Bill Maher Says California Needs an Elon Musk, but There's 1 Little Catch...

Bill Maher has the red pill on his tongue and a glass of water in his hand, but the spoiler is that he's still too blue to take it.

Friday's "Real Time With Bill Maher" had another one of the host's many "Just go on and take the red pill moments" as Maher called for "an Elon Musk" to save California — and the Democrats' presidential hopes. Maher wants the impossible, just not for the reason he thinks. Reasons, plural, actually. Two of them. Stick a pin in that thought; I'll get back to it momentarily.

During a sit-down with Andrew Sullivan and Ezra Klein, Maher made the problem with California's politics quite personal. "This state has almost 400,000 regulations. I just put in a new roof, because the fire, I thought, oh, let's get a roof that's not going to burn up. Two inspections. Why are you inspecting my roof? It's my f****** roof. If it falls on me, that's my problem."

Maher continued: "We're taxed more than any other state. People are leaving these kinds of states for places where they're not, they feel the heavy breath of government on them. It's just, it's not that hard for Democrats to understand this, but they seem to be incapable of doing anything about it."

He also worries — and he's right to — about Electoral College changes putting a serious crimp on Dem hopes to win the White House during the entire 2030s. I wrote about that on Friday, and if Harris-Walz had run on the 2032 map, they could have swept the Blue Wall swing states that Trump won in 2024 — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania — and still lost the election, 270-268. On the 2032 map, as it's shaping up, the Harris-Walz best-case scenario would be a 259-279 loss. No wonder Maher is in such a state about the people fleeing his state.

Stanching that flow requires two things that Democrats typically only pay lip service to, if that: cutting taxes and regulation. That's where the need for something like DOGE comes in. "We need an Elon Musk who would do to California what he's doing to the government in a sane way," Maher said.

But there's the rub. Maher wants the impossible.

And Another Thing: Many of my conservative friends keep expecting that someday Maher will take the red pill but, as my friend Stephen Kruiser and I have discussed on Five O'Clock Somewhere, it's never going to happen. Maher's a committed lefty. It's just that Maher is that rarest of creatures, one that belongs on the protected species list: a relatively sane lefty.

The first of the two problems I mentioned earlier is Maher's nonsense about doing what Musk does "in a sane way." You have to be crazy to take on the Goliath State. Musk is just the right kind of crazy — and insulated by endless wealth and a DGAF attitude — to try. California needs a Musk but there is only the Musk. While Musk might be crazy (he truly is and in the best possible way), he isn't stupid. Why would he risk everything (again) to save a party that did the Literally Hitler™ meme to him?

The second reason is that reforming government is a bit like joining a 12-step recovery program: the first step is admitting you have a problem and that your government has become unmanageable. Maher can't put a new roof on his house without jumping through multiple hoops, and that's a problem. But, Klein told Maher, "The personality type of the left is bureaucratic. And you can't govern if you are this obsessed with process."

But then Klein went on to add, "I want regulation. I want good regulations that achieve the goal."

Sorry, Bill. Sorry, Ezra. But for progressive busybodies, unmanageability is the entire point. Before California changes, it has to want to change. But any alcoholic can tell you that won't happen until they've hit bottom.

As far as California has fallen, the state still has a long way to go — and not a single Elon Musk in sight.