We have written about the many idiotic things that Bill Maher said over the years on his journey to being a full-fledged conservative like Joe Rogan. But these moments where he received some pushback from guest Krystal Ball from last Saturday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” could not be ignored.
Flanked by James Kirchick and Maher himself, Ball spent most of the guest segment introducing some facts to the echo chamber on Maher’s set. One of the biggest was when Kirchick and Maher tried to blame inflation on Biden “putting too much money into the economy.” (Translation: We gave poor and middle-class people money instead of shoveling it at business owners, one time.)
While this type of bullshit is not surprising from a conservative writer like Kirchick, Maher’s agreement and subsequent surprise when Ball fact-checked him is worth noting:
Pundits and politicians often talk about the short-term memories of voters, but for a “comedian,” and one who also does political punditry, Maher forgetting there was a stock market crash just two years ago in 2020 seems ridiculous. While Ball implored Maher to “look it up” because he acted like it was a secret, it was reported at the time by many news outlets. We even included it in our 2020 Year End roundup! But what makes this moment seem so out-of-touch is Maher mentioning it on multiple monologues of his own show. Like this one the very week that the Federal Reserve injected $1.5 trillion dollars, easily found on his YouTube channel.
The conversation then moved to gas prices, which of course it did because conservatives like Kirchick try to pretend both that the president controls gas prices and that it wasn’t also affected by the pandemic like the stock market before.
Ball made the best attempt to inject facts there while Kirchick kept throwing disingenuous bullshit about the Keystone XL pipeline and how we pissed off Saudi Arabia. Ball pointed out the hypocrisy of calling out Russia’s human rights abuses while advocating to be nice to a country that kills journalists with bone saws. Ball then pointed out that despite conservatives mentioning these problems, they have done the opposite to fix them. But you can sense the misogyny and disdain from Maher having to deal with Ball when he mutters under his breath “let us finish what we’re saying and then you can shit on it” after interrupting Ball fact-checking them again. Which, if Frank Luntz is to be believed, seems to be a cardinal sin on Maher’s show.
Ball did, miraculously, get Maher to concede price gouging by oil companies who brag on earning calls about using inflation to their benefit. So … yay, I guess?
But what Krystal Ball could never get Maher to concede is his obsession with progressives/”The Left”/liberals/Democrats and their damn “cancel culture.”
Because when Maher says President Joe Biden “panders too much to the Left,” it’s his ‘cancel culture’ grievances that he’s talking about. As Ball explained, Biden’s approval ratings show quite the opposite, since he polled highest when he moved to get progressive policies and his numbers collapsed when “Build Back Better” bill fell apart and it became clear we were hostages to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Biden rarely speaks on social issues and when he does it is mostly to uphold things we all should agree on. Things like respecting dignity and equality for everyone and striving for a “more perfect union,” whether you are in the LBTQ community or Latinx or POC. These are not controversial … unless you’re a bigot or bigot adjacent like Maher has been for years.
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