Bill Maher delivered a scathing monologue on his HBO show Friday night, that took aim at the increasingly radical left, calling them out for why they lost the 2024 election.
Maher didn’t mince words when he outlined the disconnect between the Democratic Party elite and the average American voter. He took the left to task for pushing divisive and impractical ideas that make them completely out of touch with the people they claim to represent. I disagree with Maher on so many things, but what’s really refreshing about Maher’s commentary—especially when you overlook his anti-conservative rhetoric—is that he’s willing to call out his own party for the mess they’ve made and challenge them to rethink their strategies.
He began by mocking the left’s inability to learn from their mistakes, saying, “when you’re in a hole, stop digging, not keep digging.” As Maher sees it, their refusal to adjust has resulted in a disconnect from the very voters they need to win over.
“You wear Queers for Palestine T-shirts and masks two years after the pandemic ended, and you can't define woman—I mean, person who menstruates. You're the Teachers Union Education Party, and you've turned schools and colleges into a joke.”
He added, “You love to speak truth to power, and we always should, but you have completely lost the ability to speak truth to bulls**t.”
Maher’s critique of the left’s elitism is especially biting. He points out that the Democratic Party’s obsession with identity politics has alienated voters, particularly black Americans, who are increasingly skeptical of their party’s direction. He pointed to polling data showing that black voters are far from embracing the left’s liberal agenda and are now more likely to view the party as too extreme. “Black voters, AKA their supposedly liberal base, were more likely to find the president too liberal than too conservative,” he said. “They also found that voters didn't just want Harris to distance herself from Biden; they wanted her to distance herself from what they believe the entire Democratic Party has become: a Portlandia sketch.”
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Maher also delivered a hard truth to the left: Kamala Harris didn’t lose because of racism or sexism. He pointed to Hillary Clinton’s popular vote win in 2016, and the fact that Americans elected and then reelected Barack Obama.
But Maher doesn’t just criticize for the sake of it—he’s offering a solution. He urges the left to take a step back and “actually converse with the other half of the country.” He argues that the current state of the Democratic Party, with its focus on “woke” policies and virtue signaling, has pushed voters away. Maher’s frustration is palpable when he calls out the left for losing sight of common sense.
One of the more striking moments in Maher’s monologue is his defense of Democratic congressman Seth Moulton, who faced backlash for expressing concern over male athletes competing in women’s sports, which prompted a top aide to resign. Maher underscores the absurdity of the situation, saying, “the campaign manager who resigned…yeah, let that person go.” It’s an indictment of the left’s ideological purity test, where anyone who deviates from the most extreme positions is immediately cast aside. Maher’s point is clear: the left is pushing away reasonable voices in the name of woke ideology.
It's amazing how an election loss, even as big as this one, still doesn't put a dent in the thinking that lost it. pic.twitter.com/6yjqldcDhQ
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 16, 2024
He’s not wrong.
Maher’s monologue should be a wake-up call to the left. He’s not a conservative—arguably, he’s the furthest thing from it—but his criticism of the far left is spot-on. His call for the left to embrace common sense, engage with voters across the political spectrum, and ditch the identity politics offers a blueprint for how the party could regain its footing—which, in my opinion, would be better for everyone, not just the Democratic Party. A sane Democratic Party would help make America great again.
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