing out Rand Paul's hypocrisy and suggesting that it was wrong of Paul to do this to Fauci. And Maher criticized Republicans for demonizing Fauci, who Maher said is both a credible scientist who has saved lives and also an egomaniac, seeming to suggest that Fauci is no better or worse than anyone. He said Fauci does not deserve the public humiliation and scapegoating that the Senate is putting him through.

And then for the remainder of the show, Maher read quotes fron Fauci's diary that he condemned Rand Paul for publicizing. He chose embarrassing quotes to further embarrass Fauci. He mocked Fauci's identity as an 80-year-old man and made jokes about his age, contradicting his early rant.

And then the kicker that made my jaw drop: he said Fauci would do anything to maintain celebrity status, to stay famous.

This is where Bill Maher regularly reveals he has a remarkably similar personality disorder to Donald Trump's. He himself will say and do anything for publicity, for fame, to "stay relevant," and his smugly declared values have no real-world meaning. He plays on identity politics while claiming that he opposes progressives because that is what they do. He never observes that the entire Republican agenda is identity politics—Christian and white male supremacist, and yes, that is identity based politics. In a single five-minute rant he condemned Rand Paul for invading Anthony Fauci's privacy and publicly humiliating and scapegoating him for attention and then he did exactly that himself.

Hmm, Shannon Elizabeth, Amanda Knox, Bo Derek... I am sensing a recent theme.

Tonight's guests are:

• Mike Rowe: An American television host and narrator. He is known for his work on the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs and the series Somebody's Gotta Do It on CNN.

• Tara Palmeri: An American journalist who has previously worked at news organizations including ABC News, Politico, Puck, New York Post and Washington Examiner. She is currently the host of The Tara Palmeri Show on Youtube and writes The Red Letter newsletter.

• Matt Welch: An American blogger, journalist, author, and libertarian political pundit.

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