Bill Maher’s style of sharp humor mixed with sometimes angrily impassioned commentaries on our state of affairs has been a mainstay of talk-show television for 34 years — first on Politically Incorrect and, since 2003, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
He causes plenty of controversy with his often-iconoclastic views that challenge the comfort zone of even his keenest followers. But he also has a devoted following that turns out for his live stand-up shows, such as the one on Sept. 29 at Taft Theatre.
Don’t be surprised if his antipathy to Donald Trump shows up in his presentation here. The Republican is running for president again after refusing to accept that he lost his 2020 bid at reelection. Maher on his TV show and elsewhere was an early warning system after Trump was elected to the presidency in 2016, saying Trump would never accept it if he lost reelection in 2020, which he did. Now Maher fears returning Trump this year could be a death knell for democracy.
“I’m never cagy or coy about what I think is the priority, which is that Trump not be reelected,” Maher says in a phone interview with CityBeat. “There’s no doubt about it that the right wing is more dangerous because they simply don’t concede elections. And everything follows from that. You have to concede elections because that’s what makes America, America — the peaceful transference of power. So everything comes second to that. I’ll vote for anybody who isn’t Donald Trump.”
Maher also has been quite critical of the progressive wing of the Democratic party for what he believes is its excessive attention to political correctness. While that criticism perhaps ought to have been expected, given the name of one of his television shows, it surprised many who thought he was all in for Democrats.
But, Maher says, he considers himself an “old-school liberal.” He further explains, “I’ve never said I’m a Democrat,” he says, but then qualifies. “I’ve voted for them almost always, because I look at both candidates and almost always the Democrat is more common sense and practical, even now.”
“The far left does not really reflect the Democratic politician so much,” he continues. “Take something like (the recent issue of) defunding the police. That was a big thing on the far left. Most Democratic politicians didn’t support it.”
Maher arrives in Cincinnati with a recently published best-selling book, What This Comedian Said Will Shock You. The chapters are based on the editorials he gives at the end of each Real Time and bear such titles as “Free Speech,” “Cops,” “Religion,” “Guns” and “Race.” In the phone interview, Maher explained his complex thoughts on gun control with CityBeat.
“I think it is an elitist position that far-left liberals take about guns,” he states. “They don’t take into account that, yeah, they live in nice neighborhoods where the police come quickly, where they don’t have to worry about people robbing them or accosting them. There are people who actually need guns to protect themselves or people out in the wilderness.”
But there is a problem with the love of guns, Maher says, and it troubles him. “The idea we worship guns, that we want to play with them, that we want to put them on our Christmas cards or we want to wear them out in public when you’re going to Chipotle or Home Depot — there’s something sick about that.”
When this interview occurred on Aug. 12, only three weeks had passed since President Joe Biden had withdrawn from seeking a second term and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. By Aug. 12, the overwhelmingly positive reception from Democrats to Harris had turned her public appearances into pop-concert-like celebrity events, and New York Magazine even coined the term Kamalot to describe her impact. (It’s a reference to “Camelot,” a term used in the early ‘60s to describe President John F. Kennedy’s spellbinding hold on the nation’s imagination.)
Maher was asked what he thought of these fast-breaking events and where he thought Harris might be when he performs at the Taft Sept. 29. “As someone who a year ago was imploring Biden to get out of the race, I’m glad that finally happened and I’m glad to see we have a competitive race now,” he replies. “It almost doesn’t matter what I think about Kamala Harris because I don’t want Trump to be president.
“I said about Biden that I’d vote for his head in a jar of blue liquid, so I’m certainly going to be happy to vote for her. Look, we don’t know that much about her — she was so invisible as vice president and now she’s running for president and she doesn’t talk to the press, never does an interview. Someone once said you run for president in poetry and you govern in prose, and that seems to be her strategy. We judge people a lot as to how they’re going to be as president by how they run their campaign, and, so far, she seems to have run a really smart campaign.”
Running with Trump in the Republican vice-presidential slot is J.D. Vance — an Ohio senator who lives in Cincinnati. CityBeat asked Maher what he thought of Vance’s campaign so far. “Obviously he has said some crazy things, like the ‘Cat Lady’ thing,” he answers.
“I kind of take it personally,” Maher explains. “As someone who for decades on television has made the case for single people, I think I had a small part in making this mainstream. It’s just a different lifestyle choice; it doesn’t mean we’re morally inferior because we don’t want to have a family.
“But here he is all these years later saying that you’re someone morally inferior,” Maher continues. “I think I’m contributing to a better environment by not spawning, because the worst thing you can do for the environment is create more people who are going to use more resources. So I would have a bone to pick with Mr. Vance about that.
“And, of course, there’s the turnabout he made,” Maher says. “He was a virulent anti-Trumper and then suddenly he’s kissing his ass left and right. Obviously he is very ambitious, and you have to be always suspicious of people who are that ambitious they’re willing to say anything.
“But having said that, I like his wife.”
Bill Maher performs at Taft Theatre on Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. More info: tafttheatre.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat's Sept. 4 print edition.
