I’ve been busy with other things and haven’t blogged in quite a while.  But watching Bill Maher’s return to his Real Time show (9/30/23) after 5 months away incensed me so much that I am writing this.  Bill had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as his opening guest.  DeSantis is a right-wing ideologue who is destroying public education in Florida and, in many ways, out-trumps Trump.  Yet, for the most part it was a love fest.  Bill approved of DeSantis’ anti-vax and anti-mask stances, saying DeSantis had gotten the covid response right and the federal government response was all wrong.  Bill has been harping on this for years.

And Bill absolutely loved DeSantis’ anti-woke stance, agreeing that “woke ideology corrupted institutions” with Bill saying, “you’re right, we’re on the same page.”  This is the DeSantis who prohibits public schools and universities from giving straight talk about racism and gender, from paying attention to diversity and equity, from offering ETS’ AP high school course in African-American Studies, and from teaching women and gender studies.  This is the DeSantis who is leading a witch hunt to ban books throughout Florida.  Bill has been on an anti-woke crusade for years (see many of my previous blogs), and he seems to have met his ideal politician.  It was truly a disgusting segment.  Mehdi Hasan, MSNBC commentator said, “Bill Maher chummily ‘interviewing’ Ron DeSantis on vaccines and wokeness is my definition of hell.”

But the worst part of the show was the discussion with panelists Mary Katharine Ham and Sam Harris.  Ham is another right-wing ideologue whose book, End of Discussion, has a subtitle that says it all: “How the left’s outrage industry shuts down debate, manipulates voters, and makes America less free.”  Sam Harris, podcast host, is one of Bill’s many favorite guests who are neither left nor right but offer some mixed muddle that accords with where Bill sees himself.  The discussion really highlighted Bill’s sexism and racism.

Bill is incensed that Nancy Pelosi and another Congresswoman criticized efforts to oust Dianne Feinstein before she died, saying, “when women age, they get pushed aside, when men age, they get a promotion.”  Bill asks rhetorically when has that ever happened?  Try news anchors, Bill, probably very true in much of the business world too.  Bill then goes on to criticize Gavin Newsome for saying he will appoint a Black woman in Feinstein’s place.  Bill whines, ‘do we need this sort of identity politics as opposed to appointing the best person?’  Both guests agree.  Ham even calls it racism.  Harris goes on to argue there was a time when affirmative action was defensible but no longer.

Bill goes on to cite a study that says that in 2021, following BLM and other protests, 94% of the 300,000 vacancies in 88 companies in the S&P 100 went to people of color, clearly believing that this affirmative action has gotten out of hand.  But Bill ignores the part of the study that says most of these positions were for laborers and service workers not senior roles.  Moreover, the study points out that the share of executive, professional, and managerial roles held by people of color in these companies only grew by 2%.  And Bill doesn’t acknowledge other studies that report that Black professionals in 2020 only hold 3.2% of executive or senior leadership roles and less than 1% of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies.

Bill then goes on to dismiss the criticisms he is sure he will get for having 3 white people discuss racism.  To me, the criticism has validity, but it’s not just 3 white people, it’s 3 white people who deny racism is a real problem anymore.  Bill essentially calls racism a “zombie lie.”  I know he can find Black people who agree with him, and he has.  The biggest problem with the show is that he thinks he is open to discussing all views, but he rarely has guests who challenge him.

Bill then went on to discuss the movie Barbie and the scene where she goes to Mattel headquarters and confronts what the movie calls “The Patriarchy” – the all-male Board of Directors of Mattel.  Bill then makes the point that the real Mattel Board of Directors is half women, so this is another “zombie lie.”  Bill goes on to say that in 2021 45% of Board seats in Fortune 500 companies went to women in 2021—so aren’t things getting pretty equal?  He says he got a lot of criticism for saying that but none of his critics disputed his statistics.  Well, how about the fact that only 31% of those Boards are composed of women in 2022 and only 7% are non-white women.  Bill never goes beyond the surface statistics that he thinks make his point!  As an aside, Bill said “I don’t know, maybe we do live in a patriarchy.”  Wake up Bill, there is no maybe!

Bill endlessly has made the point in previous shows that the left doesn’t acknowledge that things are much better today – and, of course, there has been progress – but Bill uses this to pillory the left and, as above, deny that racism and sexism are significant problems in the U.S. today.  The real zombies in today’s world are people like Bill and others on the right, they need to wake up.  That’s why they are all so scared of “woke!”