Bill Maher is host of the current affairs cum “comedy” show on HBO called “Real Time.” He and his entire schtick serve as the very embodiment of the type of condescending, ruling-class elitist liberalism that voters in the heartland rejected in 2016.
Bill Maher is intolerably superior, insufferably smug and quite frequently disgustingly crude. At an angry F-bomb-laced “comedy” show rant in Dallas in March 2011, he called Sarah Palin a word that rhymes with ‘punt.’ “There’s just no other word for her,” he said.
I cannot stand the guy.
But I’ll give him credit. Last Friday on his show, he at least provided some clarity. He pulled back the curtain and allowed us an unobscured view into the 21stcentury elitist liberal mind. In a monologue segment he floated the concept of “spatial geographic inequality.” And by that he meant that hip, liberal coastal enclaves like San Francisco, Hollywood, New York, Washington, etc. are home to sophistication that is conspicuously lacking in places like, say, Tyler and Longview, Texas – and that we rubes stuck living here are envious. Said Maher:
The blue parts of America are having a big prosperity party while that big sea of red feels like their invitation got lost in the mail. And they still use the mail.
There’s no ‘Real Housewives of Toledo” or “CSI Lubbock.’ There are no red carpets in Wyoming and no one ever asks you, ‘Who are you wearing?’ Because the answer is always…Target.
There are two Americas and it seems like one is where all the cool jobs are, where people drive Teslas and eat artisanal ice cream. We have orchestras and theater districts and world class shopping. We have Chef Wolfgang Puck. They have Chef Boyardee.”
And so on and so forth in dripping, snotty, snobby condescension. As I say, give him credit. We now know with absolute clarity that people like Maher don’t just condescend to, but actually loathe, people like us.
Here’s the whole segment:
https://youtu.be/ys4tqQh-CM4
Fully rebutting Mr. Maher would take more time and space than we have. Given that time and space, we could talk about the drug needles and piles of human feces in ever-so-hip San Francisco. We could talk about liberal-run cities that are teetering on the brink of financial ruin even as they impose taxes so crippling that the wealthiest and most successful are packing up and leaving.
We could talk about the crime, drugs, poverty, crumbling infrastructure and taxation that are driving people out of hip, blue California and into red and oh-so-unsophisticated Texas.
Bill Maher mistakenly believes that people like us are envious of places like New York, LA and San Francisco. He thinks we’re envious of people like him. And that’s why, he says, we lashed out and voted for Donald Trump.
But you’re wrong, Bill.
Trump voters didn’t lash out because they’re envious of people like you. They lashed out because they’re sick to death of people like you.
Right on target Mr. Gleiser with your outstanding column.
These people* *i.e. the elitist left represent everything that is wrong in our great nation. They spew out how they know “us” –those of us who live in small towns and remote places across America’s heartland in predominately red states– but they haven’t a clue. I for one have no desire to be like them, nor am I jealous or envious of whatever it is they have that they think we just can’t stop thinking about that we wish we had. They have zero of what I want, for I value my ideals, my honor, my love of God, Country, Family, above all. Such concepts are unknown and foreign to these leftist progressive socialist elites.
We The People, regular everyday Americans elected Donald Trump in 2016. And we’re going to do it again in 2020, adding as many new Republicans to Congress as can be elected to help President Trump in the restoration and renaissance of The United States of America. I believe strongly as do millions of other citizens in American Exceptionalism, American free enterprise entrepreneurial capitalism which benefits us all. NOT democrat socialism of which the Democrats subscribe to, hoping to use such statist socialism to destroy our beloved Constitutional Republic as Founded.
By the way, Bill Maher, The Chef Boyardee Brand is excellent food which I have enjoyed many times and will do so again. FYI, the Chef Boyardee brand was founded by famed Italian-American chef Hector Boiardi who was born in Piacenza, Italy, in 1897, and came to America in 1914. His culinary education continued as a member of the staff and later head chef of New York’s famed Plaza Hotel.
Hector Boiardi remained at the head of his culinary class, catering for President Woodrow Wilson and opening an immediately-popular Italian restaurant in Cleveland. So beloved were his recipes, Hector was inspired to create the Chef Boyardee brand which still remains a popular mealtime fixture enjoyed to this day.
Chef Boiardi, named his company Chef Boy-ar-dee for ease of pronunciation, operated his food plant 24hrs a day so as to provide rations to American soldiers during WWII. Mr. Boiardi is everything I admire, for he was a man of honor, who loved America, and who fulfilled his dream in FREEDOM. Traditional family values and American ideals embodied in this man who became an AMERICAN arriving at Ellis Island so long ago are now sadly despised by the elites* {*i.e. citizens of our own country no less!} and that, indeed, is the real tragedy. It is stupefying beyond belief. The only remedy to counter these people –global elitists– who reek with the twisted ideology of socialism is to vote their Democrat protégés and associates OUT OF OFFICE.
God bless The United States of America and President Trump.
You’re making Maher’s point.
Exactly how am I making Maher’s point? I have said in this space on numerous occasions that today’s coastal liberals are a bunch of snarky, snotty, condescending snobs.
Maher made my point.
You and Maher are talking about trees. Hear this heartland Republican describe the forest:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250193680/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_awdb_6VrECbXMGKEYB
“In Them, bestselling author and U.S. senator Ben Sasse argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our crisis isn’t really about politics. It’s that we’re so lonely we can’t see straight―and it bubbles out as anger.
Local communities are collapsing. Across the nation, little leagues are disappearing, Rotary clubs are dwindling, and in all likelihood, we don’t know the neighbor two doors down. Work isn’t what we’d hoped: less certainty, few lifelong coworkers, shallow purpose. Stable families and enduring friendships―life’s fundamental pillars―are in statistical freefall.
As traditional tribes of place evaporate, we rally against common enemies so we can feel part of a team. No institutions command widespread public trust, enabling foreign intelligence agencies to use technology to pick the scabs on our toxic divisions. We’re in danger of half of us believing different facts than the other half, and the digital revolution throws gas on the fire.“
Local communities are collapsing. You are correct.
At one time, church was a central feature of local communities. When I was growing up, a very high percentage of my peers came from families who attended church regularly. There were the Methodist kids and the Baptist kids and the Presbyterian kids and the Catholic kids. Often, we crossed ecclesiastical lines to attend each other’s church youth activities. Our parents socialized with people in their Sunday school classes.
That has not been the experience of either of my daughters and I believe that the country is the poorer for it.
But not Bill Maher. He’s fine with the decline of community churches. On the subject of churches he has said, “They’re all stupid and dangerous.”
Your point about the breakdown of community is a good one. My point is that the rise of Bill Maher-brand secular liberalism has contributed to that breakdown. That breakdown has led to the feeling of isolation and loneliness that you describe.
As you yourself have said in this space, Donald Trump is a symptom.
He sure is; and what the president and Maher have in common is that their respective followers often wince. As you’ve offered here, you’re lots more comfortable with Trump’s deeds than his words.
Let them both remind us to resist the stimulus-response dynamic that prospers here in the cyber-dialogue on which Senator Sasse suggests we overdose. Otherwise we risk compounding the problem by simply name-calling the name-callers.
Between Paul’s original column and Richard Anderson’s follow up, there’s little more I can add beyond “Amen.” Bill Maher hasn’t a clue and never will. Nor will Mr. Cooke and other progressives. Having listened to Maher’s smug, contempt-dripping monologue, I pity anyone who “thinks” as he does.
There is nothing wrong with exposing a fundamental characteristic of the Left that infests the minds of the “coastal liberals who are a bunch of snarky, snotty, condescending snobs.” The elitist Left would starve to death and be without clothes, shelter and transportation but for the beneficial labor and skills of ORDINARY people that reside in the vast “wasteland” that the Left derides as being jealous, ignorant, trash. Of course these Leftists believe that the ORDINARY rubes that reside outside the gated communities of the ultra rich would be lost without their “type of condescending, ruling-class elitist liberalism.”
This elite characteristic is nothing but a mind-set that tyrannical kings and/or dictators share with these Leftists, and that is: “the masses are here to serve our needs BECAUSE we are superior humans that deserve to be pampered, ultimately, at the point of a gun, if necessary.” The pompous Left find tyrannical cultures attractive because they believe that human value is defined by the State, not by what one produces by way of his own ingenuity and hard work and furthermore, as a special creation of Almighty God. Without his entertainment riches, Bill Maher would be a beggar in the street looking for handouts since he could never stoop to accept the value of ORDINARY people and/or become one himself. These ordinary people make life pleasant BECAUSE they are the prosperity engine of valuable (profitable) work that produces goods and services that a FREE country requires to stay FREE: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness (property).
This is the divide that the country suffers from because of the perverted Leftist education that has infested our culture for the last 65 years. The Leftist elite (Bill Maher, et al.) would smash the family values and religion of the working population if they could. They are the Enemy among us that must be exposed and defeated. There is no compromise worthy of fake “harmony.” Otherwise, the country as founded on Constitutional principles would become a replica of all the historical tyrannies that have gone before.
That is why it is righteous to fight this evil that is responsible for the crumbling of our cultural values and departure from Constitutional principles that have made us the greatest country in all of human history. We should support President Trump and his Constitutional values, not his personality quirks that pale into obscurity, when the future of the nation is at stake. Trump is all we have at this point strong enough to defeat this Leftist scourge. This is the simple “political” truth that seems to elude the “brilliant, navel-gazing” Ben Sasse.
Jack Benny voice: “WELL.”
What’s this recurring trope about people who live in coastal areas? If ya fear salt water, head inland for summer vacation. Perhaps Nebraska, where you can campaign for Senator Sasse’s Democratic opponent (if he even has one next time).
And alert the people of Houston and Florida’s Redneck Riviera. Or if it’s ALL coastal areas, warn Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, EVERYWHERE along the Great Lakes. And those Trump voters who reside along the mighty Mississippi…evacuate ‘em!
As for Hector Boiardi: Good thing ICE didn’t separate him from his parents when they immigrated. And we can forgive him for catering to those New York elites at the Plaza Hotel. But he would spin-in-his-grave if he could read the ingredients on that can today, several corporate takeovers later. There’s enough chemicals and other crap in there to make him cry.
If we all ate more fresh fish and less fake-food-out-of-a-can, the networks’ evening newscasts might be less-littered with big pharma’s commercials for prescription diabetes drugs.
Have you considered writing some “comedy” for Bill Maher? (Perhaps you already do.)
I think you know exactly what Paul meant about “liberal coastal enclaves like San Francisco, Hollywood, New York, Washington, etc. are home to sophistication. . .” as he explains the despicable Maher quote: “The blue parts of America are having a big prosperity party while that big sea of red feels like their invitation got lost in the mail.” The last national electoral map (by county) exhibits this frightening divide in the nation where Marxists reign mostly on these coasts while the rest of the country loves mostly free-market Constitutional values and small, low-tax governments. These “enclaves” are the breeding grounds for the cultural and visceral hatred of the vast red parts of the country that are witnessing the destruction of their cherished American values. Can you imagine the emergence of Sanctuary Cities and States that are now a threat to our national survival due to the encouragement of criminal (illegal) invasion of millions of aliens that defy our national laws?
You want to make this personal, but I abhor your progressive (Marxist-Leftist) political beliefs and desire to eradicate the unique American culture as you flippantly mock (with fake humor): “If ya fear salt water. . .” You and Maher probably find common ground in your views of the vast “red wasteland”. No?
What was the purpose of your quote: “As for Hector Boiardi: Good thing ICE didn’t separate him from his parents when they immigrated.” You also must know the Laws regarding separation of families regarding either suspected or blatant criminal activity. No? This is just another Left-wing Democrat talking point filled with half-truths meant to deceive the public and demonize ICE and the Trump administration. You must know this.
On this web site, you seem to want to throw your Liberal (anti-capitalist) mud at the wall, hoping that the lies and half-truths stick while creating controversy where none is required, i.e., “big pharma’s commercials for prescription diabetes drugs”. If productive dialog was your goal, you would stop quoting the Leftist, Marxist, Democrat propaganda machines (falsely called “media”) and explain and justify your own opinions given the subjects at hand. Why don’t you pull back the curtain and fully explain why your Left-wing, Progressive, Liberal beliefs (actually a medieval tyrannical system and a rejection of our Constitutional heritage), are legitimate and good for the nation. Demonization of our free enterprise system with only utopian theory as a substitute (without ANY successful/historical examples) is just laziness on your part.
I find that it is much too difficult to take the time and energy to refute your habitual Leftist Democrat talking points that have little substance. I leave it to Paul to correct your misrepresentations of his important issues that make this a compelling web site. I don’t need to hear the same blather that ABC News (really propaganda) spouts at the top of every hour on KTBB on this web site, also. (Clearly, you are free to continue to “contribute”). I usually turn off the radio and forget to turn it back on and end up missing 15 minutes of good political debate. At the risk of being “lazy” also, you ought to watch Glenn Beck’s presentation at CPAC 2019 in the following 16 minute video link that fully explains the concept of “Equality vs. Inequality” as defined by the Constitution and Judeo-Christian values. It was magnificent! And, I am not particularly a fan of Beck – I like Chris Plante far better, thanks to Paul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXl1j6215BY
Luckily we didn’t elect someone superior, smug, and disgustingly crude…..
Right?
No more time for posting – it is too much work! Good luck with Holland.
Let’s take a vote: Should Paul ban me?
Bravo Paul; Bravo. Well stated. I am not a liberal and I do tend to loathe being around them.