Bill Maher brought his stage act to Richmond last night. Unrestrained by whatever programming standards are left at HBO, which airs his “Real Time with Bill Maher” talk show, he let loose with a hour-and-a-half, profanity-laced tirade against Republicans, conservatives and all forms of religion, leavened by a handful of jokes about Anthony Wiener, wimpy Democrats and occasionally himself.
I have to say, I did not find Maher’s brand of humor very humorous. Perhaps some people enjoy insult comedy. I don’t. Maher spent the better part of the show calling Republicans names — stupid, moronic, ignorant, irrational, sexist, homophobic, racist, fat, brutish and various combinations and permutations thereof. The insults, the more vulgar the better, were the punchlines; they were all he needed to elicit a laugh. He cast conservatives as, to invoke a liberal rhetorical trope, “the other.” What the Jews were to Julius Streicher, what blacks were to Lester Maddox, conservatives are to Maher — sub-human.
Maher made no effort to engage with conservative ideas — after all conservatives are too retarded to have ideas. He has no patience for nuance. If former senatorial candidate Todd Akin used the phrase “legitimate rape,” he spoke for all Republicans. The intensity of Maher’s contempt left me numb.
But the scariest part wasn’t Maher who, after all, is a showman. It was the audience. People lapped it up. They laughed uproariously at the insults. They reveled in their moral superiority over the guns-gods-and-gays crowd. On “Real Time,” Maher sometimes exchanges views with conservative guests. But on the road, he appeals to the liberal id. And the liberal id on display last night was a very ugly thing.
— JAB
