Bill Maher, the outspoken comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time with Maher,” appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast this Saturday to discuss a range of issues, including the evolving nature of liberalism, wokeness, and the state of American society. The two heavy-hitters dived deep into the changing tides of political ideology and its impact on society.
Rogan highlighted Maher’s nonconformity, stating, “I think they look at you like a guy who they’re worried about because you don’t toe the line.”
Rogan also compared Maher to a ’90s liberal—someone who still upholds the traditional tenets of liberalism that are now considered outdated by modern leftists.
“You’re like a 90s liberal. You’re like liberals back when they were more reasonable, before they became leftists. And now every liberal kind of has to be a leftist… If you want to be on the team, you got to subscribe to the most fringe ideas that the team is promoting,” said Rogan.
“I didn’t change. It’s like everybody else kind of changed. It just got real weird like what you’re allowed to disagree with and not to disagree with,” Rogan added.
Bill Maher expounded on the difference between traditional liberalism and the modern woke movement, stating that the two are fundamentally different.
“I’m always trying to make the case that liberal is a different animal than woke,” Maher said. “Yeah, because it is. And you can be woke with all the nonsense that that now implies, but don’t say that somehow it’s an extension of liberalism, right? Because it’s most often actually an undoing of liberalism. So you can have your points of view and your positions on these things, but don’t try to piggyback on what I’ve always believed.”
Maher said that traditional liberals have long believed in a colorblind society, a principle that he feels is no longer honored by the woke movement.
“I have always believed, as liberals do, for example, in a colorblind society, that the goal is to not see race at all, anywhere, for any reason. That’s what liberals always believed, all the way through Obama going back to Kennedy, everybody, Martin Luther King. That’s not what the woke believe,” Maher said.
Maher also called out the irony in woke culture’s emphasis on race, stating, “They believe race is first and foremost the thing you should always see everywhere. Which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Joe Rogan agreed with Maher’s view on the importance of a colorblind society as a path to achieving true equality. He argued that solving systemic issues like extreme poverty and crime is more crucial to addressing inequality than focusing solely on race. Rogan criticized policies in cities like San Francisco and Portland, arguing that they exacerbate social issues rather than solving them.
Rogan argued that the key issue America faces is not race but extreme poverty and crime, which disproportionately affect minority communities. Both Rogan and Maher seemed to agree that social policies coming from certain liberal strongholds are failing to address these issues effectively.
WATCH:
.@JoeRogan: “You are like a 90’s liberal back when they were more reasonable before they became leftists.”@billmaher: “The woke believe race is first and foremost the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku… pic.twitter.com/5Ui8Is6ESD
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 2, 2023
