Original tweet:

  • Clent@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    He’s shifted further right over the past decade.

    During covid it became clear he had moved beyond right of center.

    Going against his own union is the final step in this journey.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure about that. I’m guessing the final step will be endorsing Trump. I won’t be even remotely shocked when he does it.

      • demlet@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He constantly tries to get Republicans to disavow Trump on his show. He used his show to practically beg people to vote for Biden even if they didn’t like him, just to get Trump out of office. People here may not like everything he does, I certainly don’t, but the guy will never support Trump, I’m willing to state that unequivocally.

      • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        He’s a tribal Democrat. He would absolutely endorse Trump if he had a D by his name. Trump actually used to be a Democrat. He just switched to R because he is a conman and saw which party base could be conned more easily.

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Lol, he’s not even close to right of center. Yeah, he has a couple strange views like being anti bread, but he is definitely a liberal. We have to stop this purity test bullshit on the left.

      • Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Liberals are right of center. America is almost the only place on the Earth where liberalism is considered left wing.

          • jaybone@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I wonder if these are people from outside of the US referring to what we call libertarians.

            But anyway, the “left” in the US is certainly no where near as left as the left in say European countries.

        • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I always hear this, but it doesn’t make sense to me. To me it sounds like we define liberals differently. What specific stances make a liberal right of center? I would like to know we’re defining the word the same way.

          • JungleJim@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I’ve thought of it this way, a liberal is a master being giving liberally the treats they shower their workers with to keep them happy and productive. A leftist believes in the class consciousness struggle and that human rights are innate and not something handed down from masters.

              • JungleJim@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Then Google it. I gave you an overview of the two political philosophies. It’s not my job to educate you if you don’t like the answers you get.

                • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  You weren’t even the person I was originally asking the question of. You went out of your way to give an answer that didn’t answer my question, and then you get upset at me for what you did?

      • lobut@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I haven’t listened to him recently but his anti-woke stuff is unbearable to get through. That being said, he really defended Biden against Trump on the JRE podcast. At least from the clip I’ve seen, saying Trump is both crazy and stupid.

        • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          He was also constantly asking anyone who would listen what we would do if Trump refused to step down. Everyone laughed at him, and then Trump incited an insurrection.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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            1 year ago

            Everyone laughed at him

            Bullshit. Lots of people were saying that all the way back to 2016 when he called that election illegitimate.

      • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        A liberal bashing minorities? Come on. He’s left on some issues and right on others, but then again so is Bill O’Reilly.

          • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            He is openly anti-Arab to the point where he sided with Jewish extremists despite claiming to hate “all” religion. His black guests have called him out on his dumb stereotypical views and he used the N word on his show. Just because he claims to be a liberal doesn’t mean he gets a pass on genuine bigotry.

              • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                He’s both.

                He wanted to ban Syrian refugees from the “West” by stating that “their cultures are not like ours.” He said “talk to anyone who ever dated an Arab, it’s not pretty.” That’s grossly racist, in addition to comments like they’re “bringing that desert stuff to our world,” and uncivilized.

      • demlet@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m pretty sure he was vaccinated. He did criticize the piss poor messaging during Covid, i.e. claiming the vaccine would keep you from getting the virus entirely, which was never true, and harmful to the effort to get people vaccinated. He made a lot of fun of incoherent mask rules. If you watch his documentary, Religulous, you’ll see that he’s actually anti all religion, not just Islam. As far as being a transphobe, I’m not like a huge fan or anything, so I don’t see his stuff all that often, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of person to care from what I’ve seen. That said, his fawning over Elon in particular made it impossible for me to take him seriously, along with his compulsive shitting on millennials and Gen Z.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Pre-Covid he had a lot of whacky health ideas and thought that healthy vegan eating would solve most diseases. He didn’t like the idea of antidepressant meds, and some others.

          He claims to be against all religion but it’s indisputable that he definitely doesn’t criticize them equally. He singled out islam repeatedly for years and says democrats should go along with Republican Muslim-bashing. Even though he claims to be an atheist, he defends rightwing Jewish extremists in Israel. He hates Arabs pretty explicitly and got in trouble for using the N word.

          • demlet@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            His irrational defense of Israel is another reason I stopped paying much attention to him. I can’t speak to the rest because frankly I don’t care enough about him to go verify everything you said. I remember him make fun of foodies a long time ago but I’ve never heard him do the vegan health thing. I have also heard him say the left needs to stop the weird fetishization of body coverings for women in many Muslim societies, which I agree with.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          he’s actually anti all religion, not just Islam.

          That’s not the problem. I’m against all organised religion too, including Islam. The problem with Maher is that he treats everyone who’s Arab or otherwise culturally Muslim as equivalent to the worst fundamentalist preachers and also that he platforms and promotes some of the worst islamophobes from the far right, more of whom are Christian bigots than atheist ones.

          TL;DR: it’s not the opposition to the religion, it’s the bigotry and the hypocrisy.

          • akrot@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I am pretty sure you are wrong, he hosted many muslim speakers on his show, especially the one marginalized by their own communities, like progressive muslim Majid Nawaz. While Maher has by default a punchable face, and oozes smugness, that does not mean he did not amplifies the voices of important muslim reformists.

          • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            He absolutely does not hate all religions equally. He repeatedly defends the rightwing zealots in Israel and all their abuses because he hates Muslims so much more.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Booooooo. Booooooo.

    Don’t support scabs. Support the striking actors and writers, and support unions. That’s the thing I’m really endorsing here right now.

  • jopepa@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Thirty minutes of Bill Maher saying “really?” couldn’t disappoint because I never expected any quality in the first place.

  • AngryHumanoid@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    I can’t comment on the quality of his show but once upon a time Jon Stewart did this on The Daily Show and people applauded him for it. Why is it different when Maher does it? Stewart still supported the writers but wanted to keep the rest of the people who worked on his show working, isn’t that the same thing Maher is doing?

    • bingobango@mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I might be wrong about this, but I believe in the John Stewart situation (or whatever show this happened with), restarting the show was a collaborative effort between the show and the union. In this case, the union has stated that they would consider restarting a show without writers as crossing the picket lines.

  • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Peak liberalism. “I have principles, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that as soon as they cost me anything I abandon them.”

  • Whirlybird
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    1 year ago

    Interesting that almost everyone in here is all for the writers strike, but doesn’t give a shit about all the other employees that have had their livelihood cut off from the strikes and the show being off the air.

    Remember these writers are already incredibly well paid for what work they do. The full time writers are guaranteed basically 100k for 7 (iirc) weeks work already. They want more.